Walter Thomas Ponting (13 April 1913 – 17 August 1960), Access individual season statistics via Season Stats dropdown menu. also known as Wally Ponting, was a 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 53 goals from 116 appearances in the

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 ...

playing as a

centre forward In the sport of association football, a forward (attacker or striker) is an outfield position which primarily plays further up the pitch than midfielders and defenders. As with any attacking player, the role of the forward relies heavily on be ...

for

Grimsby Town Grimsby Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England, that competes in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "the Mariners", the club was f ...

, Chesterfield and Lincoln City.

Football career

Ponting was born in

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town in Lincolnshire, England with a population of 86,138 (as of 2021). It is located near the mouth on the south bank of the Humber that flows to the North Sea. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes dir ...

, Lincolnshire, and made his debut for home-town club

, then playing in the

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was the top division of the Football League in England from 1888 until the end of the 1991–92 season, when its teams broke away to form the Premier League. From 1992 to 2004, the name First Division was g ...

, in the 1930–31 season while still a teenager. He remained with Grimsby for another five seasons, but appeared only rarely for the first team. Ponting joined

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 ...

club Chesterfield in the 1936 close season for a

transfer fee In professional football, a transfer is the action taken whenever a player under contract moves between clubs. It refers to the transferring of a player's registration from one association football club to another. In general, the players can onl ...

of £1,015, plus an additional £200 payable if Chesterfield reached the Fourth Round of the

1936–37 FA Cup The 1936–37 FA Cup was the 62nd season of the world's oldest football cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup. Sunderland won the competition for the first time, beating Preston North End 3–1 in ...

. They were drawn against

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 ...

in the Third Round, and failed to progress further. He went straight into the starting eleven, and finished the season as the club's leading scorer with 26 goals, all scored in League games. But for an unfortunate occurrence, he might well have had a 27th. ''The Times'' reported "a curious incident in the match between Chesterfield and Burnley, which Chesterfield won 4–1. Soon after the start Ponting, the home centre-forward, shot hard for goal and appeared to be a certain scorer when the ball became deflated and failed to reach the goal." In 1937–38, Ponting's goals helped Chesterfield to reach the Fifth Round of the FA Cup, in which they lost to

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as simply Tottenham (, , , ) or Spurs, is a professional Association football, football club based in Tottenham, North London, England. The club itself has stated that it should always ...

only after a replay. His contribution in the League was disappointingly low, and after scoring only once from nine first-team games at the start of the next season, he moved on. Though his final appearance for the club, on 5 November 1938, did produce a goal, in a 1–1 draw with

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football. They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history ...

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players who are under contract to a club but who do not regularly play in matches for the club's primary team. Reserve teams usually include players who are part of the larger first-team squad but ...

that ensured Chesterfield's reserves stayed top of

the Central League The Central League is one of the two baseball leagues constituting Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. Central League may also refer to: Association football (soccer) leagues * Central League (England) - an association football league in Engla ...

. Ponting then signed for Lincoln City of the

Third Division North The Third Division North of the Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division South with clubs elected to the League or relegated from a higher division allocated to ...

, and made his debut on the following Saturday. In his only season with the club before the outbreak of the Second World War put a stop to League football, Ponting was their leading scorer, with 19 goals from just 26 League and FA Cup games, despite not having played his first game for Lincoln until mid-November, some months after the start of the season. During the 1939–40 season, he played both for Lincoln and as a guest for former club Grimsby Town in the wartime competitions. Ponting died in his native Grimsby in 1960 at the age of 47.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponting, Walter 1913 births 1960 deaths Footballers from Grimsby English men's footballers Men's association football forwards Grimsby Town F.C. players Chesterfield F.C. players Lincoln City F.C. players English Football League players 20th-century English sportsmen