Les Smith (footballer, born 1927)
British association football player (1927-2008)
Leslie Joseph Smith (24 December 1927 – 8 March 2008) was an English footballer who represented both Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa.
Smith began his professional career with Wolves, making his senior debut in April 1947. He was part of the squad that won the league title in 1953–54, although managing only four appearances during the campaign.
He played in the famous Wolves v Honved game, under the first floodlights in England. Where wolves turned around a 2–0 half time score to win 3–2 against the team, which included the great's Puskas and Yashin.
He became a regular starter in the following season, replacing the injured Jimmy Mullen as the club finished as runners-up. However, he found himself largely out of contention upon Mullen's return and so moved to Aston Villa in February 1956 for £25,000.
Smith played for Aston Villa in the 1957 FA Cup Final against Manchester United's Busby Babes, where Villa won the game 2–1 to lift the cup. However his career was cut short after an achilles injury forced him into retirement in 1960. In total, he made 130 appearances, scoring 27 goals for Villa.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Les Smith (footballer, born 1927)” is british association football player (1927-2008). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Smith, footballer and born, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “british association football player (1927-2008)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6529990. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 2008, 1947 and 1953.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Les Smith (footballer, born 1927)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Les Smith (footballer, born 1927) primary sources, Les Smith (footballer, born 1927) archive and Smith research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Les Smith (footballer, born 1927)”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Les Smith (footballer, born 1927)” 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.