Jack the immortal will live on

On a raw wintry day in March 1963, the big ball started to bounce again after soccer had been snow-stopped for three months in one of the worst winters on record.

And with it, into Bucks Head immortatlity, bounced 20-year-old Jack Bentley, who made his bow in a first-team workout against Kidderminster reserves with four of the goals that were to mark his path well over a decade into the future.

That future saw Bentley - travelling from his Liverpool home for all of them - play 835 games, score 431 goals and establish a remarkable record of dedication and fitness in missing fewer than 50 matches over a 14-year stint.

Geoff Hurst was the Telford United manager when Bentley's Bucks Head stay came to an end in 1977, and though Jack was 35, Hurst's popularity as hat-trick hero of England's 1966 World Cup final lost some of its lustre in the Wrekin area when Bentley was not retained.

Last of the true Bucks Head legends, following Ted and Joe White, Joe "Kong" Griffiths, Hedley Simms and Frank Childs, Bentley was a popular and modest hero.

He retained an affection for his old club - who made him a life memeber - and stayed in touch with his former team-mates, particularly George Jagger, form the Wembley FA Trophy glory years, until his untimely end.

Never one to take himself seriously, Jack scored in his last game at 60 for his local social club.

"I'd tell you it was with my LEFT foot," he told me wrily at the time. "But no-one who saw me play would believe that, would they?"

He laced on his boots at the Bucks Head for the last time in a brief appearance in a friendly fund-raiser against a Showbiz XI just three years ago and retired for good in the knowledge that his name will live on as long as football is played there.