Wyn Davies Profile

Ron­ald Wyn Dav­ies, born Caern­ar­fon, Wales, Mar­ch 20, 1942. Be­ing some­thing of a foot­balling nomad, Wyn Dav­ies was al­ways ready to an­swer the call of any club who had the need of a re­li­able marks­man. A com­mand­ing cent­ral at­tack­er wi­th a power­ful phys­ic­al pres­ence, the Welsh­man was a con­sist­ent and de­pend­able per­former for more than two dec­ades and pro­duced a cred­it­able 179 goals in 607 Foot­ball Lea­gue out­ings for his vari­ous clubs. 

Wyn Dav­ies kick-star­ted his ro­und ball ca­reer wi­th his loc­al club Caern­ar­fon To­wn be­fore he joi­ned Lea­gue Di­vi­sion Four te­am Wrex­ham, where he made his club de­but in a 3-1 tri­umph ag­ainst Worcester City in 1961. Fol­low­ing 21 goals in 55 Fourth Di­vi­sion mat­ches for The Dragons, he was trans­ferred to Fir­st Di­vi­sion out­fit Bol­ton Wan­derers for a fee of £20,000 in Mar­ch 1962. Af­ter clock­ing up 66 goals in 155 Foot­ball Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for The Trot­ters, New­castle Uni­ted su­premo Joe Har­vey sig­ned him for a club re­cord trans­fer fee of £80,000 partly in­to the 1966-67 cam­paign, and he was giv­en his fir­st te­am de­but for The Toon in a 3-0 Lea­gue Di­vi­sion One loss ag­ainst long­time ad­versar­ies Sun­der­land at St Ja­mes´ Park on the 29th of Oct­ober 1966. The tough tar­get man went on to pro­duce his fir­st Lea­gue goal for New­castle in a 3-1 tri­umph ag­ainst Shef­field Wed­nesday at St Ja­mes´ Park on the 26th of the fol­low­ing month, and ended the sea­son wi­th six goals in 29 ap­pear­ances for his new club. Dav­ies was part of the New­castle Uni­ted te­am which won the Inter-Cit­ies Fairs Cup in 1968-69 af­ter de­feat­ing Hun­gari­an gi­ants Ujpest Doz­sa by 6-2 on ag­greg­ate in a two-legged fi­nal, and he pro­ceeded to play 181 Fir­st Di­vi­sion ga­mes for The Mag­pies, con­trib­ut­ing 40 goals in the pro­cess. Wi­th the ar­rival of Mal­colm Mac­don­ald from Sec­ond Di­vi­sion out­fit Luton To­wn in the sum­mer of 1971, how­ever, he was trans­ferred to fel­low Fir­st Di­vi­sion club Man­chester City for a fee of £50,000 at the start of the 1971-72 sea­son, link­ing up wi­th for­mer Burnden Park team­mate Fran­cis Lee. The Welsh­man de­b­uted for City in a 1-0 Fir­st Di­vi­sion de­feat to Leeds Uni­ted at Maine Road on the 14th of Au­gust 1971 and would go on to re­cord eight goals in 45 ap­pear­ances for The Cit­izens be­fore he was bro­ught to neigh­bouring rivals Man­chester Uni­ted by Frank O’­Far­rell for a trans­fer fee of £60,000 at the front end of the 1972-73 campaign.

Dav­ies mar­ked his Man­chester Uni­ted de­but by re­gis­ter­ing the sec­ond goal in a 3-0 Di­vi­sion One tri­umph ag­ainst de­fend­ing Fir­st Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­ons Der­by Coun­ty at Old Traf­ford on the 23rd of Septem­ber 1972. Af­ter Ian Storey-Moore had giv­en Uni­ted the lead in the fir­st ha­lf, Dav­ies ham­mered an un­stoppable shot pa­st Der­by goal­tender Co­lin Boulton and in­to the net on 66 min­utes, be­fore Wil­lie Mor­gan hit the third goal for the hosts wi­th 15 min­utes re­maining. Dur­ing his sol­it­ary sea­son at Old Traf­ford, Wyn Dav­ies ad­ded an ex­tra punch to the te­am, and would form a strik­ing part­ner­ship wi­th for­mer York City and Bourne­mouth front­man Ted Mac­Dou­gall which help­ed the strug­gling te­am avoid re­leg­a­tion to the Sec­ond Di­vi­sion. Af­ter notch­ing up four Fir­st Di­vi­sion goals in 16 ap­pear­ances for Man­chester Uni­ted, he was sold to Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Black­pool for a fee of £14,000 in the sum­mer of 1973, and made his fir­st ap­pear­ance for the club in a 3-2 loss ag­ainst new­ly re­leg­ated West Brom­wich Al­bion at Bloom­field Road on the open­ing day of the 1973-74 season.

As a Black­pool play­er, Wyn Dav­ies also en­joyed a short loan spell wi­th Mal­colm Allison´s Crys­tal Pal­ace si­de in 1975, ma­king three Third Di­vi­sion ap­pear­ances for the So­uth Lon­doners. Wi­th The Sea­siders, he ac­cu­mu­lated five goals in 36 Sec­ond Di­vi­sion ga­mes for the Fylde Coast out­fit be­fore team­ing up wi­th Fourth Di­vi­sion Stock­port Coun­ty, for whom he hit sev­en strikes in 30 Foot­ball Lea­gue out­ings dur­ing the 1975-76 cam­paign. In the sum­mer of 1976, he sig­ned wi­th Crewe Al­ex­an­dra where he clocked up 15 Di­vi­sion Four goals in 55 ap­pear­ances for The Rail­way­men, and then he mo­ved to North­ern Pre­mier Lea­gue Ban­gor City where he re­mained un­til he fin­ished off his peri­pat­et­ic foot­ball ca­reer wi­th So­uth Afric­an Na­tion­al Foot­ball Lea­gue te­am Cape To­wn City in 1979. In­ter­na­tion­ally, Dav­ies amassed a total of 34 full caps for the Wales na­tion­al si­de af­ter be­ing han­ded his seni­or de­but for his na­tive coun­try by Dave Bowen in a 2-1 friendly fix­ture de­feat to Eng­land at Wemb­ley Sta­dium on the 18th of Nov­ember 1964. Wyn Dav­ies Play­ing Ca­reer: Caern­ar­fon To­wn, Wrex­ham, Bol­ton Wan­derers, New­castle Uni­ted, Man­chester City, Man­chester Uni­ted, Black­pool, Crys­tal Pal­ace, Stock­port Coun­ty, Crewe Al­ex­an­dra, Ban­gor City, Cape To­wn City. Man­aging Ca­reer: None.

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