Another delve back into the 1950's and a look at a player who joined Saints from Cardiff City and would give great service at a difficult time for the club.

Bobby McLaughlin started his professional footballing career in his native Northern Ireland, in 1950 at the relatively late age of 25 he had his chjance on the mainland when he signed for Wrexham, his displays there brought him to the attention of another Welsh club and barely four months after his arrival in North Wales he headed to South Wales to join Cardiff City.

It was a golden period for the Bluebirds and after helping them to promotion from the second division in 1951/52, he featured in their top flight campaign of 52/53, however with Cardiff achieving a respectable mid table position perhaps they felt that they needed to strengthen their squad and McLaughlin was part of the deal that took Frank Dudley to Ninian Park being valued at £5,000 in the transfer of October 1953.

Saints were flying high in their first season back in the third division after being relegated the previous season, so although it was a drop of two divisions for Bobby it looked like he would be part of a promotion winning squad, sadly that would not be the case, the team dropped badly after Xmas and would eventually finish 6th ten points off second spot, that couldnt be blamed on Bobby, he had played 17 times for the side but couldnt quite cement a regular place in the line up.

At only 5ft 6 Bobby fell into the category of players described as small but tenacious and for this style of play he was very popular with both his team mates and the Dell faithfull, although he would not start 53/54 in the first team he would soon force his way in and play 34 games, scoring once, it would be another unhappy ending though for Saints, just as it looked like they would force their way into the second promotion spot, with eight games to go they suffered a drop in form, only two wins and seven points in those games saw them miss out by two points, sadly the decline was about to set in, but with it the rebuilding.

1955/56 started badly for Saints and a month into the season George Roughton unexpectedly resigned to be replaced by Ted Bates, Bobby played 26 times that season and was pretty much a regular barring a short period in the Autum of 1955 playing 26 times.

1956/57 saw Ted Bates start to weave his magic, the team led the division for a large part of the season and Bobby played 39 of the 46 games scoring twice, if he was fit he played and its perhaps significant that of the seven games he missed Saints would win only two, draw another two and lose three, although ity cant be said this cost Saints promotion, that was a spell in January/February when starting the year top of the table, they would win one and lose seven in an eight game spell, it was clear that Bobby was a vital cog in the side.

The problem though was how much longer could he go on, at the start of 1957/58 he was 32, he played 37 league games, but Ted Bates was looking to youth, season 58/59 would be his last, as it neared its end he played his 16th league games of the season and his last in Saints colours in a 1-0 defeat up at soon to be relegated Rochdale, at 34 and with Bates ringing the changes he left the club for non league Yeovil Town after 178 League games, 8 in the FA Cup & 5 goals.

After his time at Yeovil was up Bobby returned to the City to live, coaching Totton and pulling on his boots again for Salisbury whilst working for the Union Castle line in the docks, a position he held until his retirement in 1990, a man who loved the game, he continued to coach local youth sides well into his retirement.

Sadly Bobby died in his adoped City on 25th April 2003 at 88 and with Saints about to play in the FA Cup Final, something Im sure he would have been proud of.

Photo: Action Images

huelinsaint added 12:30 - Jun 5 You say they finished 6th ten points off second spot, i think they would have still been disappointed if they'd ended up in second place ;-)
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