Boyce - Broom

This page covers players who span 90 years of the club’s history.  We start with the two most recent.

Mark Boyce came to Hayes from Watford.  He played at right-back and his enthusiasm was never in doubt, but he made rash tackles and was often cautioned unnecessarily. Although he made 34+10 appearances in 1999-2000, he was never really first-choice. Impatient at his lack of progress, he joined Kingstonian and played a peripheral part in their run to the 4th round of the FA Cup in the same season that saw the Ks relegated from the Conference.  Mark joined Chesham in 2001 and then moved several times before returning to Church Road for a second spell in 2006.

Lee Boylan was a striker with a Kingstonian connection, as well. An East Londoner, he formed part of the deal which took Gavin Holligan from Kingstonian to West Ham; Lee made the opposite journey. He was recruited by Terry Brown at a time when goals were a rare commodity and his return of five goals in 13+2 games was a high yield in comparison with those around him. He was released in February 2001 and joined Heybridge Swifts.  In 2001-2 he joined Canvey Island and participated in their televised run to the 3rd round of the FA Cup. For the following two seasons he led the Isthmian League scoring charts with prodigious feats of scoring, which contributed largely to the Gulls' promotion to the Conference.

From recent times, we now go back to the early days of Botwell Mission. Tom Bracey  was first seen as a member of the 1909 Hayes Athletic team.  He was an inside-forward and played at least nine times for Botwell Mission in 1912-3, scoring at least three goals (records are very spasmodic). During World War I he won the Military Medal (as did Sonny Long) and died in 1988, aged 94 - he is buried just a few yards away from Reg Knight in St Peter’s & St Paul’s Church, Harlington.

Back to modern times, Jon Brady was the popular right wing-back of the promotion side of 1995-6. An Australian, with the unoriginal nickname of ‘Skippy’, he joined Hayes from Wycombe via FK Mold in Norway as a centre-forward, and was converted to a wing-back by manager Terry Brown.  He was an excellent crosser and dead-ball kicker, taking free-kicks and corners, but only once a penalty – against Stalybridge in November 1996 he hit the bar. He will always be remembered for laying on most of the goals in the slaughter of Stevenage at Broadhall Way in September 1997. He played 157+31 games, scoring 20 goals, but none in the Conference. He was transferred to Rushden for £40,000 in the summer of 1998, where he stayed until 2002. He then played briefly for Woking, before settling into Chester City’s promotion-winning side.

Frank Bridges was a giant of amateur soccer – in more senses than one. He stood well over 6 feet, and was a redoubtable last line of defence in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  He was a petty officer in the Royal Navy and, while stationed in Malta, was offered professional terms by Floriana, but a serving officer was not allowed to play professionally. When he was moved to a base at Chatham in 1948, he joined Hayes on the recommendation of another Hayes naval man, Peter King, and played for them, when he could, until 1954. His presence was never guaranteed until the last minutes and programmes of the time usually showed the centre-half position as being filled by ‘FA Bridges or RA Marjoram’.  He was a big man in stature and in heart with very long legs, which would collect the ball from a forward who thought that he was through on goal. H e gained two amateur international caps – the first by a Hayes player – in January and February 1949.  In all, he made 107 appearances between 1948 and 1954 (he was stationed at Malta for the whole of 1951-2 and most of 1952-3) and scored one goal (against Barking on Good Friday 1951). He was also a fine golfer and cricketer and, but for his naval career, could have made county standard. On retiring from playing, he returned to the Midlands and became foreman coppersmith at the Mitchell & Butler Brewery in Birmingham, He still kept in touch with football by coaching his works team and brought them for a challenge match with Hayes on the evening of the FA Cup final in 1958. He was later a genial Mine Host at the Royal Oak in Horninglow, Burton-on-Trent. In 1972 he returned to Hayes to play in a cricket match at the Hayes Cricket Club.  He died in 1999. An article on him appeared in the Hayes Men series in the programme on 1.10.2001.

Finally, Austin Bristow was an inside or centre-forward, who came from Wealdstone in 1952. He played only 8 games, scoring 4 goals, before returning to Wealdstone in 1953.  But his claim to fame, or infamy, is that he caused Hayes to have a Middlesex Senior Cup match against Hounslow to be replayed because of his ineligibility. After winning at the first attempt, Hayes were defeated in the replay.  The problem arose because, at the beginning of the 1952-3 season, he played in the held-over final of the 1951-2 Middlesex Charity Cup competition, and the Middlesex FA stuck to the rules, which had not envisaged such an eventuality, rather than common sense. Mind you, Hayes should have known what to expect, as he had already been sent off while playing for Wealdstone against Hayes  in February 1951.

The Brooks were an old-established Hayes family, which lived in Clayton Road. An F or G Brooks played a total of three games for Botwell Mission in 1920-2 at centre-half.  Was he the George Brooks, who is known to have become a referee after an abortive professional career with QPR?  In one match, which he was refereeing, he sent off his younger brother Jack, who was playing for the Mission.  George Brooks died in 1946.

Jack Brooks was the best known of the brothers. He was a full-back who made an early mark, playing for the Hayes Council School team, which won Daily Telegraph Schools Cup in 1911, and was selected for the Hanwell & District League Division 3 team which played the Wembley & Harrow League in April 1914.  In an early programme, from April 1921, he was described as ‘the quickest player to recover in Amateur football, with a kick like two horses’. He appears in the 1920-1 team photograph, but in 1921 went to the North of England for work and missed a whole season. When he returned, he played a few games for the Mission, but also played for Savoy Hotel in 1924, and for Staines Lagonda in 1925-6. Newspaper reports of the time indicate that he played particularly hard in matches against his old club. He returned to the Mission in 1926-7 and played three full seasons before retiring, having made over 110 appearances and scored at least two goals.  He was selected for the Spartan League team in 1926 and in 1928 against the Army. He was sent off by his older brother George in the final of the West Middlesex Cup against Hounslow on the last day of April 1928, for which he was suspended until the following September.

Jack’s younger brother, Jim Brooks, was a goalscoring forward.  He played only two seasons (1921-3) and scored 17 goals in 22 appearances, including hat-tricks on his début against Uxbridge on New Year’s Eve 1921, and against Marlow and Windsor.

The last player of the name, the unrelated Henry Brooks, joined Hayes from Uxbridge in the summer of 1953. He had a reputation for being exceptionally fast. Despite everyone’s high expectations, he appeared in only two matches at outside-right, seeming often to fall foul of minor injuries, and returned to Uxbridge in November. His claim to fame is that he was Hayes’ first coloured player, as the terminology was in those days.

Ron Broom was another player who came to Hayes with a high reputation. A product of the prolific St Clement Danes Grammar School, he joined from Kingstonian in the summer of 1961, where he had already won Welsh amateur caps at centre-forward, which he added to during his stay with Hayes.  But he struggled for fitness at Church Road, and at Christmas informed the club that he could no longer afford the time to train and reverted to playing for his employers, Midland Bank.  He played 15 games for Hayes and scored two goals.

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