George Crick’s roots were planted very much in Desborough soil, his grandfather had been the innkeeper of the King’s Arms in the High St and George’s father, John worked in the Desborough shoe factories which is where George found himself having left Desborough Board School. In 1911 he was a finisher and by 1915 had become a highly-skilled edge trimmer.

Football-wise, he had graduated to Market Harborough by 1914 having spent a year playing for Northampton Town Reserves and he and another Harborough player, Harry Hall were spotted by a Southampton scout. Arriving in Southampton in May 1914 he took lodgings at 27 Silverdale Rd. Essentially a right-half, his ability to play at right-back or centre-half enabled him to make nine Southern League appearances in the second half of the 1914-15 season. Mild-mannered off the pitch, George was not afraid of the physical side of the game. When competitive football was abandoned in the summer of 1915, Crick soon joined his “home” regiment, the 4th Battalion Northants. He later transferred to the Machine Gun Corps (nicknamed “The Suicide Squad”) as a gunner and after going to France was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry during the Second Battle of the Marne.

In March 1919, George returned to his parents house in Desborough and resumed his job as a shoe edge cutter and joined Kettering then in the Southern Alliance, in time for the 1919-20 season. In 1922 he signed a professional contract with them (£1 a week, rising to £1 10s if he played in the first XI.

He moved on to Desborough in time for the 1923-24 season and stayed there (see above) until 1932 when old age finally caught up with him. In 1930 he had purchased a plot of land opposite the ground, where he had a house built which he lived in for the rest of his life, having married the same year. He was often seen at home games and also coached the local YMCA U16s when they won the Kettering Minor League in 1949. His wife died in 1967, but even though he was crippled with arthritis he continued to live alone until the last few years of his life when he moved into Northam House, a residential home one street away from Kettering’s ground. His memory lingers on however as the Military Medal is still proudly displayed by his family (see scrapbook).