Derek Saunders is a retired English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 footballer

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 who played most notably for Chelsea

Chelsea F.C.

Chelsea Football Club are an English football club based in West London. Founded in 1905, they play in the Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football. Chelsea have been English champions four times, FA Cup winners six times and League Cup winners four...

 during the 1950s.

Born in Ware, Saunders played primarily as a wing-half and started his career with amateur

Amateur

An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....

 side Walthamstow Avenue

Walthamstow Avenue F.C.

Walthamstow Avenue Football Club was an English football club based in Walthamstow in London. They played in dark and light blue hooped shirts, and light blue shorts.-History:...

, who he captained in their 1952 FA Amateur Cup

FA Amateur Cup

The FA Amateur Cup was an English football competition for amateur clubs. It commenced in 1893 and ended in 1974 when The Football Association abolished official amateur status.-History:...

 Final win. He joined Chelsea in June 1953 and immediately turned professional

Professional

A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...

, making his club debut against Sheffield United

Sheffield United F.C.

Sheffield United Football Club is a professional English football club based in the city of Sheffield, South Yorkshire.They were the first sporting team to use the name 'United' and are nicknamed 'The Blades', thanks to Sheffield's worldwide reputation for steel production...

.

Saunders' most significant contribution to Chelsea was to be a member of their 1954-55

1954-55 in English football

The 1954–1955 season was the 75th season of competitive football in England, from August 1954 to May 1955:-Overview:* Chelsea win the League Championship for the first time.* Newcastle United win the FA Cup....

 Championship

Football League First Division

The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....

-winning team. He was one of only two players to play in every game that season. Saunders' position meant that he rarely scored goals, but he scored a crucial one against West Bromwich Albion

West Bromwich Albion F.C.

West Bromwich Albion Football Club, also known as West Brom, The Baggies, The Throstles, Albion or WBA, are an English Premier League association football club based in West Bromwich in the West Midlands...

 to put Chelsea 3-2 ahead after they had trailed 0-2; they eventually won 4-2.

He stayed with Chelsea for a further four seasons, though they were unable to repeat their title success. He featured in the first Chelsea side to play in a Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an competition, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup 1958-60

The second Inter-Cities Fairs Cup took place between 1958 and 1960 and was won by Barcelona for the second consecutive time in a two-legged final against Birmingham City. Once again, a number of countries sent a representative team for one of their main cities, although London sent Chelsea instead...

 in 1958. A year earlier, he had played for the representative London XI

London XI

The London XI was an association football representative team, specially created to take part in the 1955-58 edition of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the precursor of today's UEFA Europa League although not recognized by UEFA....

 side in the same competition. He made 223 appearances for Chelsea, and scored nine goals. Upon leaving the club in 1959, Saunders became the Head Groundsman at Vincent Square, the central London playing fields for Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

.