Geoffrey Alan Vowden (born 27 April 1941) is an English former 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

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in the world, and was the top-level football league in England from ...

for

Nottingham Forest Nottingham Forest Football Club is a professional association football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Founde ...

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 ...

and

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club (commonly referred to as simply Villa) is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club, founded in 1874, compete in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The team have p ...

, and in 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 ...

for the

New York Cosmos New York Cosmos may refer to * New York Cosmos (1970–1985), a team in the North American Soccer League (then the top-tier soccer league in the United States and Canada) * New York Cosmos (2010), a team playing since 2020 in the National Indepen ...

Career

Vowden was born in

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

, Yorkshire and raised in

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

. When he was 18, he went to England to join

, where he signed professional forms at Christmas 1959. After scoring 40 goals in 90 League games for Forest, he was sold to

for £25,000 in October 1964. He spent nearly seven seasons at Birmingham, scoring at a rate of one goal every three matches, and finished as their leading goalscorer three seasons running, from 1964–65 to 1966–67. On 7 September 1968, playing for Birmingham against

Huddersfield Town Huddersfield Town Association Football Club is a professional association football club based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England. They compete in , the third tier of English football league system, English football. Huddersfield Town we ...

in the

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

, he became the first substitute to score a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three Wick ...

in a

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

fixture. In March 1971, Vowden joined

Vic Crowe Victor Herbert Crowe (31 January 1932 – 21 January 2009) was a Welsh international football player and later football manager. Career Crowe was born in Abercynon, South Wales but moved to Handsworth, Birmingham with his family when he was t ...

for a fee of £12,500. In his first full season at Aston Villa, he scored 11 goals which contributed to the club winning the Third Division championship. In the summer of 1974, he played for the

in the

. On his return, he joined Southern League club

Kettering Town Kettering Town Football Club is a football club based in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire, England. They are currently members of the and play at Latimer Park. Kettering were the first club to wear sponsorship on their shirts in 1976, and have ...

as player/manager, succeeding

Ron Atkinson Ronald Frederick Atkinson (born 18 March 1939) is an English former football player and manager. Nicknamed "Big Ron", he was regarded as one of Britain's best-known football pundits in the 1990s and early 2000s. Nicknamed "The Tank" during his ...

, in December 1974. He later coached domestically and in Hong Kong winning honours with both Bulova SA and South China, and Saudi Arabia. Geoff ended his working career supporting adults with physical and sensory impairments in Corby.

Honours

Aston Villa * Third Division: 1971–72

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vowden, Geoff 1941 births Living people Footballers from Barnsley Jersey men's footballers English men's footballers Men's association football forwards Nottingham Forest F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Aston Villa F.C. players New York Cosmos (1970–1985) players Kettering Town F.C. players English Football League players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Southern Football League players English football managers Kettering Town F.C. managers Southern Football League managers English expatriates in Saudi Arabia English expatriate sportspeople in Hong Kong Expatriate men's footballers in Hong Kong English expatriate men's footballers English expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States