Geoffrey Reginald William Bradford (18 July 1927 – 30 December 1994) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 professional footballer who spent his entire career at Bristol Rovers

Bristol Rovers F.C.

Bristol Rovers Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Bristol, that competes in Football League Two. The team plays its home matches at the Memorial Stadium, in the Horfield area of the city....

 and won one international cap for England

England national football team

The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

.

Bradford was discovered by Rovers at the age of 18, playing for local side Soundwell

Soundwell F.C.

Soundwell Football Club was an association football club who played in Soundwell, near Bristol. The club is now defunuct, but competed in the Western League and the FA Cup in the 1940s and 1950s....

, and made his debut in a Football League Third Division South

Football League Third Division South

The Football League Third Division South was a level of English professional football which ran in parallel to Third Division North from 1921 to 1958....

 game against Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace F.C.

Crystal Palace Football Club are an English Football league club based in South Norwood, London. The team plays its home matches at Selhurst Park, where they have been based since 1924. The club currently competes in the second tier of English Football, The Championship.Crystal Palace was formed in...

 on 24 September 1949. It was a low-key debut in a 1–0 defeat.

Nicknamed 'Rip', after Rip Van Winkle

Rip Van Winkle

"Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving published in 1819, as well as the name of the story's fictional protagonist. Written while Irving was living in Birmingham, England, it was part of a collection entitled The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon...

, by teammates because he was known for sleeping before games, Bradford was fiercely loyal to Bristol Rovers, even turning down an offer from manager Bill Shankly

Bill Shankly

William "Bill" Shankly, OBE was a Scottish football player and manager, most noted for managing Liverpool between 1959 and 1974. One of Britain's most successful and respected football managers, Shankly was also a fine player whose career was interrupted by the Second World War...

 to take him to Liverpool

Liverpool F.C.

Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...

 in 1961.

The highlight of his career came on 2 October 1955 when he made his first and only appearance for England. He lined up alongside such greats as Billy Wright, Jackie Milburn

Jackie Milburn

John Edward Thompson 'Jackie' Milburn, , also known to fans as Wor Jackie and 'the first World Wor' in reference to his global fame, was a football player for Newcastle United and England...

, Nat Lofthouse

Nat Lofthouse

Nathaniel "Nat" Lofthouse, OBE was an English professional footballer who played for Bolton Wanderers for his whole career...

 and Tom Finney

Tom Finney

Sir Thomas Finney, OBE is a former English footballer, famous for his loyalty to his league club, Preston North End, and for his performances in the English national side....

 in a friendly match against Denmark

Denmark national football team

The Denmark national football team represents Denmark in association football and is controlled by the Danish Football Association , the governing body for the football clubs which are organized under DBU...

 in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 and scored the fifth goal in a 5–1 victory. The other goals were scored by Lofthouse (2) and Don Revie

Don Revie

Donald George 'Don' Revie, OBE, , was an English footballer who played for Leicester City, Hull City, Sunderland, Manchester City and Leeds United as a deep-lying centre forward. After managing Leeds United he managed England from 1974 until 1977...

 (2), with Knud Lundberg

Knud Lundberg

Knud Lundberg was a Danish multi-talented sportsperson, who most notably won a bronze medal with the Denmark national football team at the 1948 Summer Olympics. He represented the Danish national team in football , team handball and basketball, and he won the Danish national championship in all...

 scoring Denmark's only goal.

Geoff Bradford is the most successful player in the history of Bristol Rovers, and still holds the club records for most goals scored in a season (33) and most career league goals (242). Over the course of his 15-year career with Rovers he played a total of 626 competitive matches, including 14 representative matches, 10 Western League

Western Football League

The Western Football League is a football league in the south west of England, covering Bristol, Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, western Dorset, parts of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire and parts of South Wales...

 games and 73 reserve team

Reserve team

Large professional sports clubs often have far more players under contract than could possibly play in a match. As a result, many of these clubs create second teams composed of players who need playing time, but have little hope of playing on the first team. The players on this second team are...

 games, scoring a total of 355 goals, which included 24 hat-trick

Hat-trick

A hat-trick or hat trick in sport is the achievement of a positive feat three times during a game, or other achievements based on threes. The term was first used in 1858 in cricket to describe HH Stephenson's feat of taking three wickets in three balls. A collection was held for Stephenson, and he...

s and goals in 15 consecutive seasons. He also played in every outfield position for the club, and remains the only player to represent England while on the books of Bristol Rovers.

He continued to live in Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

for the rest of his life, working as a petrol tanker driver after his retirement from the game in 1964.

He died in Bristol on 30 December 1994.