Dave Wiggett
English footballer (1957-1978)

David Wiggett (25 May 1957 – 23 March 1978) was an English footballer who played for Lincoln City and Hartlepool United before losing his life in a car crash.
Wiggett, a left-back, began his career at Graham Taylor's Lincoln City, making his first-team debut in 1974. He made only a handful of appearances for the Imps, and joined Hartlepool in October 1976, where he made his debut in a Division Four match against Colchester United. During his 18-month spell at Hartlepool, Wiggett played 60 matches for the club, and scored one goal. On 23 March 1978 Wiggett was killed in a car crash. He was a passenger in a car driven by his Hartlepool teammate Bob Newton.[1][2]
Two days after the crash, a minute of silence was observed before Hartlepool's away match against arch-rivals Darlington. Allegedly, sections of the Darlington crowd chanted throughout the minute of silence, and what followed was a very bad-tempered match Hartlepool eventually won 2–1. Following the match, Hartlepool manager Billy Horner, himself a former Darlington player, called the offending Darlo fans "a disgrace to their club, their town, and the human race".
The public source identifies “Dave Wiggett” as english footballer (1957-1978). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dave, Wiggett and English.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5230101. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1978, 1974 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dave Wiggett” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.