Fred Speller
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Frederick John Speller | ||
| Date of birth | 1863 | ||
| Place of birth | Wooburn, Buckinghamshire | ||
| Date of death | 17 August 1909 (aged 45–46) | ||
| Place of death | Winson Green, Birmingham | ||
| Playing position | Full back | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| Great Marlow | |||
| 1888–1894 | Small Heath | 75 | (0) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. | |||
Frederick John Speller (1863 – 17 August 1909) was an English professional footballer who played as a full back. He played for hometown club Great Marlow before signing for Small Heath. He made 93 appearances in the FA Cup, Football Alliance and the Football League for the club in its early days. His career was ended prematurely when he broke his leg in a match against Darwen in 1892, the season when Small Heath won the inaugural Second Division championship. Although he played a couple of league games a year later, he retired from the game in 1894. After a sudden breakdown, he died in an asylum in 1909, when he was remembered as "one of the strongest backs who ever represented the allied counties of Berks and Bucks."
Speller was born in Wooburn near Marlow, Buckinghamshire, and played football as an amateur for his hometown club, Great Marlow. He appeared in the semi-final of the 1881–82 FA Cup as Marlow suffered a heavy defeat to eventual winners Old Etonians – Bell's Life in London's reporter thought the backs "hardly up to the mark" – and helped the club to victories in the 1885 and 1886 Berks and Bucks Challenge Cup. He was a regular selection in the Berks and Bucks Football Association representative eleven to play against other associations. Among his numerous appearances for that team, he featured in the annual fixture against the Sheffield Association in 1883, as one of four players described by the York Herald as "perhaps ... the pick of the Southerners", in 1885, where the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent noted that the crossing by the Sheffield wings "gave Field and Speller any amount of work, but they were equal to the occasion, and by ponderous kicking they relieved the pressure", and 1887.
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