Christopher Robin Anthony Napier (26 September 1943 – 31 March 2019) was a Scottish 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 scored 119 goals from 379 appearances in

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 ...

playing as a forward for

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside town in Lancashire, England. It is located on the Irish Sea coast of the Fylde peninsula, approximately north of Liverpool and west of Preston, Lancashire, Preston. It is the main settlement in the Borough of Blackpool ...

Preston North End Preston North End Football Club, commonly referred to as Preston, North End or PNE, is a professional association football club in Preston, Lancashire, England. They currently play in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English footbal ...

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. The town is at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast, south-west of Carlisle and north-east of Whitehaven. At the 2021 census the ...

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league system, English football. Since th ...

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, commonly referred to as Brighton, is a professional football club based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Their home gr ...

and

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second level of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. Th ...

Career

Napier was born in

Dunblane Dunblane (, ) is a town in the council area of Stirling in central Scotland, and inside the historic boundaries of the county of Perthshire. It is a commuter town, with many residents making use of good transport links to much of the Central Be ...

and raised in

West Linton West Linton () is a village and civil parish in southern Scotland, on the A702. It is in the county of Peeblesshire (also known as Tweeddale) and the Scottish Borders council area. Many of its residents are commuters, owing to the village's pr ...

, which was then in

Peeblesshire Peeblesshire (), the County of Peebles or Tweeddale is a Counties of Scotland, historic county of Scotland. Its county town is Peebles, and it borders Midlothian to the north, Selkirkshire to the east, Dumfriesshire to the south, and Lanarkshire ...

. He was a nephew of

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

player Tommy McInally. He played youth football with Linton Hotspur before joining

's ground staff straight from school and turning professional in 1960. He played twice in

before joining their arch-rivals,

, for the 1963–64 season. After a single appearance in the Second Division, and still only 20 years old, he moved on to his third club,

, newly promoted to the Third Division. He scored twice as Workington eliminated First Division

from the 1964–65 League Cup by five goals to one, and scored the equaliser as his club earned a deserved replay against eventual winners Chelsea in the quarter-final. Such results, added to 25 goals from 58 League matches, attracted attention. In November 1965, First Division club

paid £18,000 for Napier's services, but at the end of the season, having struggled to adapt to the higher level, he returned to Division Three with

, for an £8,500 fee. At Brighton he finally found some stability; of the six seasons he spent with the club, he was their top scorer in all but 1969–70,Carder & Harris, ''Albion A–Z'', p. 338. and helped them to runners-up spot in 1972. Though his club were promoted, Napier spent two further seasons in Division Three, with Blackburn Rovers. He then moved to South Africa, where he played for Durban United and then made a career in the motor trade. He died in

Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...

, South Africa, at the age of 75.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Napier, Kit 1943 births 2019 deaths Sportspeople from Dunblane Footballers from Stirling (council area) Scottish men's footballers Men's association football forwards Blackpool F.C. players Preston North End F.C. players Workington A.F.C. players Newcastle United F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Blackburn Rovers F.C. players English Football League players Footballers from the Scottish Borders Scottish emigrants to South Africa 20th-century Scottish sportsmen