Barry Raymond Kitchener (11 December 1947 – 30 March 2012) was an English professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Poplar, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east of ...

between 1966 and 1982. Born in

Dagenham Dagenham () is a town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Dagenham is centred east of Charing Cross. It was historically a rural parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex, stretching from Hainault Fo ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, Kitchener signed for Millwall in August 1965 and made his Millwall debut in February 1967 at left back, against

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. The team compete in the ...

replacing the injured Harry Cripps. In his next game Kitchener scored against

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football. They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history ...

, hitting a 30-yard screamer past former England goalkeeper Alan Hodgkinson. On the return of Cripps to the side, he played in every game that season at centre half, retaining the number five shirt until his retirement in 1982. His total of 602 appearances remains a club record. He released an autobiographical

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

titled ''60 Minutes with Barry Kitchener'', and in May 2007 was voted by fans to represent Millwall in the P.F.A. Centenary Hall of Fame. He played one summer in America on loan to the

Tampa Bay Rowdies The Tampa Bay Rowdies are an American professional soccer team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The club was founded in 2008 and first took the pitch in 2010. Since 2017, the Rowdies have been members of the USL Championship in the second tie ...

of the

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League (NASL) was the top-level major professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. It is considered the first soccer league to be successful on a national scale in the ...

, wearing the number 22 shirt and making 20 appearances along the way. Tampa Bay went all the way through to league final, before losing to

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, 2–1 in

Soccer Bowl '79 Soccer Bowl '79 was the championship final of the 1979 North American Soccer League season, 1979 NASL season. The National Conference champion Vancouver Whitecaps (1974–84), Vancouver Whitecaps played the American Conference champion Tampa Bay ...

. Kitchener died on 30 March 2012. He had recently been diagnosed with cancer. Before Millwall's home game on 7 April 2012 against

Hull City Hull City Association Football Club is a professional association football club based in Kingston upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. They compete in the , the second level of the English football league system. They play their home ...

, a minute's applause and a

service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a ...

were held. The home side wore a special white kit in memory of Kitchener. The west stand at

The Den The Den (previously The New Den) is a football stadium in Bermondsey, south-east London, and the home of Millwall Football Club. The Den is adjacent to the South London railway originating at , and a quarter-of-a-mile from the Old Den, whic ...

is named after him

References

External links

Barry Kitchener Millwall Hall Of Fame
English men's footballers Millwall F.C. players 1947 births 2012 deaths Footballers from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham People from Dagenham Deaths from cancer in England English Football League players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Tampa Bay Rowdies (1975–1993) players Men's association football central defenders English expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States English expatriate men's footballers 20th-century English sportsmen {{england-footy-defender-1940s-stub

See also

References

External links