Royston Edward Dwight (9 January 1933 – 9 April 2002) was an English

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 ...

. He scored the opening goal in the 1959 FA Cup Final 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 ...

Career

Fulham

Dwight joined Fulham in 1950 as an apprentice, signing on the same day as

Bobby Robson Sir Robert William Robson (18 February 1933 – 31 July 2009) was an English football player and coach. His career included periods playing for and later managing the England national team and being a UEFA Cup-winning manager at Ipswich Town. ...

. He played for the reserves for a number of seasons and eventually got his break in the team after injury to Bedford Jezzard. Although a winger, he was renowned for his shooting ability. Dwight scored 54 goals in 72 games for

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, London, Chelsea ...

between 1954 and 1958, including a hat-trick against

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

in 1956 and finishing the season as Fulham's top scorer in both the 1956–57 and 1957-58 seasons. In 1957, he was in the

London XI The London XI was a Association football, football team that represented the city of London in the 1955–58 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. The competition began in 1955, and the first tournament took three years to complete. The entrants were the ma ...

that beat Lausanne Sport 2–0 in the semi-final second leg of the

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, most commonly referred to as the Fairs Cup and sometimes as the European Fairs Cup or Fairs Cities' Cup, was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971. The Fairs Cup was the idea of FIFA vice-presid ...

Highbury Highbury is an area of North London, England, in the London Borough of Islington. Highbury Manor Highbury was once owned by Ranulf, brother of Ilger, and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads. The manor hou ...

Nottingham Forest

Dwight moved on to

in the summer of 1958 for a 'substantial' fee, reported as £10,000. In 1958–59, his only full season at Nottingham Forest, Dwight scored 26 goals in 41 League and 9 FA Cup appearances, including two hat-tricks. He opened the scoring after 10 minutes for Forest in the 1959 FA Cup Final against

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club from Luton, Bedfordshire, England. The club currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "The Hatters", L ...

. After 33 minutes, with Forest winning 2–0, Dwight was carried off the

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...

pitch after breaking his leg in a tackle with Luton's Brendan McNally. Ten-man Forest held on, winning the match 2–1 to become the only team reduced in numbers by injury to win the trophy. Despite scoring in his comeback game the following March, he was not the player he had been before his injury. He played only twice more for Forest before dropping out of League football.

Later career

Dwight moved back to play in his native

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

with Gravesend and Northfleet but returned to league football with spells at Coventry City (where he was recruited by former Fulham teammate

Jimmy Hill James William Thomas Hill, Order of the British Empire, OBE (22 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was an English football in England, footballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including pla ...

) and

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 ...

, before finishing his playing career at

Dartford Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames Estuary, is Thurrock in ...

. Dwight was also part of a delegation which included

Jimmy Greaves James Peter Greaves (20 February 1940 – 19 September 2021) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward. Regarded as one of the greatest strikers of all time and one of England's best ever players, he is England's fifth- ...

and commentator

Kenneth Wolstenholme Kenneth Wolstenholme, DFC & Bar (17 July 1920 – 25 March 2002) was an English football commentator for BBC television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best remembered for his commentary during the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final; in the closing min ...

that visited US in 1966 following England's World Cup success. The party had been charged with recruiting British teams to play in the US the following summer for the inaugural

United Soccer Association The United Soccer Association (USA) was a professional association football, soccer league featuring teams based in the United States and Canada. The league survived only one season before merging with the National Professional Soccer League ( ...

. As part of this he moved to the States in 1966 for two years to coach the Detroit Cougars working alongside his former Millwall teammate Len Julians. Dwight later managed Tooting and Mitcham from 1971 to 1976, who had been Forest's third round opponents in their winning FA Cup run in 1959, and also managed

Career outside football

Later in life during the 1970s and 1980's Dwight worked as a football coach at Forest Hill Boys Secondary School. He took up a position of Assistant Racing Manager in the

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around an oval track. The sport originates from Hare coursing, coursing. Track racing uses an artificial lure (usually a form of windsock) that travels ahead of th ...

industry at Catford Stadium and later Crayford & Bexleyheath Stadium.

Personal life

When he was eight, Dwight's mother died in childbirth while giving birth to his sister Susan, and following his father's death, he moved in with his grandparents. He married Constance Carver in Dartford in 1954, and was the cousin of singer Sir Elton John (real name Reg Dwight); Roy's father Edwin and Sir Elton's father Stanley were brothers. Elton played at Roy and Connie's wedding as a young child as one of his first public performances after the band booked to play the wedding reception turned up late. Dwight died in London in 2002 at the age of 69.

Honours

Nottingham Forest *

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

: 1958–59

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dwight, Roy 1933 births 2002 deaths Fulham F.C. players Nottingham Forest F.C. players Coventry City F.C. players Millwall F.C. players Footballers from the London Borough of Bexley People from Belvedere, London English Football League players London XI players Men's association football wingers English men's footballers Schoolteachers from London Ebbsfleet United F.C. players People in greyhound racing 20th-century English sportsmen