McAdam: David Frederick (David)

1948-1950 (Player Details)

Half Back

Born: Hereford: 03-04-1923

Debut: v Tottenham Hotspur (a): 13-09-1948

5’9 1/2” 10st 4lb (1949)

He attended Abingdon Council School, Berkshire, and went into the Army in 1941, serving with the First Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment in India Burma and the North-West Frontier. He played at battalion level and on demob in September 1946 worked at the Branston Ordinance Depot, near Burton-on-Trent. He joined Stapenhill W.M.C, and McAdam was plucked from Non-League football by Major Buckley and enjoyed a brief spell with Leeds. Within months he was in the first team, when Con Martin moved to Aston Villa and played twenty consecutive games in the wing-half positions, but after Ray Iggleden had been swapped for Ken Chisholm and Eddie McMorran had also been drafted in, Tommy Burden moved back from inside forward to the wing half spot and he lost his first-team place. He stood in for the injured Jim McCabe early in the 1949-50 season but was again in the reserves on the Irishman’s return to fitness. He consequently moved to Wrexham in May 1950. After ten games in one year there, he spent ten years at Burton Albion before joining Matlock Town for four years, coincidently teaming up with a former adversary for a wing half berth at Elland Road, Jim Bullions, by then thirty-four, who captained the reserve team from that position with McAdam, aged thirty-two, at right back. He helped to run the reserves before returning to Stapenhill.