One of the first players to come out of Tottenham's Northfleet nursery club, Bill Lane turned into a handy striker at White Hart Lane and all the other clubs he served.
After getting a grounding
with some local sides, Bill was spotted by Tottenham and
they put him out to Northfleet to get up to speed with
the senior game. When ready to be integrated into
the Tottenham set-up, he was recalled to the club in the
summer of 1924 and in the first few months of the
season, he was a regular first choice at centre forward.
In the 1924-25 FA Cup Second Round
at home to Bolton Wanderers, a powerful side in
football, the game ended 1-1 and Spurs were given little
chance in the replay, but with Lane promoted to the
first team for the match, he scored the only goal to
send Tottenham through.
However, after that then he slipped into the reserves and from there he
rarely was called upon to feature in the first eleven.
The writing was on the wall when Tottenham bought Frank Osborne, so in late 1926, Bill moved to Leicester City. At Filbert Street, he found the prolific goal-scorer Arthur Chandler blocking his path to the first team and moved on again ... and then kept moving.
His career took him to Walsall, Reading, Brentford, Watford, Bristol City, Clapton Orient and Gravesend, having scored goals at each club he stopped at along the way.
When he had finished playing, he started a managerial career as assistant manager at Brentford in 1938. Lane took the manager's job at Guildford in 1947 and stayed for three years before stepping up to a League club with Brighton, where he was boss for 10 years taking them to promotion to the Second Division. Bill had one more manager's post - at Gravesend and Northfleet to take his career almost full circle. his involvement in football ended with a couple of scouting posts at Arsenal and Brighton.
Bill Lane died in Chelmsford on 10th November 1985.