Locally born striker Roger Gibbins had Spurs in his blood, as his father was Eddie Gibbins, the former Spurs centre half in the early 1950s and went on to work in the club's office.
Roger was born in Enfield and attended George
Spicer Primary School and Ambrose Fleming Secondary
School in the borough, with his talent seeing him play
for Enfield, Middlesex and London Boys, where he usually
played in the forward line or in midfield.
Became an apprentice professional at Tottenham in May
1971 and was signed as a full professional in December
1972.
While a prolific scorer in the youth teams and the reserves, Roger never made the breakthrough into the first team at White Hart Lane. He did taste success in the FA Youth Cup win of 1973, but had a loan spell at Bath City before he moved on to Oxford United to get first team football.
A season later, he was at Carrow Road signing on for Norwich City and two years with the Canaries was followed by a spell in America playing for the New England Team Men. His return to England saw him join Cambridge United, where he played 100 games before moving on again, this time to Cardiff City where he had a successful career. In his first season there Gibbins helped the club gain promotion.
His next move, after three years at Ninian Park, was to Swansea City in a swap deal that took Chris Marustik to Cardiff. Unfortunately, it was a transfer that took him to the Swans at a time when they were falling down the league ladder and his stay was only for the one season, before he moved to another Welsh league club in Newport County. It was like moving from the frying pan to the fire, as Newport were in more dire financial straits than Swansea and went down a division at the end of the season being relegated on their position and not monetary terms. This meant a lot of players had to leave, as the club could not afford them on their books, but Roger stayed for another season, leaving before the transfer window closed in March 1988. Newport were about to be relegated and he swapped this situation for one near the top of the league, but Torquay United failed to go up via the play-offs, so halfway through the 1989-90 season he returned to Newport, with a fee of £10,000 paid now the club had come into some money playing in the Conference. But it couldn't last and the club did not see out the season, their fate sealed by too many high out-goings and their record wiped off the books.
In March 1989, Gibbins returned to another of his former clubs - Cardiff - to enjoy a four year spell as a player before moving onto the coaching staff. He also turned out for Cwmbran Town for four years and then for Weston-Super-Mare, where he was player-coach. Before that post, he had been assistant manager to Colin Addison at Merthyr Tydfil and later went on to manage Merthyr and Cwmbran.
He had left the post as Merthyr manager as he had been working for the Professional Footballer's Association as an education officer and when the job was turned into a full time one, he did not want to give up his work with the player's union.
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