Tommy Benfield


Thomas Charles Benfield was an English professional footballer who played in the Football League for Leicester Fosse and Derby County as a forward.

Career

An outside right and inside forward, Benfield played for local Leicester clubs before Second Division Leicester Fosse bought him out of the Army for £25 in July 1910. Over the course of the following four seasons he made 111 appearances, scored 23 goals and was notable for scoring the first goal scored at Arsenal Stadium on 6 September 1913.
Benfield moved to local newly relegated Second Division rivals Derby County in June 1914 and had an excellent 1914–15 [Football League Second Division|1914–15] season, scoring 15 goals and helping the Rams to immediate promotion back to the First Division. The Association football during [World War I|suspension of competitive football] at the end of the 1914–15 season brought Benfield's professional career to an end, but he remained with the club and played his final wartime match on 16 March 1918. He also guested for Nottingham Forest and Grimsby Town during the war.

Personal life

Prior to becoming a professional footballer, Benfield served in the Sherwood Foresters between 1905 and 1910. As of 1914, he was living in Leicester with his wife Elsie. After the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Benfield enlisted in the Leicestershire Regiment and was serving as a sergeant when he was shot by a sniper in the area of Équancourt and Heudicourt, Somme on 11 September 1918, during the Hundred Days Offensive. He died of his wounds following an operation on 19 September, just under two months before the Armistice of [11 November 1918|Armistice]. Benfield was buried in Varennes Military Cemetery. As of November 2012, Ben Swift, Benfield's great-grand-nephew, was an employee of Leicester City.

Honours

Derby County