William Norman McCourt Uprichard (20 April 1928 – 31 January 2011) was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player for

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...

Swindon Town Swindon Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team, known as the "Robins", currently compete in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Founded as Swindon A ...

and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

Gaelic football career

Uprichard was born in

Lurgan Lurgan () is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and roughly southwest of Belfast. The town is linked to Belfast by both the M1 motorway (Northern Ireland), M1 motorway and the Belfast–Dublin rail ...

, Northern Ireland, and as a teenager played both soccer and

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

. He won a district minor league medal with St. Peter's GAC, but was subsequently banned by the GAA and told he would not receive his medal because he had signed for Glenavon. The GAA's ' rule 27' prohibited adult members at the time from playing or watching so-called foreign games. Uprichard was finally awarded his medal in 2004.

Association football career

Club career

Uprichard played in goal for Glenavon and later for

Distillery Distillation, also classical distillation, is the process of separating the component substances of a liquid mixture of two or more chemically discrete substances; the separation process is realized by way of the selective boiling of the mixt ...

before signing for

in 1948 for £1,500. He never played an Arsenal first-team game, with Ted Platt and George Swindin being higher in the pecking order. He was transferred to

in November 1949, later becoming the first choice goalkeeper. The 1952–53 season was his last at Swindon before his transfer to

in November 1952. Uprichard was Eddie Lever's first signing as Pompey manager. He was later followed by Derek Dougan from Distillery. Uprichard played nearly 200 first-team games for Portsmouth in seven seasons. He later played for Southend United, Hastings United and Ramsgate Athletic.

International career

Uprichard was awarded 18 senior international caps for

, the first coming against

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

in 1951. He played in the 1958 World Cup Finals in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

alongside Billy Bingham, Jimmy McIlroy and

Danny Blanchflower Robert Dennis Blanchflower (10 February 1926 – 9 December 1993) was a Northern Ireland footballer, football manager and journalist who played for and captained Tottenham Hotspur, including during their double-winning season of 1960–61. H ...

. Despite sustaining a broken hand and an ankle injury, he kept the

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

attack at bay in a play-off win which secured Northern Ireland a quarter-final berth.Planet World Cup
/ref> His final game for Northern Ireland was, like his first, against Scotland, in November 1958. Norman died on Monday 31 January 2011 after a long illness.

Footnotes

References

The Irish News, 2 February 2004] * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Uprichard, Norman 1928 births 2011 deaths Association footballers from Lurgan Men's association football goalkeepers Northern Ireland men's international footballers 1958 FIFA World Cup players Glenavon F.C. players Lisburn Distillery F.C. players Arsenal F.C. players Portsmouth F.C. players Swindon Town F.C. players Southend United F.C. players Ramsgate F.C. players Hastings United F.C. (1948) players English Football League players NIFL Premiership players