YCX-Files: Reg Baines

Local boy Reg Baines was a pre-war goalscoring hero for York City after originally spending a brief time at the club during their non-league days in the mid-1920s.

Local boy Reg Baines was a pre-war goalscoring hero for York City after originally spending a brief time at the club during their non-league days in the mid-1920s. He made 19 appearances for them in the Midland League and netted seven times.

Spells then followed at Selby Town and Scarborough before a return to York in 1931. Baines immediately scored on his Football League debut for them at Carlisle and proceeded to set a new club record of 29 League goals – a feat he matched the following season. That record remained until 1951-52 when the great Billy Fenton struck 31.

Baines was soon transferred to Sheffield United for £500 in May 1933, and then helped Doncaster Rovers gain promotion to the Second Division two years later. But a third spell at Bootham Crescent followed for him as he returned for the start of the 1937-38 campaign. What happened next created legends at the club as York progressed all the way through to the FA Cup quarter-finals. Baines scored five goals during their run, including a wonderful hat-trick in a 3-2 fourth round triumph against First Division West Bromwich Albion at Bootham Crescent.

In total Baines recorded six League hat-tricks for York, an achievement later equalled by Alf Patrick, and his 93 goals in 140 appearances eventually left him as the seventh highest goalscorer in the club’s history. A traditional old-style bustling centre-forward, Baines was also a useful cricketer for Rowntrees, for whom he worked for more than 50 years. He died suddenly while on holiday abroad in 1974 at the age of 67.