Nobby Saywell RIP

Brakes Historian, Paul Vanes, writes:

CHARLES NORMAN (NOBBY) SAYWELL

Born 28 January 1915 in Warwick died March 2013

Norman was the second of three brothers, Arthur and Percy being the others, and the family lived in Portland Row on the side of the river Leam. Norman went to school at St. Peter’s RC because it was the nearest to home and he sang in the choir at St. Paul’s solely because he got paid to sing at weddings and funerals. He knew the best houses to scrump apples and pears from in Dormer Place and York Road and living so close to the river, fishing was a natural pastime. He learned to swim in the river Leam open air swimming pool in Victoria Park which is now the car park and in the canal where it crossed the river.

He worked at a wood yard in Myton Road and after several spells of unemployment eventually got a job at Flavels Moulding on the site of the new Morrisons, then onto Armstrong Siddeley in Coventry, cycling there every day through Stoneleigh long before the A46 was open and this was his start of a career in engineering. Norman and Arthur were football mad, this helped with employment prospects, as he was poached by Lockheed to work as a skilled auto setter but also for his football skills as the brothers joined the firm.

Lockheed Sports and Social club was founded in 1932 and by the summer of the following year a cricket team had made its debut into Leamington life quickly followed by two football teams called Lockheed, Borg and Beck who were entered in the Warwick and District league, the first team in Section “A” and the Reserves in Section “B”; but information from the Leamington press was hard to find. Season 1934/35 saw the first team move to the stronger Coventry Works league in Division Two and the Midland Daily Telegraph – fore runner of the Coventry Telegraph – covered the club with some of its results and occasionally the teams. Then on 23rd March we come across the name Saywell for the first time, no initials just the surname but almost certainly Nobby because within five minutes he had scored in our 3-2 victory against Courtaulds Reserves.

On September 14th 1935, Lockheed thrashed Armstrong Siddeley Reserves 13-0 with Norman grabbing four goals then on November 16, he wrote his name in the fledgling record books, netting a first half hat trick and followed it up with four more after the interval as Magnet Reserves were thumped 9-3. Norman was centre forward and captain of the side and at inside forward was A. Saywell, no christian name just the initial “A” but now we know him as Arthur. Nobby occasionally played at left back where he netted two penalties in the 8-2 victory at Rover Sports Reserves and the final goal in a 3-1 defeat of Standard Reserves.

The works sides were promoted with the first team changing their name to Lockheed, Leamington or (Leamington) in the top division and the Reserves stayed as Lockheed comma or hyphen Berg and Beck. Both Saywells scored in the 6-0 drubbing of B.T.H but it soon became apparent that this was not going to be a walk in the park, Nobby netted in the 4-2 defeat by Coventry Gas and one in the 3-2 loss at G.E.C. Norman scored all three goals against Rover in a cup match. To round the season off was the final of the Armstrong Siddeley cup and Lockheed went into a two lead at the interval but Humber-Hillman scored three to receive the cup from Sir John Siddeley who also paid a tribute to the excellent game Lockheed had played.

38/39 and 39/40 seasons saw Lockheed win and retain the Whitnash Charity cup, in the latter year the Midland Daily Telegraph listed the teams and there were two pairs of brothers playing for the Brakes, the Saywells and Frank and Phil Gardner. Lockheed also won the Rugby Chamber of Commerce Hospital cup beating B.T.H. of Rugby by the odd goal in five.

He married Ada (Ada M. Smith from Southam) in the third quarter of 1939 and his name had been changed to Norman Charles. They lived at 20 Southlea Avenue for the rest of their lives and the war saw both brothers off to serve king and country, but Nobby’s skills were required in the Lockheed factory alongside Ada to keep the war effort going. He also told the family about his air raid patrol duties on the roof of the Tachbrook Road factory while all the bombers were going over to Coventry and how he watched the fires burning as the bombs fell. There is a postscript about Arthur and Percy at the end of this obituary. He played in the Inter-League competition for the Works Xl against the Coventry & North Warwickshire Xl.

Norman – now that he had changed his name – also played snooker winning many, many cups at the Harbury Working Men’s club, representing them in the inter club league, and also played on holiday at Pontins where he continued his winning streak and got to play with the likes of Doug Mountjoy and Willie Thorne. Sunday lunch times were spent in the Lockheed snooker room. Nobby brought his football career to its end when he damaged a cartilage during a tug-of- war contest as there was no known cure at that time. With war time football reporting only results, Nobby always maintained he once scored nine goals in one game.

Norman was a life-long Villa fan taking the train to Brummagem, as he called it, then the tram to Villa Park for the home games. One of his 90th birthday presents was a trip to see Villa play Arsenal and he complained of having to sit down throughout the match. All three brothers worked for Lockheed for decades. Ada and Norman received a card from the Queen to congratulate them on their diamond wedding anniversary and sadly Nobby passed away shortly before he was due to get another card from Her Majesty to celebrate his 100th birthday. Ada died in 2007 and now they are re-united.

On behalf of all Brakes Trust members and supporters of Leamington Football Club, may I offer our sincere condolences to Nobby’s children Ron and Ann, David and Joy, their children Kay and Emma, Samantha and Christopher, grandchildren Chloe and James, Arthur’s children Rodney (who lives in Banbury & France) and Michael in Manchester, plus Percy’s wife Dilys who had three daughters Pam, Julie (deceased) and Cheryl, who lives with her mom in the Royal Spa town, on their loss of a man they called Gramps who was the happiest chap in Leamington when his grand daughters collected University degrees.

Upstairs, Arthur is still running down the wing hurling crosses for Norman to bang home yet another goal,

R.I.P Nobby

Kindest regards,

Paul

Postscript – A statistician’s nightmare, according to the newspapers we had Arthur Saywell and also Arthur Pettipher playing for Lockheed but they are the self same person as I discovered when I met Nobby’s son Ron and son-in-law Dave. Ron brought with him the material I had sent the family and Dave could not believe that Arthur had put his surname down as Saywell when everybody knew he was a Pettipher whose family originated from Banbury. I have many match reports listing Arthur as Saywell but also the Lockheed in-house magazine Precision in the May 1947 edition states Don Round scored the winning goal in the Whitnash Charity cup final from a corner by Pettipher and there are three photographs with the middle one showing a throw in by right winger Pettipher.

Now for brother Percy, as usual when I’m confronted with a Lockheed problem I talk to George Sayell who spent eons at Tachbrook Road and I asked if he knew Percy and he replied there was a Saywell working in the factory but he was blind. Percy joined the Navy in the Second World War and was on the Russian convoys to Murmansk in 1942 when HMS Trinidad was attacked on the outward journey on March 29th by aircraft and submarines’ Trinidad sunk one attacking ship then fired off three torpedoes. One malfunctioned, circled the ship and blew a huge hole on the opposite side, 32 people died and Percy was blinded but the ship eventually docked at the Kola Inlet where temporary repairs took place. On the return trip in May, the Axis forces finally managed to slow the Trinidad down, fires were raging out of control and the ship was abandoned then sunk by one of the escort’s torpedoes. This fascinating story can be found on the web with many different accounts by survivors.

Percy needed the help of St. Dunstans for the rest of his life but settled down to work at Lockheed and enjoyed his sport in the shape of cribbage, both he and Arthur pre-deceased Nobby.

P.S. This obituary is overdue because it was very time consuming getting the facts, but well worth the effort to record the career of one of Lockheed’s real early birds at a time when the Leamington press was only interested in the Magpies of George Henry Green until the summer of 1937 and then on to Leamington St. Johns.