fullname years clubs caps goals birth_place position birth_date article_title name
leonard edward wills 1949 -- 1962 arsenal 195 4 hackney , london , england right back 8 november 1927 len wills
 len wills
len wills

leonard edward `` len '' wills -lrb- born 8 november 1927 -rrb- is an english former football player .
born in hackney , london , wills first played for the youth teams of non-league eton manor , before being signed by arsenal in october 1949 .
for the next four years he played in the gunners ' reserve team , playing either at right half or right back .
in october 1953 , arsenal 's regular right back , joe wade , damaged his knee , and wills promptly stepped up to replace him , making his debut against tottenham hotspur on 10 october 1953 -- arsenal won 4-1 .
wills played so well that he replaced wade for the rest of that season , playing 30 matches , and another 24 in 1954-55 .
however , the gunners signed stan charlton in november 1955 and he displaced wills out of the arsenal first team .
wills became a bit-part player for the next couple of seasons , deputising for charlton at right back or dennis evans at left back .
after charlton left the club in 1958 , wills regained the right back position , and became a regular in the side for the next three seasons , but by 1961 his age was starting to count against him .
youngsters dave bacuzzi and eddie magill shared the right-back spot during 1961-62 , with wills not getting a single game .
he left the club on a free transfer at the end of that season , signing for romford .
in all he played 208 games for arsenal , scoring 4 goals .
he never won a major trophy at arsenal -lrb- arriving in the first team just after the gunners ' 1952-53 title triumph -rrb- , although he did play in the gunners ' 1953-54 charity shield win over blackpool .
after retiring from playing , wills left the game completely and had a highly successful second career in the diy retail trade .
