He played on more than one occasion whilst aged only 16 for Maidstone in their 1962–63 Isthmian League campaign[3] but left the club at the end of that season.
[4] In 1963 he joined Gillingham and made his first team debut in the Football League Third Division in November 1964 and by January 1965 had established himself as a first-choice player.
[5] From October 1965 he started a sequence of what would have been 106 consecutive competitive games for the club had he not missed one match (in March 1967) owing to family reasons.
His appearances in the team were curtailed when he suffered a broken ankle in late October 1967;[6] he recovered to play the last two matches of the season during May 1968.
He could not settle overseas and returned within two months and in March 1973 and was signed by Tonbridge[16] for the final stage of their successful promotion push from that season's Southern League Division One South.