Warren Bradley	Manchester United FC 3 caps, 2 goals P 3 W 1 D 1 L 1 F 11: A 5 *(actual F 10: A 4) 50% successful 1959 disciplined: none captaincies: none minutes played: 202
Profile
Full name	Warren Bradley	(*Actual for and against are the goals scored while the player was on the field.)
Born	20 June 1933 in Hyde, Cheshire [registered in Stockport, June 1933]. Attended Hyde Grammar School and Durham University.
Married	to Margaret Steward [registered in Durham Northern, September 1958]. Three daughters, Tracy, Sally and Caroline
Died	9 June 2007 in Manchester, aged 73 years 354 days
Height/Weight	5' 4", 9st. 10lbs [1959].
Source	Douglas Lammings' An English Football Internationalist Who's Who [1990] & FindMyPast.com
Club Career
Club(s)	Started his football career as an amateur at Durham City FC, also appearing as an youth at Bolton Wanderers FC, before signing with Bishop Auckland FC in 1955, a leading amateur side. He was one of the players drafted into Old Trafford dressing room following the Munich tragedy of February 1958. He signed as an amateur, playiung for the United reserves, turning part-time professional in the November of that year. After 63 league appearances and two goals, he was sold to Bury FC in March 1962 for a £6000 transfer fee, where he made another thirteen league appearances, scoring a solitary goal. He joined Northwich Victoria FC in July 1963 and then Macclesfied Town FC in November 1963. Joined Bangor City FC from 1964 until 1965, returning to Macclesfield in April 1966.
Club honours	FA Amateur Cup winner 1955-56, 1956-57;
Individual honours	None
Distinctions	None
Source	Douglas Lammings' An English Football Internationalist Who's Who [1990].
England Career
Player number	777th player to appear for England.
Position(s)	Outside-right
First match	No. 330, 6 May 1959, England 2 Italy 2, a friendly match at Empire Stadium, Wembley, London, aged 25 years 320 days.
Last match	No. 334, 28 May 1959, USA 1 England 8, a tour match at Wrigley Field, Los Angeles, aged 25 years 342 days.
Major tournaments	None
Team honours	None
Individual honours	England Amateur (eleven appearances)
Distinctions	Bradley is the only player to win amateur and professional England caps in the same season, 1958-59.
Beyond England
A schoolmaster by profession. - An English Football Internationalists' Who's Who. Douglas Lamming (1990). Hatton Press, p.42/43. He earned his teaching degree in Geography at Durham University, and this was followed with National Service as an officer in the RAF (based at Middleton St. George, Darlington) and a first teaching job at the Great Stone secondary modern school at Stretford, Busby having persuaded him to take a job in Manchester while commencing his Old Trafford sojourn. Then came a few years of living a double life, teaching by day, training for United on two evenings a week, all the while playing top-level matches. Eventually the conflicting demands of work and football dictated a full-time move into education, and he relished it.  In 1968 Bradley became a head teacher, presiding over the conversion of a large secondary modern into a comprehensive school. In his next job he oversaw the change from single-sex to co-ed, and then he was responsible for the successful amalgamation of three schools in Bolton - one grammar and two secondary moderns - into a 2,000-pupil comprehensive.He trained as a school inspector in 1988 and set up his own educational management consultancy, contracting work from the newly formed Ofsted until retirement in his sixties. - Independent obituary.

Warren Bradley - Match History
Club: Manchester United F.C. - 3 full caps Coach: Walter Winterbottom - 3 full capsx
Age 25
1	330	6 May 1959 - England 2 Italy 2, Empire Stadium, Wembley, London	Fr	HD	Start	7
-	331	13 May 1959 - Brazil 2 England 0, Estádio Jornalista Mário Filho, Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro	tour	AL	squad member
-	332	17 May 1959 - Peru 4 England 1, Estadio Nacional Coloso de José Díaz, Lima		AL
2	333	24 May 1959 - Mexico 2 England 1, Estadio Olímpico Universitario, Ciudad Universitaria, ciudad de México		AL	sub 68	?
				2-1 when substituting
3	334	28 May 1959 - USA 1 England 8, Wrigley Field, Los Angeles		AW	Start	7

Notes

Warren Bradley, footballer, teacher and headmaster: born Hyde, Cheshire 20 June 1933; played for Manchester United 1958-62, Bury 1962-63; capped three times by England 1959; married (three children); died Manchester 6 June 2007.

It was a storyline which the scriptwriters for Roy of the Rovers, the enduringly popular comic-strip which riveted readers' attention with rousing yarns of footballing derring-do for several decades in the second half of the 20th century, surely would have rejected as too far-fetched.

In February 1958 Warren Bradley was a whole-hearted and bold but hardly remarkable amateur outside-right in his middle twenties. A mere 15 months later he was a key member of the prolific Manchester United forward line that propelled the Red Devils to within touching distance of the League championship and had also scored for England on his full international debut. Yet the irony was that Bradley had never intended to make his living from football; to him it was a game to play for fun on a Saturday afternoon. Unlike most lads with his talent for sport, what fuelled his boyhood dreams was a passionate ambition to teach; and so he did, eventually excelling in a trio of challenging inner-city headships.

Alas, the catalyst for the diminutive flankman's meteoric progress as a footballer was one of the most tragic events in the history of the game. When United's plane crashed at Munich on the way home from a European Cup tie in Belgrade, eight top players lost their lives and two more were maimed so that they could never take the field again. Jimmy Murphy, the inspirational Welshman who kept the Old Trafford flag flying while the grievously injured manager Matt Busby fought successfully for his life, sent out an SOS for emergency recruits. Bradley was one of three amateur internationals with Bishop Auckland to answer the call.

Initially it was envisaged that he, Derek Lewin and Bob Hardisty would bolster United's reserves, but such was the positive impact of the industrious winger that in November 1958, when he made his senior entrance, he signed a part-time professional contract and took the First Division - the equivalent of the modern Premiership - by storm. In their first full campaign after the disaster, United might have been expected to struggle, but a free-flowing attack consisting of Bradley, Albert Quixall, Dennis Viollet, Bobby Charlton and Albert Scanlon plundered 82 of the side's 103 League goals as they finished as title runners-up to Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Bradley was a revelation. Sturdy and tough, pacy and irrepressibly determined, he was ever willing to chase back and harass opposing defenders in the feisty manner of his illustrious predecessor in the United number-seven shirt, Johnny Berry, one of those invalided out of football by wounds received at Munich. He packed a rasping shot, too, which flashed past goalkeepers a dozen times in his 24 appearances that season, and if he wasn't endowed with the flair and pure skill of Berry, there was no doubting the immense value of his contribution. Indeed, so eye-catching was his form that the England amateur - he garnered 11 caps at that level as well as two FA Amateur Cup winner's medals during his three-year tenure with the Bishops - was rewarded with a call-up by his country's professional team in May 1959.

In truth this elevation startled some observers, who questioned his class, but he confounded them by introducing himself to the full international arena with a goal in a 2-2 draw with Italy at Wembley, then netted again against the United States three weeks later in Los Angeles on his third and final outing. This strike was greeted with enormous relief as it equalised an early goal by the hosts that had raised the spectre of a second humiliation at the hands of the humble (in footballing terms) USA. The first had come in the form of a shock defeat during the 1950 World Cup tournament; this time, though, the final tally was 8-1 to England.

Thereafter Bradley never played for England again, and although he performed creditably for United during 1959/60, the irresistible rise of the young Johnny Giles was dimming his first-team prospects. Soon it became apparent that he was not part of Matt Busby's long-term reconstruction plan and, following a knee problem that limited his effectiveness and demanded an operation, he was sold to Second Division Bury for £2,500 in March 1962.

Now his football career petered out with a brief stint at Gigg Lane followed by enthusiastic service to non-League Northwich Victoria, Macclesfield Town and Bangor City. But Bradley was not dismayed. As he said in 2005: "Even when I signed schoolboy terms for Bolton Wanderers as a 14-year-old, I never saw myself spending too long at Burnden Park, although I enjoyed myself there in the junior teams for quite a few years. All I really wanted was to be a headmaster".

After Hyde Grammar School, there followed a degree in Geography at Durham University, National Service as an officer in the RAF and a first teaching job at the Great Stone secondary modern school at Stretford, Busby having persuaded him to take a job in Manchester while commencing his Old Trafford sojourn. Then came a few years of living a double life, teaching by day, training for United on two evenings a week, all the while playing top-level matches. Eventually the conflicting demands of work and football dictated a full-time move into education, and he relished it.

In 1968 Bradley became a head teacher, presiding over the conversion of a large secondary modern into a comprehensive school. In his next job he oversaw the change from single-sex to co-ed, and then he was responsible for the successful amalgamation of three schools in Bolton - one grammar and two secondary moderns - into a 2,000-pupil comprehensive.He trained as a school inspector in 1988 and set up his own educational management consultancy, contracting work from the newly formed Ofsted until retirement in his sixties.

However, throughout his distinguished teaching career, Bradley - a meticulously courteous, gently humorous man - never stopped loving football, and served as treasurer of the Manchester United Former Players Association from its inception more than 20 years ago, also putting in a stint as chairman. - The Independent Obituary 9 June 2007

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CG