Travers George Image 3 Barnsley 1912

Description

Much travelled inside forward George Travers was born in Newtown, Birmingham, and began his football career with Rowley United in 1903, playing for Bilston Town in 1904 before joining Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1906, where he didn’t manage to break into the first eleven. He moved on to First Division Birmingham in January 1907, where he made his Football League debut at Nottingham Forest that October, but he spent eighteen months at St Andrews and played only once more for the first team. Transferred to Aston Villa in a part-exchange deal involving Jack Wilcox in December 1908, he marked his debut against Bury with a hat-trick in a 3-0 win at Villa Park on Boxing Day, but played only three more League games, scoring once, before leaving for Southern League Queens Park Rangers at the end of the 1908-09 season.

He returned to Football League action in September 1910 when he joined Leicester Fosse, where he scored 5 goals in 12 appearances during the remainder of 1910 before being signed by Second Division rivals Barnsley in January 1911. The following season produced the pinnacle of Travers’ career, as he played in a remarkable twelve cup ties, including aix replays, during Barnsley’s incredible 1912 FA Cup triumph, which saw them beat West Bromwich Albion in the Final 1-0 in a replay at Bramall Lane after a 0-0 draw in the first match at The Crystal Palace with a goal from Harry Tufnell two minutes before the end of extra time.

Such a triumph inevitably invited bids for Barnsley’s best players, and many were sold over the course of the next 2-3 seasons, Travers being transferred to First Division Manchester United in February 1914 after 25 goals in exactly 100 appearances for The Tykes, although he struggled to get a regular place in the United first eleven and had scored 4 goals in 21 appearances by the time that The First World War forced the abandonment of peacetime football at the end of the 1914-15 campaign.

With the conflict over, peacetime football resumed in 1919 and Travers joined Southern League Swindon Town, scoring 14 goals in 36 appearances during their 1919-20 campaign, which made him the club’s second highest goalscorer for the season. He then joined Millwall in June 1920 for their first season of League football in the newly formed Third Division (South), but played only twice for them, including in their inaugural League fixture in a 2-0 victory against Bristol Rovers that August, before joining Norwich City in October. A regular in The Canaries’ line up during the rest of the season, he scored 14 goals in 30 appearances and was comfortably their leading goalscorer in their inaugural League season. His final League club was Gillingham, whom he joined in June 1921, but he scored only once in 10 appearances before returning to non league Midlands football with Cradley Heath St Luke’s in 1922, finally playing for Pembroke Dock from 1923 before hanging up his boots.