Over the years a number of players have turned out for both Aldershot and Torquay United including former United keeper Phil Joslin, who appeared for the Shots alongside some of the greats of the game during the Second World War.
Although the outbreak of the war meant that league football was suspended in 1939, organised football continued on a regional basis and Joslin, who served in the Royal Engineers and saw action at Normandy, guested for a number of clubs.
Before the war he had made 135 appearances for Torquay United after joining the Magpies,as United were then known, from his hometown club Kingsteignton Athletic in 1936, and was even tipped as a future England international.
However, like many players of his generation, the outbreak of war interrupted his career but the Wartime League that was established in the wake of the suspension of the Football League meant that he could continue to play. Owing to the fact that many players who were serving the military were often stationed in different parts of the country and, in some cases, even overseas (Sir Tom Finney famously served in General Montgomery’s Eighth Army in Egypt), a number of them appeared as guest players for a variety of clubs.
Being based in London whilst on active service, Joslin turned out for a number of different sides including Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Fulham, Crystal Palace and Aldershot.
Whilst Arsenal were able to call established internationals who had played for them in peace time, including Ted Drake and Denis Compton, Aldershot’s status as a garrison town meant they were often able to call upon players who they could have only previously dreamed of signing. Between 1939 and 1945, the likes of Frank Swift, Tommy Lawton, Denis Compton, Cliff Britton, Stan Cullis and Joe Mercer all featured for the Shots in the Wartime League.
Joslin appeared alongside Cullis at Fulham and kept goal for an Aldershot side that included Lawton and Mercer. Cullis had won the FA Cup with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1939 – just before the outbreak of hostilities – while Lawton and Mercer had won the league with Everton in the 1938-39 season. After the war, Cullis and Mercer would both win the league title as managers; Cullis with Wolves in the 1953-54, 1957-58 and 1958-59 campaigns and Mercer with Manchester City in the 1967-68 season, Mercer also won the FA Cup and European Cup Winners’ Cup with City in the 1969 and 1970 respectively and had a caretaker spell as England manager between the reigns of Sir Alf Ramsey and Don Revie.
In the two appearances that Joslin made for the Shots – who were captained by Mercer, who had also captained in many of the 26 wartime internationals he played for England – they faced Crystal Palace on both occasions - in 1943 and 1945. Their first meeting saw Palace win 5-2 and in their second encounter on March 23, 1945 they triumphed 3-1.
Once league football resumed in the 1946-47 season, Joslin returned to Plainmoor and spent two further campaigns with United before joining Cardiff City in 1948. In his first season with the Bluebirds he kept 15 clean sheets in 38 appearances, which included four in successive matches on two occasions. He was a virtual ever present for the Bluebirds for three seasons until he sustained a broken leg in a public trial match following a collision with striker Wilf Grant on the eve of the 1951-52 campaign. After he retired, he stayed in Cardiff and ran one of the city’s most popular pubs – the Three Arches until his death in 1981.
In 1998, the Herald Express ran a poll to find the club's greatest ever XI and Joslin was voted in as the team's goalkeeper.
Footnote: In 2020, former Gulls loanee Kieffer Moore, who has also been capped by Wales, joined Cardiff City and emulated Phil Joslin by becoming the only other player to have appeared in the South Devon League (Joslin played for Kingsteignton Athletic and Moore turned out for Paignton Saints) and played for Torquay United and Cardiff City.
