Tonbridge Angels Dream Team

I was recently asked to produce my Dream Team for the retro football magazine Backpass. It's a fun topic of conversation that has occupied many an hour on lengthy away trips and no two person's team are the same. Here was mine, as produced in the February 2026 edition.

My Dream Tonbridge Angels team? Having supported the club for 66 years, time itself presents a challenge. I wonder how many players have gone through the books in that time. Non-League football has traditionally had a turnover of players, so a rough guess of 30 a season ticks up nearly 2,000. How many have I forgotten, probably 1,800!

My Dad took me to the Angel Ground for the first time in 1959 to watch a former England international, Charlie “Cannonball” Fleming, who was playing, and scored, for Bath City.

My love for the club saw me through childhood into marriage with just a couple of County Cup successes to sustain it, before in 1980, they lost their toughest match against Tonbridge Urban District Council and were evicted from the Angel Ground.

The fight through the High Courts and liquidation in 1976, left me deciding to seek football elsewhere and, for many years, Gillingham took over as my principal interest, but my heart always remained with the Angels and as they found a new home at Longmead, I slowly returned to the club.

What exercises my choices? Head or heart? Through the misty eyes of the last Kent Senior Cup win in 1975, heart has probably won that battle and with that have chosen to employ relatively modern-day players into the old W formation.

TOMMY BICKERSTAFF The choice of goalkeeper was most definitely made with the heart. There have, undoubtedly been better keepers wear the Angels jersey but my first Angels hero was Tommy Bickerstaff, an amiable Scotsman, who had moved south in 1955 from Third Lanark and went on to make over 250 appearances for Tonbridge, a record for a goalkeeper that was only in recent years surpassed by Jonny Henly. Profile HERE as produced in Up There Cazaly

JOE CAROLAN I was a Manchester United supporter as a kid, so you can imagine my excitement as an 11-year-old when the former Busby Babe pitched up at the Angel Ground in 1962. Joe went on to serve Tonbridge for eight seasons before managing the club for just over a year. Joe was a left back, rather than right, but his versatility took him all over the pitch which allows me to choose a genuine left-footer on that side. Profile HERE on Page Four.

PETER LOVELL Ask any old-timer leaning on the perimeter fencing who they would select as left back and the name of Peter Lovell will inevitably be raised. Lovell made 470 appearances for the club from 1958. Once again, heart wins over the accomplished Danny Tingley, who only fell 20 or so appearances short of Lovell’s total ending in 2002.

D’SEAN THEOBALDS It seems an obligation that a member vow the 2019 Isthmian League play-off squad is included and that place goes to D’Sean, who capped off a great season with a memorable goal in the Super Play-off Final at Metropolitan Police to send the game into extra time and onwards to winning and promotion to National League South. D’Sean left to attempt to make it in the professional game, but sadly that didn’t quite work out.

JOHN KEIRS Thoughts drift back to 1975 and the Kent Senior Cup Final and the scorer of the opening at, and against, our greatest rivals Maidstone United, John arrived in 1973 from Charlton Athletic via a spell in South Africa and in two spells amassed over 350 appearances, scoring 70 goals from centre half. He later managed the club for three seasons. Profile HERE on Page Three

GEOFF TRUETT Geoff was a powerhouse of a half-back who joined the club in 1962 from Crystal Palace and went to to make 517 appearances, finding the net an astonishing 115 times. He took penalties in the old-fashioned way, laces through the ball and rarely missed. He represented the club until 1970 and helped Tonbridge gain promotion to the Southern League Premier Division in the 1963-64 season and triumph in the Kent Senior Cup the following year. He was a complete payer, a colossus for the club. Profile HERE on Page Six

GERRY FRANCIS Gerry was brilliantly covered in the summer edition of BACKPASS reproduced HERE from Page Three. Francis escaped the apartheid of South Africa, travelling to the United Kingdom in the mid-1950’s to become the first South African to play top flight football in England after joining Leeds United. Gerry arrived at Tonbridge in 1962 via York City and in the course of three seasons made 174 appearances, scoring 61 goals whilst delighting the Angel Ground with his fleet-footed skills. Gerry died in May 2025 at the age of 91 in Ontario, Canada. He was very much mourned at the present-day club as a significant figure in our history.

PHIL STONEBRIDGE If I have to pick an Angels’ GOAT then Phil would take my accolade as the club’s leading goalscorer. In 19786, having stayed loyal to the club after Tonbridge went into receivership, he left for local rivals Maidstone United before returning in 1981. Over his two spells, he made 442 appearances, scoring 133 times. Phil played anywhere on the pitch, even in goal once, and was a member of the 1975 team. Profile HERE on Page Five

JON MAIN Mainy arrived at Longmead in 2006 where he had drawn attention. The Angels’ manager at the time, Tony Dolby, said of him that he wasn’t one that loved football; wasn’t the best trainer, he just scored goals and in a two season spell he bagged 61 of them before leaving for a record fee paid by AFC Wimbledon where he formed a prolific partnership with another ex-Angel, Danny Kedwell. He returned to the Angels in 2011 after suffering a serious injury at Wimbledon and added another ten goals to his tally.

FRANNIE COLLIN So here we are, 14 years after Frannie left the club, we get a free-kick and somebody will inevitably say “Frannie territory”, such was the cultured left foot of one of, if not the most technically gifted player ever to wear an Angels shirt. In a three-year spell, Frannie rippled the net 75 times in 140 appearances and not many of them would be poacher’s goals. Profile HERE on Page Two

NICKY WHEELER Wheeler crosses, Elder scores was a familiar refrain for two seasons from 2015, which yielded 108 appearances for Nick before he moved on to the EFL and Dagenham and Redbridge. Always immaculately turned out, he would take a bit of stick that he would never have a hair out of place, but then he was a hairdresser. In 2015-16 he recorded 28 assists, while Nathan Elder scored 29 goals; the maths tell the story. Wheeler recently retired after serving Worthing and Dorking Wanderers to great effect.

SUBSTITUTES

SONNY MILES AND JOE TURNER Many Angels supporters, especially those with fewer years on the clock than myself, will question how the club’s leading appearance maker, Sonny Miles, who retired having played 527 times for a club in a career of 15 years in which he only spent one season away from Longmead, doesn’t make the team. Joe will also raise eyebrows with his exclusion, signed from Kingstonian he was the only player to win the Player of the Year accolade three times. He made 261 appearances, scored 67 goals, many of which were of the spectacular variety and, without doubt, would feature in many supporters’ Dream Team. But that was mine, borne of 66 years and counting!