University education led to a prolific goalscoring reputation - read part two of Blackpool cult hero Dave Bamber's story

Dave Bamber’s route to becoming a professional footballer could best be described as unconventional.

The location of his childhood home could have ended his footballing career before it had begun, while rejection from his boyhood club – Liverpool – as a teenager could have led to him being lost to the professional game for good.

As it transpired, he furthered his education, studying for an economics degree at university; but ultimately his skills with a ball at his feet could not be ignored.

An opportunity arose with Blackpool at the age of 20 and the rest, as they say, is history.

Bamber went on to enjoy a 15-year goal-laden playing career spanning all four divisions of the Football League.

He featured for nine different clubs but his name is synonymous with the Tangerines.

Now aged 66, Bamber is viewed as a cult hero on the Fylde coast after scoring more than a century of goals for the Seasiders across two spells. However, it could all have been so very different.

A child born and raised in the Merseyside town of Prescot – just a few miles west of St Helens, a town which boasts one of the biggest rugby league clubs in the country, if not the world – the former Blackpool striker was literally ‘a back garden away’ from being in the radius of attending a predominantly rugby-playing school.

Fortunately, he won a place at the town’s football-leaning Grammar School

It appeared clear from a very young age that a career in football awaited him.

And such was his ability, the mighty Liverpool – who at that time in the 1970s were becoming the best club side in England and arguably Europe – courted him.

Bamber told the Gazette: “I was born just outside St Helens and literally if I had lived on the other side of my back garden, I would have gone to a school in St Helens which would have been a rugby school.

“I always prayed when I was at junior school that I would go to a senior school which played football.

“As it was back then, Prescot Grammar was a big football school and we played all the Liverpool schools.

“I played against Sammy Lee and John Aldridge, who both went on to play for Liverpool.

“I played for Huyton Boys which is where Steven Gerrard is from, and then I played for Merseyside – the county team. We played the nationals – and got through to the final which was held at Anfield.

“I was at Liverpool as a kid for three years, going down training every Tuesday and Thursday and playing in the A-team, B-team and youth team.”

Rubbing shoulders with some of the greats of the game such as Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness was a regular occurrence for Bamber.

“It was unreal,” he added. “I would go down during the school holidays.

"I would get on a bus to St Helens, a train to Lime Street Station, a bus to Anfield where we would get changed and then you would get on a coach to training.

“You could be sitting next to someone like Kenny Dalglish – it was unbelievable.

“At the time, you don’t realise how privileged you were, it was just something that I did.”

But ultimately, while Lee was offered terms with the Reds, Bamber failed to win an apprenticeship at Anfield and subsequently sought to further his education at Leicester University where he studied economics.

Away from the classroom, Bamber continued to excel on the football field at university – catching the attention once again of potential suitors.

“It was an unusual route into the professional game, going to university,” Bamber added. “ There were not many.

“There was Steve Heighway, who played for Liverpool, Lawrie Sanchez – I was at Leicester at the same time as he was 10 miles up the road at Loughborough. He went onto play for Wimbledon.”

It was the Tangerines who won the race for Bamber’s signature but not before Liverpool pulled at his heartstrings in a last-ditch attempt to sign him.

He added: “Liverpool said they had been tracking me and once I had finished university, they wanted to sign me on a six-month contract.

“The thing was it was only a six-month contract and I just thought, ‘What if I got injured?’ Blackpool had offered me a three-year deal.

“I always thought that if I was good enough, I would be able to play for Liverpool after, which was a pretty naive way of looking at it.

“Blackpool had offered me a car and I just decided to go with the three-year deal.

“I think if Liverpool had offered me a year or two years, I would have signed for them.”

The Reds’ loss was certainly the Seasiders’ gain as Bamber took to the professional game like a duck to water.

A cultured target man, he quickly became a firm favourite on the terraces in his first stint at Bloomfield Road, playing under England World Cup winner, the late Alan Ball, and then Allan Brown and Sam Ellis.

He is ranked in the top 10 of the club’s all-time goalscorers’ list with 110 strikes across his two spells with the Tangerines.

“I was your typical centre-forward,” said Bamber. “I was good in the air and scored goals. I did play different roles but I was mainly a target man, goalscorer, although I used to think I was quite skilful for a big centre forward. I could take players on but the injuries accumulated so I adapted my game.

“So instead of being a good team player, making good runs like I did in my first spell at Blackpool, I concentrated on just being a goalscorer in my second spell.”

Read the third and final part of the Dave Bamber story – in the Gazette