Tony Waiters RIP

He was the 1st Argyle manager I can remember & was responsible for signing Paul Mariner from Chorley who teamed up with Billy Rafferty (ex Blackpool ?) to form a lethal partnership up front. Great times watching Argyle then.

So many people passing away recently, very sad.

RIP Tony
 
Was 4 years old when he left Blackpool so never got to see him play.
Never got to see Morty and Mathews play but you hear enough to know they were great players, Tony fits into this category.
RIP Tony 😥
 
1950`spoolfan said:
The first goalie I saw was George Farm but Waiters and West followed,oh that we had such quality these days.

I recall that he fell out with the Blackpool board and went on strike near the end of his time here was that when Cartmell was chairman or did he make a mess of our club subsequently.

He did retire far too soon,30 no age for a goalie, and I think I recall him coaching in Canada after that for a while, maybe even their national team.

Great goalie(as we used to call them.) RIP Tony thanks for the precious memories.
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Think he might have played at Vancouver Whitecaps too occasionally
 
He was the first keeper I remember, like others have said.

Following on were the likes of Harry Thomson, Budgie, George Wood, Ian Hesford.

We were spoiled for quality back then.
 
I remember as a young lad running up and down the kop steps with him (there were a lot of them )
He was a really nice guy and let this young supporter do some of his training with him .
 
RIP Tony Waiters. It's a shame I never saw him play. My first game was in his last season with us (1966/67), against Sheffield Utd (0-1) but Kevin Thomas was in goal.
 
He was my first keeper as well.
I remember going to an event in St-Annes somewhere when I was very young and he was the star turn.
He did his piece and made a swift move for the exit. I was there with my autograph book though and legged it out of the door behind him and begged a signature.
This slowed him up just long enough for a surge of other fans to catch him up, and poor Tony was stuck there for a good half hour.
RIP Tony and thanks for the autograph.
 
RIP Tony
A great keeper
Kind gentle giant
Can still remember many years ago absconding from Holy Joe’s on Wednesday afternoons and going down to the beach, past my home on Reads Avenue to underneath the old Lifeboat Station next to central pier.
He would use the old concrete pillars to make a massive goal to defend.
Despite the extended goals we rarely scored..........great memories of an exceptional man and keeper.
 
That lovely pictorial tribute above has made me feel very sad for the loss of someone special and brings back many memories of our young, impressionable, special long gone days of yesteryear.
 
I didn't want to sully the thread with moving to a slight tangent whilst respects were being paid. However, now might be a reasonable time.
We've all read that Tony Waiters earned 5 caps for England. Gordon West got three, admittedly not whilst at Blackpool.
So, which other Blackpool keepers went on to gain full international honours?
The ones I can name are:
George Farm - Scotland
Tony Waiters - England
Gordon West - England
George Wood - Scotland.
 
R.I.P. Tony and thoughts are with his family and friends. Tony was our keeper when I went to my first game at home to Sunderland in 1965. Remember this "man mountain" with tremendous upper body strength. No messing about on his goal line he dominated his penalty area never mind his 6 yard box!! At that time players could charge into keepers not Tony, most centre forwards would have reckoned they would come off a lot worse. Another of my childhood icons gone.
 
I was an autograph collector as a young Pool fan in the early 1960s and I remember Tony being very generous with his time, signing autographs for us kids as he and other players exited the players' entrance at the back of the South Stand. I had a big A4 sized exercise book crammed full of pictures of Pool players, often cut-out and collected from Charles Buchan Football Monthly magazines, and local and national newspapers. I remember a day (not a match day) when players were emerging from the players' entrance and it was fairly quiet with kids like me. I opened my big autograph book at a page with a full colour squad photograph and asked Tony to sign. He signed his autograph on his image and and then went back through my book, signing his autograph wherever there was a picture of him. I'd cut out an action picture of him from the national papers, he diving spectacularly full length but unable to stop a shot that had gone past him in a recent game. To me then, he seemed a gentle giant with a very deep voice. He saw the picture, smiled at me and said, "I won't sign that one son".

RIP Tony. You've always been my No 1, No 1 in my all-time Pool best eleven.
 
65yearsafan said:
There's a was a picture of him in the Gazette once of him ice skating on the pitch at Bloomers
I seem to remember.
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With Sir Jimmy...the long long winter freeze..63 I think....the Covid period of that time..well no crowds but then no football either.
 
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