Wayne TALKES

Wayne Talkes was London-born but Isle of Wight raised, which is how he signed apprentice

forms for Southampton Football Club in 1967. That same year, he came on as a substitute

in a Combination Cup game against Arsenal, thus becoming, at 15 years and 180 days,

the youngest-ever post-war debutant for the Reserves. He had to wait until the last

game of the 1971/72 season for his first-team debut, and the next season he threatened

to get more regular football when he made five straight starts to end the 1972/73 campaign,

but his career at The Dell petered out around the time Ted Bates handed over the managerial

reins to Lawrie McMenemy and he moved to Bournemouth.

Wayne, who died aged 68, was a stylish, intelligent, probing midfielder, but

at Dean Court, after only five games, he badly injured an ankle, which he had originally

damaged in an England schoolboy trial and Wayne knew that it was unlikely to further stand

up to the rigours of the professional game and so he initially moved into a job with the

Post Office and then into marketing/sales with Eden Vale and then as an accounts manager

with Palmer & Harvey, while turning out for the likes of Totton, Brockenhurst, Basingstoke,

Midanbury and AC Delco. Hampshire is full of local footballers who on social media who

recalled their playing days alongside Wayne with great fondness, for not only was he

a hugely respected colleague on the pitch, he was also a very popular coach as well as

being “a lovely guy”. A keen golfer and member of Corhampton Golf Club, Wayne leaves

behind his wife, Linda, their daughter Ruth and a son, Ollie, who played alongside his

father at AC Delco. (Duncan Holley)