Len Cantello (born 11 September 1951) is a former football

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

Career

West Bromwich Albion: 1967–1979

Cantello joined

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional Association football, football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English foo ...

as an apprentice in 1967. Aged 18, Cantello played in the 1970

League Cup Final The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by t ...

. Cantello scored ITV's goal of the season in December 1978, playing against

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

Old Trafford Old Trafford () is a football stadium in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Manchester United. With a capacity of 74,310 it is the largest club football stadium (and second-largest football stadium overall after We ...

. During his 12-year stay at the Hawthorns, Cantello made 371 appearances. In 1978, he played with the Dallas Tornado. Although signing for

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pik ...

in the summer of 1979 for a fee of £350,000, Cantello was awarded a

testimonial match A testimonial match or testimonial game, often referred to simply as a testimonial, is a practice in some sports, particularly in association football in the United Kingdom and South America, where a club has a match to honour a player for servic ...

by West Bromwich Albion that saw a team of white players play against a team of black players.

Bolton Wanderers: 1979–1982

In 1979, he moved to

, spending three years with them.

Later career: 1982–1986

In 1982, Cantello moved two divisions down on loan to Hereford United. He made just one appearance and then moved again on loan to Bury. In 1981, he went on loan to the Dallas Tornado of the North American Soccer League. In 1983, he was transferred to Dutch side SC Cambuur, before finishing with two seasons at Eastern AA. In 1989 and 1990, he played in the Canadian Soccer League with Calgary Strikers and

London Lasers The London Lasers were a professional soccer team in London, Ontario, Canada that played in the original Canadian Soccer League in 1990 and 1992. History The London Lasers were founded in 1990 as an expansion franchise in the Canadian Soccer L ...

Post-playing career

After retiring from professional sport, Cantello became the UK managing Director of FieldTurf, a Canadian-based brand of

artificial turf Artificial turf is a surface of synthetic fibers made to look like natural grass. It is most often used in arenas for sports that were originally or are normally played on grass. However, it is now being used on residential lawns and commer ...

playing surface. He currently resides in his home town of Manchester.

References

External links

*
Len Cantello (West Brom) at Sporting-heroes.net

Len Cantello (Bolton Wanderers) at Sporting-heroes.net

1951 births Living people English footballers Footballers from Manchester West Bromwich Albion F.C. players Bolton Wanderers F.C. players Hereford United F.C. players Bury F.C. players North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players Dallas Tornado players Eastern Sports Club footballers England under-23 international footballers English expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Hong Kong Stockport County F.C. non-playing staff Association football midfielders English expatriate sportspeople in Hong Kong English expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate soccer players in the United States Calgary Kickers players London Lasers players {{England-footy-midfielder-1950s-stub