PADDY HASTY

Widely regarded as the best player ever to wear a Tooting shirt

Paddy joined Tooting after leaving the navy at Christmas 1954, having previously played for Salisbury.  His impact was immediate, scoring a debut hat trick.  He went on to top the scoring for six successive seasons before finally turning professional with Aldershot in March 1961.  During his time at Sandy lane he also played as an amateur for Leyton Orient and Queens Park Rangers. He subsequently played for Guildford City, Yiewsley and Fleet.

 " It was said that some of the colour went out of Sandy Lane when our Paddy left."

At representative level Paddy played regularly for Northern Ireland as well as the British Olympic XI and for various representative sides.

Passed away in 2000 at Church Crookham.

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Club Honours with Tooting & Mitcham F/C

Athenian League Champions 1954/55,

Isthmian League Champions 1957/58, 1959/60

London Senior cup winners 1958/60

Appearances

Paddy Hasty scored 113 goals in 142 appearances,

Selected for the Great Britain football team in the 1960 Rome Olympics played 3 games scoring 2 goals

Paddy was only one of five men to score a hat trick for Northern Ireland’ s full amateur side

While still in the Navy Tooting & Mitcham often would call up Paddy to see if he was available. On one such occasion both the club and Paddy, were accused of breaking the rules of Amateurism. Arthur Slater the racing correspondent of the Daily Mail (Robin Goodfellow) also wrote a weekly article on the amateur game and  went on to write that Tooting had contacted Paddy who was in Malta to see if he was available for the following weekend match. On finding out that he had a 72hour pass (after duties Friday until first parade Monday) the club paid for Paddy to fly home in time for the match with a return flight that would get

him back to his ship in time for first parade. This in the eyes of Arthur Slater and the Daily Mail was an act of professionalism by an amateur club. The following day other papers picked up the story but gladly it fizzled out without any action being taken.

Others are then welcome to add their own comments or memories.

My thanks to Ted Parsons for contributing this feature