Farewell to Bidds
I first met John Biddle back in 1972. He was about to take over the reins as manager of Cray Wanderers at Grassmeade. He seemed quite an affable kind of bloke and I quickly found out that he would happily do a favour for someone if called upon to do so. John had come from a club called 279 Chislehurst and brought with him the full playing staff of his former team.
Bidds didn't seem to mind what duties he undertook while the club was still playing games at Grassmeade. Quite often he could be found serving behind the bar in the old clubhouse.
By the time I was voted onto the Cray Wanderers committee, our club had moved to Oxford Road. I dare say that many managers in the same or similar situation Bidds had found himself would have left the club and sought a post elsewhere at a club that had full and much better facilities than we faced at Oxford Road in 1973. But John stayed and stuck it out and, within one season at Oxford Road, had produced a trophy-winning team when the club won the Harry Sunderland Memorial Shield for the first time in 1974. During the celebrations after the game, John raised the shield and declared "this is for Mick Slater", the club's President who had passed away earlier that year.
John Biddle stayed in the manager's job at Cray Wanderers until the summer of 1975, when he left to take up a new managerial post at rivals Bromley. Nearly all of the Cray first team players followed him to Hayes Lane and most of them returned to Oxford Road within a short while. But John had left his mark on our club before his departure to greener pastures, leading the team to the Metropolitan London League and Cup double at the end of the 1974-75 season, as well as the club's first-ever European trophy when the team lifted the Mayor of Uden (Holland) Cup following a penalty shoot-out - another first for a Cray Wanderers team - in the early summer of 1975.
Bidds' passing brings to a close an era in Cray Wanderers' recent history when the club found success against the odds. I am proud to have been a part of that time just as much as I am pleased to have known and been acquainted with John Biddle. Thanks for the memories, mate, and may you continue to enjoy your football wherever you are now.
Trevor Mulligan