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Sammy Chapman

Name: Samuel Edward Campbell Chapman
Born: 16 February 1938, Belfast
Died: 24 July 2019, Wombourne (England) (aged 88)
Height: 5.10 ft
Weight: 11.07 st
Position: Wing-Half

Representative Honours: Northern Ireland: 1 B Cap (1957), 3 Amateur Caps.
Club Honours: (with Mansfield) Football League Division Four Fourth (promoted) 1962/63.

Club Career:
Teams
Seasons
Signed
Fee
League
FA Cup
Other
Manchester United
-
-
Youth
0/ 0
-
-
Glentoran
-
-
-
0/ 0
-
-
Crusaders
-
-
-
-
-
-
Glenavon
-
-
-
-
-
-
Shamrock Rovers
-
-
-
-
-
-
Mansfield Town
56/57-57/58
Oct-56
-
63/26
6/2
-
Portsmouth
57/58-61/62
Feb-58
-
48/10
3/0
7/1
Mansfield Town
61/62-63/64
Dec-61
-
105/15
5/0
3/0
Stafford Rangers
-
-
-
(Cheshire County League)
TOTALS
-
£-
-
-
-

Biography:
A contemporary of Norman Uprichard and Derek Dougan at Portsmouth, Sammy Chapman was a member of Northern Ireland's 1958 World Cup squad (though not one of the 17 that travelled) having played, and scored a penalty, in the B international with Romania the previous year. He never added full honours to his collection, but went on to skipper Mansfield Town to promotion from the Fourth Division in 1962/63.

Chapman's playing career was ended by a betting scandal at the end of the 1963/64 season when he was suspended by Mansfield. In January 1965 he was jailed (along with two teammates and seven players from other clubs) for his part in a match-fixing syndicate and banned from football for life, though the ban was later rescinded.

Later Chapman returned to football as a coach with Crewe, and was later Chief Scout at Wolves before being appointed caretaker-manager from August to September 1985, and taking the post permanently in November following a 61 day spell in charge by Bill McGarry. He was sacked at the end of that season as Wolves suffered a second successive relegation, and found themselves in the Fourth Division.

Later Chapman worked as Chief Scout then Youth Development Officer at Leicester City. His two sons both gave professional football a go. Campbell was an apprentice with Peterborough and played league football with Wolves and Crewe as well as in Finland, Sweden, Malta and the USA where he settled as a coach. Younger son, Cavan played a single game for Wolves against Cardiff in February 1985.

Tributes

Northern Ireland 'B' Cap Details:
23-10-1957 Romania H W 6-0 FR 1 Goal

Summary: 1/1. Won 1, drew 0, Lost 0.

Northern Ireland Amateur Cap Details:
-

Comments

Anonymous said…
Sammy also played for Manchester United youth team in 1953 and only returned to Belfast because of homesickness, i used to sit next to him at school and play alongside him in the school league where he would usually score at least 6 goals.
Anonymous said…
Spammy was my friend at Templemore Avenue school, and he sat next to me in "Pa or Mr Ewings class".and Sam's father being a barber cut my hair for a few pence, I moved to Australia (1960)
Snicker Smith
Anonymous said…
Spammy was my friend at Templemore Avenue school, and he sat next to me in "Pa or Mr Ewings class".and Sam's father being a barber cut my hair for a few pence, I moved to Australia (1960)
Snicker Smith
Curtis Porter said…
Sam Chapman,as we used to called him gave me and Neil Lewis multiple lifts from Wolverhampton to leciester to play in the leciester youth team.
I never made it but Neil did and played for leciesters first team against the likes of Giggs and Beckham.
Unfortunately Neil ruined his career with a incident involving a stabbing outside a leciester city night club.
But Sammy was a gentleman always RIP Big fella.