Coventry City fans who remember Ronnie Rees from the 1960s will be saddened to learn of his death. Jimmy Hill threw Ronnie into the first team at the age of 18, and he was an instant success. He was a key member of the Third Division and Second Division championship teams in 1964 and 1967, respectively. Growing up in an era when wingers were popular, Ronnie possessed all of the characteristics of a top-tier winger. He was lightning fast, had a crazy dribble, a great cross, and a vicious shot.The Welsh wing wizard was one of the fans’ favorite players during the JH era, appearing in 262 games for the Sky Blues, ranking him 25th all-time in appearances. He also had a keen eye for goal, scoring 52 goals in 5 12 seasons at Highfield Road, ranking 16th all-time in the club’s history and making him the club’s highest scoring winger.
Ronnie grew up in Ystradgynlais, a small Welsh town about 15 miles north of Swansea. He was spotted playing for Merthyr Boys before joining Coventry City as an apprentice, sweeping the terraces, cleaning the first team’s boots, and playing for the ‘A’ or ‘B’ team on Saturdays. He was a member of the same youth team as Bobby Gould and Dietmar Bruck, but their Youth Cup campaign in 1961-62 came to a halt with a 9-1 defeat to Aston Villa’s under 18s, with a certain Ralph Brown scoring seven goals.
He had played 26 reserve games, scoring three goals, primarily on the right wing, by the end of the 1961-62 season, but was not considered close to the first team. During the 1962 season, newly appointed manager Jimmy Hill signed a completely new forward line, which included Willie Humphries, Hubert Barr, Terry Bly, Jimmy Whitehouse, and Bobby Laverick. Despite being awarded a professional contract, Ronnie’s chances of making the first team appeared slim at the time.
Except for former Everton and Brighton forward Laverick, all five new forwards started well. JH dropped Laverick in favor of Roy Dwight after only four games, but he was still unhappy with the left wing position. Ronnie was called up to the first team for a home Division Three game against Shrewsbury on September 15, 1962. In front of 14,000 Ronnie didn’t disappoint as Nemo in the Coventry Telegraph reported: ‘Rees revealed a refreshing directness that should have acted as a stimulant to his colleagues’. The game ended in a tie.
He kept his place three days later as the Sky Blues defeated Bradford Park Avenue 3-1, and his performance impressed Nemo: ‘He beats his man often like a veteran, has poise on the ball, and it is a rare occurrence for a pass to go astray. He has a tendency to shoot on sight from the start’. Rees was here to stay, and he scored his first goal in his fifth game, a 3-2 League Cup win over Second Division Swansea, the club whose net he had slipped through. Perhaps he was out to prove Swansea wrong, but he was City’s star man, hitting a 25-yard ‘dipping’ shot that crept inside an upright.
He was described as ‘irrepressible and unlucky not to score a second goal near the end’ by Nemo.
A bout of gastroenteritis kept him out for a few games, but he returned on 10 November in a 3-0 win over Wrexham and was an ever-present for the rest of the season. In fact, he was not on the losing side until the end of March, when Manchester United ended City’s incredible FA Cup run. Within three months of his City debut, he earned his first of seven Wales under 23 caps, scoring twice in a 5-1 win over Northern Ireland in February 1963.
The fixture backlog caused by the Cup exploits and the harsh winter meant that City missed out on promotion, but the team won the division a year later. Only Ronnie and captain George Curtis were present, and his 15 goals were only surpassed by George Hudson and Ken Hale. Ronnie’s highlight was a hat-trick in an 8-1 thrashing of Shrewsbury Town at Highfield Road.
Ronnie adapted quickly to Second Division football, missing only one game in 1964-65 while scoring nine goals and earning his first full cap for his country, a 3-2 win over Scotland in Cardiff. Ronnie was impressive, setting up two goals for Ken Leek and keeping his place for seven more internationals that season, including a trip to Wembley to face England and World Cup qualifiers in Florence and Moscow, rubbing shoulders with Welsh legends such as John Charles, Ivor Allchurch, and Cliff Jones. City’s season was one of consolidation, with the team finishing tenth, but 1965-66 saw a serious promotion challenge, with Ronnie at the helm.Willie Humphries was assigned to the left wing, and versatile Ronnie was moved to the right wing to make room for Dave Clements in the number 11 jersey. Ronnie missed only one game and scored nine goals while also earning eight caps for Wales, including two against Brazil during an end-of-season tour of South America. Ronnie faced stars such as Garrincha, Gerson, and Tostao as Brazil prepared for the 1966 World Cup.
The Sky Blues missed out on promotion by one point in 1965-66, but after signing Ian Gibson, they were among the favorites for the following season. Although the team stumbled in the autumn, by December things were buzzing again in the city, and Rees and Gibson were developing a great partnership. Wolves were defeated 3-1 at Molineux, with Ronnie scoring one of his five goals that season, and promotion was looking increasingly likely by March. For the first time that month, the BBC Match of the Day cameras came to Highfield Road, and Ronnie wowed the armchair fans by scoring City’s goal in a 1-1 draw.The goal, which can be seen on YouTube, shows Ronnie picking up the ball in his own half before embarking on a mad dash past several Bolton defenders to the left edge of the penalty area. Bobby Gould is unmarked eight yards out after his pinpoint cross, and the centre-forward finishes with ease. Just over a month later, the Sky Blues faced Wolves again in what JH dubbed “The Midlands Match of the Century.” City came from behind to win 3-1 in front of 51,452 fans, and Ronnie scored the third goal – a typical Rees goal, a low ground shot with pace that left the Wolves ‘keeper clutching at air.Ronnie’s best goal in a Coventry shirt came at the end of the season in a testimonial game against Liverpool, when his twenty-five yard thunderbolt brought the house down.
Promotion to a higher division was no problem for the Welsh winger, who scored seven goals in his first twelve Premier League games, including braces against West Brom and Tottenham. He terrorized full-backs as he had for the previous five years, and Derek Henderson said after a 2-2 draw with Sunderland in October that ‘the elegantly-moving Ron Rees – playing better now than at any time in his career – looked capable of making Sunderland bite the dust’. Ronnie’s form began to deteriorate as City struggled in their first season in the First Division, and in January 1968, new manager Noel Cantwell dropped him for the first time in his career.He was recalled and scored his final goal for City in a 1-1 home FA Cup tie with Tranmere Rovers. Three weeks later, on transfer deadline day, he was heading to West Brom in a £70,000 deal, with the proceeds of his sale funding the acquisitions of Chris Cattlin and Ernie Hunt. He admitted to being unsettled for some time, but his remark ‘I suppose a change could do me good’ suggests that he may not have wanted to leave. Two days later, City shocked Manchester United 2-0, and Ronnie was quickly forgotten as City edged closer to safety.
Everton won 6-2 on Ronnie’s debut at the Hawthorns, but the Baggies avenged themselves six weeks later by winning the FA Cup final at Wembley. Rees, who was Cup-bound, could only watch his teammates celebrate. Ronnie only stayed at the Hawthorns for a year, but he scored 12 goals in a high-scoring side, including one in Albion’s 4-2 defeat at Highfield Road. The City Ground in Nottingham was next on the list, and he played 101 times for First Division Forest before dropping to Division Three with Swansea at the age of 27 in 1972.His 39th and final Welsh cap came in 1971 (21 as a Coventry player), but his form dipped and he was released in 1975, playing non-league football for Merthyr Tydfil, Haverfordwest, and Bishopton. He continued to live in the area after leaving Swansea, working at Ford’s Swansea factory and later as an administrator at Cardiff City until he suffered a severe stroke at the age of 51. Despite being a member of the Former Players Association, he was never well enough to attend a Legends Day and spent his final years in a nursing home. My condolences to his widow, June, who was born in Coventry, and his family.
His funeral will be held at 2.30pm on Friday, November 17th at the Morriston Crematorium in Swansea.
