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Paul Marriott
Born: 01/04/1958 ,
,

Centre half Paul Marriott joined St Albans City in February 1979 from North Herts County League side Whitwell. The Welwyn Garden City-born 20-year-old wanted to continue playing for Whitwell on Saturday’s rather than fully commit to playing for Maurice Walby’s Saints, consequently, he was available purely for midweek matches.

This led to him playing just two games before the 1978-79 Isthmian League Division One season came to a close. His sole league appearance that season came during a 3-0 defeat to Harwich & Parkeston at the Royal Oak Ground in Essex. Paul also featured in one cup in March 1979; a 4-0 win at Clarence Park over South Midlands League Premier Division side Royston Town in the Herts Senior Cup 3rd Round.

He returned to Whitwell at the end of the season but rejoined City under Ron Duke at the start of 1981 with his return coming during a 3-2 home Isthmian League win over Farnborough Town on 10th January. The win over Farnborough left City in seventh place but with plenty of games in hand on most of the sides above them; a situation caused by the Saints excellent run to the 2nd Round of the F.A. Cup that had only ended in 2nd Round Replay defeat at Torquay United in mid-December.

City won three of our first four league games with Paul back in the side only for a run of three defeats in four games to leave Duke’s side with too much of a mountain to climb. We saw the season out in fifth place, some 19 points adrift of champions Bishop’s Stortford, Duke’s previous club.

Injury forced Paul to miss City’s opening five Isthmian League fixtures for the 1981-82 season. By the time that he was fit the dye had been cast and a season of high expectations was already going awry with a mixed bag of results. Strangely, he did feature in a run of five straight wins but four were cup ties and the games were spread over more than four months as injuries again disrupted his season.

Marriott featured in six of our seven F.A. Trophy ties that season as we reached the 2nd Round Proper having started with a Preliminary Round victory over Lowestoft Town at the Park. Scarborough, of the Alliance Premier League (later the Football Conference and National League) ended the run with a 1-0 win at Clarence Park.

He marked his return to the side on 2nd January by notching his first goal for the club during a 3-0 win over Highfield in the London Senior Cup. It sparked a run of three goals in four games, with the other two coming in the F.A. Trophy and Herts Senior Cup against Enderby Town and Watford respectively.
A disappointing league campaign ended on a high with four straight wins – Paul featured in three of them – but his season petered out with a 4-0 Herts Charity Cup final defeat to Bishop’s Stortford at Rhodes Avenue. It proved to be his only cup final appearance in our colours.

Ron Duke quit at the end of the season with City appointing John Butterfield as his replacement. Butterfield, one of the most popular players to have turned out for the City, appointed Paul Marriott as his captain for the 1982-83. It was a show of faith by Butterfield after Marriott turned down an opportunity to follow the previous season’s captain, Jon Sille, to Dagenham.

Unfortunately for the club, the season was a disaster as we lost all of our opening four league games and six of the first seven. We failed to record back-to-back league wins until the final two games of the season and, by then, it was too late and we were relegated to the Isthmian League Second Division. Bizarrely, our abysmal start to the season meant that Paul, in scoring during a 2-1 defeat at home to Hampton, was a still our top scorer after four games as it was the only league goal that Butterfield’s side had mustered in that spell. It was also Paul’s final goal for the club. Marriott’s battling performances, however, had not gone unnoticed on the terraces and he was voted the Supporters Player of the Year with 65% of the votes cast. He also appeared in more games than any other player when selected for 43 of our 51 matches.

In spite of our relegation, the club stuck with Butterfield in the summer but he now had John Mitchell working alongside him. Marriott was replaced as captain by John Watt. Paul appeared in nine of City’s first 15 games of the season but by the time of Butterfield’s final game as manager, a 2-0 home win over Dorking on 22nd October 1983, his commitment to football was taking a back seat to promotion at work.

Paul, born on 1st April 1958, made the last of his 105 appearances for St Albans City during a 2-2 Isthmian League Division Two at home to Egham Town on Tuesday 18th October 1983.

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Paul Marriott's playing record
Season	Started.	Used Sub.	Goals	Yellows	Reds
Season 1978-79	2	0	0	0	0
Season 1980-81	16	0	0	0	0
Season 1981-82	35	0	4	0	0
Season 1982-83	43	0	1	0	0
Season 1983-84	9	0	0	0	0
Total	105	0	5	0	0
By season \| In opening squad \| Substituted in \| Goals \| Yellow cards \| Red cards

Paul Marriott's full debut
27.02.1979 at 15:00	Isthmian League Division 1	A	Harwich & Parkeston	0 - 3