David Leworthy was born on October 22nd 1962 in Portsmouth and signed for his hometown club as a youngster holding the unfortunate record for the shortest first-team career in Pompey's history – just twelve minutes as a substitute, in a match against Newport County in October 1981. After nine years there he then signed for non-league Fareham Town and enjoyed two years at the Wessex League side. Despite dropping down into non-league football, the striker was always confident of returning to play at a higher level. This confidence and his prolific goalscoring brought him to the attention of Tottenham Hotspur, who paid Fareham a then non-league record fee of £43,000. Making his debut for Spurs in a 2-0 home defeat against arch-rivals Arsenal in front of over 40,000 fans at White Hart Lane, he went on to make a further ten appearances for the North London side – finding the net on three occasions. Then he moved to Oxford United and scored eight goals in 37 appearances – most notably finding the net against Manchester United, another highlight of his as he says, "Playing against United, and scoring, was special." Further spells with Shrewsbury Town, Reading and Colchester United followed, with David adding 14 more goals to his collection as a professional footballer before dropping down into non-league football once more in 1991 as he moved to Farnborough Town midway through the 1991/92 season. Here he made 20 appearances, scoring 13 goals, including all four in a 4-2 win over Macclesfield Town in March of that season. Established as a potent striker and ever present his excellent form carried on into the following season with a further 48 goals in 54 appearances. Despite being the top scorer in the Conference in his second season at Farnborough, the side were relegated and Dover manager Chris Kinnear identified David as his main target in the summer that followed.
Signing for Dover for a non-league transfer record of £50,000, Kinnear had got his man. David recalls, " I was flattered by what Dover paid for me at the time, but the price tag never affected me at all." There followed a glorious four years at Crabble, and his 86 goals in just 152 starts (plus 6 as substitute) rightly saw him voted as the club’s best ever player on the excellent poll, ran on the unofficial club forum in 2011. Speaking of his award, David said, "Winning the club's best ever player award was a great honour, there have been so many quality players who have played for Dover over the years – so to win it was amazing." Unofficial or not, there is surely no doubt that anyone who was privileged enough to see, or hear of, David's ability during his spell at the club would class him as our best ever. He lit up Crabble in the mid 1990s and remains their record fee signing but there was little doubt about the outcome, such is the esteem that Leworthy is held in by Dover supporters who had the privilege of watching him play.
In January 1997, he was signed by Rushden & Diamonds for £15,000 and scored the goal that kept the club in the Conference. His stay at Rushden didn't last long, and at the end of the season he moved to South-West London club Kingstonian for a club record fee of £18,000 and was part of the Kingstonian side that celebrated two consecutive FA Trophy wins at Wembley Stadium in 1999 and 2000.
No comments:
Post a Comment