GOAL KING OF HIGHEST ORDER

SOME time ago, I called Bill Williams to discuss the legendary Maidstone strikeforce of Steve Butler and Mark Gall. “If it’s strikers you’re after, look up a lad called John Bartley,” said the 77-year-old, who has worked for the Stones in some capacity for the best part of half a century.

John Bartley? “Yeah, John Bartley,” he said. “We had him here for a little while. He was incredible. Honestly, look up his record. You won’t believe your eyes.”

So I did. And I didn’t. Between 1974 and 1980, Bartley scored a staggering 450 goals in 326 matches for Welling United. Some 150 were for the club’s youth sides. More came in the relatively humble Spartan Reserve League. Those numbers, though, are just the start.

Bartley hit 85 goals in 114 games over two spells at Maidstone, with his tally of 36 in 1982-83 enough to clinch the Alliance League Golden Boot.

That same season – with Williams as manager – he hit seven hat-tricks en route to an all-competition total of 58.

Then came 76 in 75 games on his return to Welling, 27 in 44 for Chemsford City, 31 in 38 for Dartford and finally 86 in 86 for Kent League amateurs Alma Swanley.

By the time he retired (or at least vanished from the record books) aged 33 in 1991, Bartley had scored an estimated 768 goals in 731 games.

The exact figure is open to debate, such is the scarcity of reliable statistics from the era. Clearly, though, Bartley was a forward of extraordinary consistency.

But who was this computer programmer from Camberwell who, as a boy, hit his 100th goal for Brampton Road Primary School in the same week that Pele struck the 1,000th of his career?

Well, if anyone knows about John Bartley, it’s Welling legend Nigel Ransom.

“I played with him from about the age of ten,” recalled defender Ransom, who, incredibly, notched up about 1,100 appearances for the Wings.

“We played for Bexley Schools U11s and also for a Sunday side, Brampton. That team got taken over by Welling and John started to kick on.

“He was a fat lump, but he had an eye for goal that I’ve never ever seen anyone else have. He could score all different sorts of goals.

“He wasn’t a defender – we left him up front and let him get on with it. There were some talented players at Welling and they gave him the ball in the right areas.”

Another man who knew Bartley well is former Gillingham, Leicester City and England manager Peter Taylor. Now 67, the ex-Spurs winger played alongside Bartley at Maidstone in the early 1980s and later signed him to play for Dartford.

Intelligent

“John was a funny bloke, a great character who made the players laugh,” he recalls. “That’s my main memory. He was intelligent, too. For a Non-League player, he was very unusual. What you tend to find with strikers at that level is that they need four or five chances a game to get a goal. John only needed one. He was a great finisher, and exceptionally calm

in the box.”

Bartley was an oddity in other ways, too. In an age when lower -league football was characterised by big forwards and high balls, Bartley was a squat and skilful technician in the mould of Wayne Rooney.

Gary Abbott, who would himself score 241 senior goals for Welling, was part of the side that won the Southern Premier League title in 1984-85, a season that saw Bartley find the net 65 times.

“I was your typical target man,” says the former Fisher boss, now 55. “I scored tap-ins, a lot of headers from crosses. John scored from everywhere. I remember playing away at Witney one day, pouring down with rain. He picked the ball up and hit one from about 45 yards. Bang. Top corner.

“And he was great at holding the ball up. He had a big arse, so he’d shield the ball, turn someone on the edge of the box and get a shot away. That’s what his game was, really.”

Dribble

Abbott describes his former strike partner as an adept all-rounder and Taylor – whose Dartford side finished second in the Southern League and were FA trophy semi-finalists in Bartley’s solitary campaign – concurs.

“He was a good footballer,” he says. “He could dribble, he could run with the ball and take people on. He could pick a pass.

“And he wasn’t the type of player you needed to feed with crosses. It was more about getting the ball into him so he beat somebody with a trick or a bit of skill. But his main strength, of course, was goals. Knowing where to be, reading the situation, getting in there first before the defender.

“I always look at strikers and, nine times out of ten, the ones who score prolifically are the ones who understand the game, how to move and where to be. At Non-League level, there can’t have been many better than John for that.”

Bartley did get a shot at the progame, joining Third Division Millwall from Welling for £12,000 in 1980. But a berth on the wing did little to showcase his predatory instincts. In 1982, after 40 games and eight goals, he was sold to Maidstone and never got a sniff of the league again.

“I often wondered why John never made it in the pro game,” says Taylor. “It might have been pace. He wasn’t particularly quick. Maybe people just saw he’d been released by Millwall.

“Who knows? Back then, a lot of players slipped through the cracks. Now, where more football clubs are scouting the National League and there’s more analysis and data available, he’d have got a chance. With those numbers, there’s no doubt.”

Ransom agrees that Millwall didn’t get the best out of his old pal. He recalls him with fondness and would love to get him along to a Welling reunion in the future.

“He liked to play cards and have a drink,” recalled the 61-year-old. “He was a good bloke. One thing I remember is that he always wore moulded boots. He never wore studs, not even in the worst conditions.

“I’ve tried to get hold of him in recent years, but he’s disappeared. I would be delighted to know where he is.”