Grenville Millington RIP
The heading says it all about the sad nature of this post. Grenville Millington RIP. I don’t need to explain who Grenville Millington was to any Chester FC football followers and many other football fans. But just in case you’re not a football follower, Grenville Millington was probably Chester FC’s best goalkeeper ever. He was a club legend. And rightly so. Grenville played over 300 times for Chester. A very impressive achievement. Sadly, Grenville passed away recently at the age of 73. Let’s take a closer look at Grenville Millington’s career shall we.
Grenville Millington
Chester FC legend, Grenville Rodney Millington was born in December 1951 in Queensferry, Flintshire. As mentioned above he enjoyed a long career with Chester FC and was voted the club’s BBC Cult Hero in 2005. As well as a long playing career, Millington was an established goalkeeping coach. He was the younger brother of another quality goalkeeper, Tony Millington, who played in goal for a number of clubs, including Crystal Palace, Swansea and West Bromwich Albion and for his country, Wales.
After his playing career ended, Grenville represented the club as a goalkeeper coach, President of the Former Players’ Association, Director, Chairman, and most recently as the Legends Lounge Hospitality host. He was the club’s first inductee into the Hall of Fame and was also an Honorary Life Vice-President.
As a player he was part of one of the most successful seasons in the club’s history, in the 1974/75, where Chester won promotion from the Fourth Division and reached the League Cup semi-finals, beating Leeds United and Newcastle United on the way. In that run to the semi-finals, fans of a certain age and who went to that game, will remember “that save” against a thunderbolt Malcolm MacDonald effort that was destined for the top corner. A quality save from a quality goalkeeper.
Local Football Connections
Grenville Millington was also well known in local, grass roots football. I’m not 100% sure to what level of involvement, but I seem to recall him having some interest in a really good youth team called Shotton Westminster. In my youth I played against Shotton Westminster many times and Grenville was a well known character on the scene. Maybe he was just a supporter. I’m sure though it also had a lot to do with his sheer love of football.
Still on the local football scene note, he used to go into local schools and be the goalkeeper in a youth football competition called “Penalty Prize.” Back in the 70’s there was a Saturday lunch time footie programme on ITV called “On The Ball.” During the season in the build up to the League Cup Final, there were regional penalty prize competitions. It started off locally, then regionally, culminating in the best youth penalty takers having a shootout at Wembley before the League Cup Final. Each penalty taker would take 10 penalties and the best progressed during the season accordingly. The final played out in front of 100,000 fans at Wembley.
Grenville Millington was the goalkeeper at a lot of the local school shootouts. He came to our school and I was one of the participants. It was great to take pennos against a top drawer keeper. Although I didn’t know Grenville, I did have a conversation with him just over a year ago and reminded him of Penalty Prize. He smiled as he said he remembered it. That love of football kicking in again.
A truly top fella who will be missed by many. RIP Grenville Millington.
Chester Lifestyle Blog Posts
Thanks for visiting my Chester Lifestyle website and thanks for reading my latest blog post – Grenville Millington RIP. Very sad news indeed. A club legend who will be well remembered by so many. I am sure Chester FC will be working on some well deserved tribute to him.
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