One of Everton’s all-time greats, when goalkeeper Ted Sagar
took to the field against Plymouth Argyle on 15th November 1952 he
became the oldest player to have represented the club, being 42 years 281 days
old. When he retired the following year he held the record for the most league
appearances for the blues with 463 games in a career that ran from 1929 to
1953. He still retains the record as the oldest player to play for Everton,
although Neville Southall surpassed his league appearances record, with 578
games. Sagar did, however, lose six seasons of his career to the Second World
War.
He was born in Brodsworth near Doncaster, Yorkshire on 7th
February 1910. His father, a miner, was killed in the First World War, leaving
his mother to bring up five young children. Leaving school aged 13 he became a
miner, working for three years at Brodsworth Colliery. He joined Everton as an
apprentice in 1929, signed from the local team Thorne Colliery and within a
year had made his first team debut. From then on he was more or less an
automatic first choice, winning two championship medals (1931-32, 1938-39) and
an FA Cup winners medal (1933). He won 4 international caps for England in
1935-36 and also played for a Northern Ireland team during the war years. Sagar
was in the army during the war with the Royal Corps of Signals, serving in
Syria and India.
When Sagar came to Everton he was living in lodgings and
started ‘going out’ with a young Liverpool girl, Dolly Evans. Dolly’s father,
who worked on the gate at Goodison Park, was a was so
impressed by the likeable Sagar that he invited him to lodge in the Evans
household at 15 Chirkdale Street L4 (now
demolished). His relationship with Dolly blossomed and they married on May 8th
1932 at St Lawrence’s Church in Walton. Their first home was at 94 East
Lancashire Road L11, moving in 1935 to 10 Allendale Avenue L9 where they lived
until Ted retired in 1953.
Like many ex-professional footballers at the time Sagar
became a publican, his first hostelry being the Chepstow Castle at 109 County
Road L4, still a familiar sight to many
Evertonians making their way to the match. He moved on to the Blue Anchor Inn
at Aintree near the racecourse and after retirement he and Dolly moved into a
bungalow in Altway, Aintree, his home until he died on 16th October
1986.
