CLIVE Taylor’s football career spanned more than 50 years – he played his last game at the grand age of 70!

His long career took him from Oxford Boys and Balliol Boys to Wolverhampton Wanderers, Reading, Oxford City, Witney Town, Morris Motors, Marston United and Saxon Warriors.

Young Clive became the first boy from New Hinksey School to play for Oxford Boys and he marked the occasion by scoring the first of their two goals against Dorset Boys in the English Shield competition at the Morris Motors’ ground at Cowley in 1954.

Later that year, he went on tour to Germany with Balliol Boys and suffered a broken leg, but the injury didn’t deter him.

At the age of 15, he had trials with Wolverhampton Wanderers. The club wanted him to sign, but his dad would not allow it.

However, he did let him sign for Reading and he played for the youth team, appearing in one match against Arsenal.

In the mid-1950s, at the time of the Suez crisis, when petrol was rationed, Reading sent him on loan to Oxford City and he enjoyed himself at the White House ground so much that he asked to stay.

He played 190 first team games at inside right between 1956 and 1962, scoring 44 goals.

In 1960, he joined the Army, but continued to play for City, thanks to his sergeant major, Geoff Archers, who lived at Cowley and drove him to the ground.

With a young family to support and to cut down on travelling, he signed for Witney Town, helping them win the Hellenic League championship three times from 1964 to 1967.

Later, he played for Morris Motors and Marston United, then, with Bob Ewers, started Northway Boys’ Club, coaching different age groups.

In 1979, Clive, his son Dale, Kevin Vickers and Karl Walters formed Saxon Warriors. The team played in the Sunday League for 30 years and Clive played his last game in 2009 at the age of 70 in the Paul Curtain memorial game.

Clive and his wife Barbara, who have four children and 10 grandchildren, celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary in December.

Clive in now in the Brookfield Care Home at Greater Leys, Oxford, suffering from dementia and his family have made a memory book of some of the old pictures they have of him.

They hope that Memory Lane readers will be able to supply the names of players in the four pictures published here.

His son Dale writes: “Dad is still treating life as a football match, talking about formation and where he could play his fellow residents “I know he is my dad, but he is the kindest and loveliest man you would ever meet.

“How lucky we are to have shared so many wonderful times at football and have so many lovely pictures. He has been robbed of his present-day mind, but the memories are still there.”

Send any names you know in the pictures by post or email to the usual Memory Lane address.