Keith Weller Remembered

KEITH WELLER City debut v Crystal Palace (H) 2/10/1971 A marvellously talented, sometimes temperamental individualist who lent £100,000 worth of forceful right-flank panache to Jimmy Bloomfield's elegant teams of the early - and mid - 70's, Keith could usually be relied upon to deliver a tellingly spectacular contribution to the most mundane of games. City fans were treated to regular displays of both his midfield and striking skills, while national television audiences also gasped at some of his exploits: a mazy Goal of the Season at Luton (and a long-range own goal on the same ground a year later!), a thunderbolt volley against Newcastle, and Keith's final City strike - when he dazzled Norwich defenders with both his footwork and his white tights - chief among them. He won four England caps (scoring once with a rare header) and once represented the Football League while with City, but suffered at club level as an influential component of a side of maddeningly under-achieving entertainers. His occasional frustrations peaked in the notorious incident when he refused to take the field for the second half of a League game with Ipswich in December 1974, and his last couple of Filbert Street seasons were marred by knee injuries that sadly cut short his top-class career, but memories of his cool brilliance and ball artistry predominate. He'd made his teenage Tottenham bow in a 7-4 win over Wolves, and faced City in the 1967 Combination Cup Final, but remained under-apprieciated until re-forming a deadly forward pairing with fellow Spurs reject Derek Possee at The Den. He featured in the Young England v England fixture in 1969, and that summer scored eleven times in eleven games for the FA XI touring New Zealand and the Far East. What remained his sole club honour came two years later, in Chelsea's capture of the European Cup Winners Cup. After first tasting NASL football on loan from City, Keith later settled in Stateside football for longer than most, moving into club management and coaching roles in both the conventional and indoor games, and forming an early-90's partnership with Joe Waters at Tacoma Stars. 

 retired in 1993, remaining in the Seattle area, driving an outside-broadcast rig for a local TV station and running a coffee-shop; but was noted again in 1995 coaching Sacramento Knights. Sadly pronounced too ill to attend City's 'Farewell to Filbert Street' celebrations in 2002, after developing a rare and virulent form of cancer, he was eventually forced to undertake alternative therapy in Mexico following the failure of conventional remedies, and most of the cost was raised through donations (via Alan Birchenall) by City fans. Keith's younger brother Phil (Philip H; b. Islington, Jan qtr 1956) was on City's books from 1973 to 1975.