Ted Sager was the first goalkeeper I saw playing for the Blues and although Everton were a poor team at the time, Ted Sagar was a very good all round goalie, looking back I think we would have been relegated a lot sooner if Ted hadn’t been our number one. Like Dolly says he always looked absorbed in the game, took no prisoners in going for the ball once he had made his mind up the ball was his, opponents and his own players were knocked out of the way as Ted fought for possession of the ball. He always seemed to have a stern expression when playing for Everton.

As a young boy footballers were Gods to me and Sagar, TG Jones, Peter Farrell and Eddie Wainwright were the players I admired the most. One of Ted’s last games was in the final of The Liverpool Senior cup against Tranmere Rovers which we won 4-1, I think, after the game most of the crowd stayed behind to see Ted presented wit a cheque for £1, 000 for long service, this was in the early fifties so that was a lot of money then.

Ted gave long and valuable service to the club over twenty years, counting the war, and I wouldn’t mind betting over that dedicated service he never earned as much, in his whole career, that the spoilt players of today earn in one week. You were born too soon Ted, although tge late Dolly would never agree with that.

Thanks for a really fascinating insight into a (mainly) pre-war footballer's wife's life.

I started going to Goodison in 1958 so, obviously, never saw Ted play. I worked with his son, David, through the 1970s but he never really spoke about his dad.

As Dave # 1 says Ted would have only earned a fraction of what they get today but, compared to other working men, they were well paid as is shown by Dolly being able to furnish the house in one go.

94 East Lancashire Road must have been a Liverpool Corporation house and would have been brand new when they moved in.

Thanks Becky for another glimpse of a bygone world, I remember (just) seeing Ted in the Blue Anchor and he did indeed have hands like shovels. They don't make them like Ted or Dolly any more.

A great read Becky, thank you.

Lovely article as ever – keep them coming!

Lovely article by Becky. RIP Dolly.
Any new signings - manager or players - should be made to read these to realise just what our club means to us.

A link below to a game in which Ted Sagar featured for Everton, on this day in 1938, it's mainly reported from a Celtic point of view, but an interesting read nevertheless.

Celtic v Everton 1938

Barry (8) a good report on a famous game of the time 1938, just a bit before my time, but I saw quite a few of those players later on for Everton, Ted Sagar, Greenhalgh, TG Jones, Alec Stevenson and Wally Boyes, Boyes for Everton reserves not the first team, Joe Mercer for Arsenal and Tommy Lawton for Notts County. If the Jimmy Delaney who played outside right for Celtic that night was the same Jimmy Delaney who played for Man.United after the war I saw him as well. I bet that Alec Stevenson goal was onside as well, we never got the breaks even then!!

My first game was in 1953-54, but Ted Sagar was often talked about and like T G Jones was referred to as a great player.

This article is a lovely reminder of the world that disappeared around the end of the fifties, of a world in which footballers were working class in every sense.

A friend of mine was Jeff Whitefoot, still the youngest player to play for Man Utd and he played in the first ever Under-23 international. Anyhow, as Duncan Edwards and Eddie Coleman emerged at United, Jeff realised that he had to find a new club.

Eventually he ended up at Nottingham Forest and won a cup winners' medal there, but first he signed for Grimsby, then in the lower half of the old Second Division. I asked him why he'd signed for them? It was simple: they offered him and Nell a club house and the wages were the same everywhere. A couple of First Division clubs had wanted him to sign, but had no club houses free.

Jeff became a publican too after his career was over, as did William Ralph Dean, who I met through my dad, and with whom I spent a fascinating afternoon in The Dublin Packet in 1964.

Life for such footballers was very similar to the life of the supporters who watched them at 1s/6d a time.

John Atyeo stayed at Bristol City though a very good England player, because of his other job as an accountant in I think a family firm.

Gary Imlach's fascinating book about his dad, the old Everton trainer Stuart, "My Father and Other Working Class Heroes" gives a detailed picture of the world Dolly Sagar so movingly evokes.

Thank you for a wonderfully moving article.

Rick (10),

I think Geoff Bradford of Bristol Rovers did the same as John Atyeo, stayed with Rovers all his career in the lower leagues and played for England. I saw him score a hat-trick at Anfield in a night game, only to finish on the losing side; Liverpool won 6-4 with Johnny Evans scoring four,

In the same game, Billy Liddell was playing for Liverpool, another who stayed with the same club all his career, including eight seasons in the Second Division, while he held another job as auditor for Liverpool University, I think.