That was very much the feeling around Whitby Town Football Club in February 2023, when the news of Tony Lee’s passing was broken after a long battle with illness.

Lee - who operated as a winger - played for Leicester City as a youngster before spending time with Bradford City, Darlington and Scarborough, where he once scored in 14 consecutive games. At Darlington, he made 14 appearances, scoring once, a winning goal in a game against Port Vale in 1969.

He would also go on to play for Whitby Town, joining the club from Northern Premier League side Goole in August 1975 and going on to make his debut for the club in the first league game of the season, a 1-0 home defeat to Bishop Auckland.

Due to injuries, he would only make 11 appearances for the Blues, before leaving to sign for South Bank.

But it was as a manager, after hanging up his boots at just 28, that Tony really made an impact and left a mark, leading various local clubs to unprecedented success.

After two years in charge of Smith’s Dock in the Teesside League, Lee was appointed as Whitby Town manager, transforming a struggling Whitby side.

One of the players Lee would bring to the Turnbull Ground - following a brief spell playing with him at Whitby - was forward Ronnie Sills, an FA Vase finalist in 1980 with Guisboroigh Town.

Tony was one of my best friends,” Sills recalled when reflecting on his FA Cup runs with the Seasiders.

“We were friends for years. I started off in 1974 or ‘75 when I made my debut for Whitby and at the time Tony was playing.

“We played together, went training together and then we both moved on.

“He went on to coach at Smiths Dock and I ended up going to play for him there. In the end he got me back to Whitby after a spell at Guisborough Town.

“I followed him from there and we eventually went on to win the league with Billingham Sythonia before I started coaching for him at Gateshead. We developed a great friendship and often Tony and his wife - and myself and mine - would go out on a weekend.

“Tony was a big influence on my career and he definitely made me a better player than I should have been.

“He gave me the freedom to do what I wanted to. Defensively, he used to give me a bollocking if I came anywhere near the half way line. He wanted us - Derek [Hampton], Phil [Linacre] and myself - to stay forward because he was a forward himself.”

As a manager, Lee had an unrivalled eye for talent. One such player he took a chance on was a young gun by the name of Paul Sharkey - a forward who would go on to play the majority of his career at the Turnbull Ground.

Following the exit of Phil Linacre after some fine goalscoring form, Lee moved quickly to replace him with the young Stockton Town striker, and made sure that the forward knew what he was getting in to by putting him straight into a winter’s night at one of football’s coldest grounds.

“I remember Tony signing me and saying that my first game was at Tow Law,” Sharkey remembered.

“I didn’t even know where Tow Law was. We met at the Blue Bell and it was kind of sunny. We made our way up to Tow Law and it’s one of the highest grounds in England. I didn’t know that at the time and soon found out that it was absolutely freezing.

“They had a little wooden dressing room shack and I was the new boy here. I didn’t have a tracksuit as they didn’t have one for me so I just went out onto the pitch, and Tony just said ‘get out there and get warmed up’.

“I was in and out quickly it was that cold. The hail was coming over the top of the ground as it does there. I was back inside within seconds and he sent me straight back out and made sure I was running up and down properly.

“He pretty much told me what to do throughout the whole game, shouting at me from the sidelines.”

And it wasn’t just an eye for talent that Tony Lee saw in players. When it came to development, every player felt the benefit, though none moreso than Sharkey, particularly from day one when he arrived at the club.

“Tony was great for me,” Sharkey said.

“The first thing he did for me, he got me in the gym at Ayresome Park for one of my first training sessions.

“He looked at me. I was twenty years old, six foot one and about twelve stone, so I was kind of lean and he said ‘you’ve got to get your wings out’.

“So, he had me and John Gollogly stood next to each other jumping up, trying to get our arms as far up as possible, throwing them everywhere.

“But it wasn’t just things like that. He’d have me working on my touch, he’d have me working on my technique and my passing, he’d have me in the gym, those kinds of things.
Another player who felt the benefit of Tony Lee’s development of them as a player was Ronnie Sills, who first met Lee as a player in Whitby Town in the 1970s.

It wasn’t just the footballing side in players that he would develop, however. Often the dark arts are referred to in football these days - or at least moreso since the introduction of Harry Potter to the world - when sides use whatever means possible to win games of football. Lee was a master when it came to these, and Sills felt he was a particular benefactor from these lessons.

“He was the biggest cheat in the world. Tony taught me how to cheat, which sometimes you have to do to get goals. You’ve got to be a bit sly and he was brilliant at it. He’d been at professional clubs and knew how it all worked.

“He’d always be the first to everything in training and he’d make sure he was. He’d cheat to get there first and wind everybody up.

“He was just really good. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a better coach or manager. There’s nobody like him and he was very good at what he did. Man management wise he was very good too.

“Obviously he didn’t have the problem that managers and coaches have nowadays, with a squad of twenty-odd players. Tony had 12 or 13 so we had the same team every week. You had a couple of subs but you could only play one so it was easy to manage the team. We all knew we were playing week in, week out.

“He was ace. He was really good, and a cracking player in his day.”

Lee’s successes at Whitby are remembered fondly to this day, with a copy book that states clearly he put Whitby Town on the map, when it came to the FA Cup.

To be successful, he recognised the need for fun to keep the group together, but mostly the need for standards to be high. Almost to professional levels, despite being in the semi-pro game. Once he’d instilled that, the results became clear to see.

“Tony set incredible standards at Whitby,” Sharkey added.

“Little things like your passing. We never even talked about that at Stockton, but Tony would be straight onto it.

“He’d talk to you about where you’d need to be on the pitch at certain times. That was a massive difference for me and a real learning experience.

“He was always a joker too though. He’d take the mickey, and he was good at it to be fair. He was just a great guy all round.

“Tony was highly experienced and he just knew what to say and when to say it.”

After five years at the Turnbull Ground, Lee’s resignation came towards the back end of the 1984/85 season, after a dispute over the investment - or lack of - in the squad, with the club prefering to spend on the club’s facilities. His assistant manager, Lennie Gunn, decided that he would also be departing his post alongside Lee.

“The club has refused any money for new players and I am not prepared to carry on after losing men like Ronnie Sills, Phil Linacre, Derek Hampton and John Gollogly,” Lee told the local press after his intention to resign was announced.

“You can’t replace players of that quality without cash. The club has decided to spend on the ground facilities and floodlights rather than players and this has been reflected in results on the field.

“In recent weeks I have struggled to get a team out and as a result we will finish in the lowest position in the league in my five years at Whitby.”

Lee had been persuaded by the club to remain in post just a year previous, with similar issues raising their head at that time, despite the club’s FA Cup and FA Trophy antics.
And while it wasn’t the first time Lee had tendered his resignation, the news still came as something of a surprise to the club’s players at the time.

“It came as a shock at the time,” Sharkey remembered.

“Obviously Tony had his reasons for deciding to move on. For him to resign, it must have been a good one because he absolutely loved the football club.

“The expectation levels were high and the season hadn’t quite gone to plan like the previous season had.

“I remember particularly going to Bromsgrove in the FA Trophy on the iciest of pitches with massive expectation on us.

“We scored - I can still see it now - through Derek Hampton and went 1-0 up, then we ended up getting beat 7-1. That set a tone in a lot of ways for the season because it was such a heavy defeat when the expectation was so high.

“I don’t remember too much more about that season but after the highs of the last season we thought we’d be on for another good campaign.”

Rather fittingly, Lee’s final game in charge of Whitby Town saw the club run out Northern League Cup champions, beating North Shields 2-1 after extra-time at the Brewery Field, Spennymoor.

Following the trophy presentation, the Whitby players surprised Tony Lee with the presentation of a silver rose-bowl as a mark of respect for a manager who had guided them to numerous successes over his five years in charge of the club.

He was replaced at the end of the 1984/85 season by David Harvey at the Turnbull Ground, while he himself moved on to Billingham Synthonia.

At Central Avenue, he built one of the truly great Northern League sides.

He twice led Synners to the first round proper of the FA Cup, while his side also won the title twice, the League Cup twice and the Durham Cup.

Tony and his Synners team also played a significant role in supporting Middlesbrough during their liquidation crisis in 1986. Not only did they lend Bruce Rioch’s side their ground for training, but Tony’s team also stepped in to play Boro’s reserve team fixtures.

After Synners, Tony went on to manage Gateshead and then Bishop Auckland, where he once again reached the first round proper of the FA Cup. His side also reached the last eight of the FA Trophy twice and won the Durham Challenge Cup on three occasions.

And while you’d think he’d be busy enough with football, he also owned a cafe and petrol station opposite Ayresome Park, had a taxi business for more than 30 years and a betting shop.

As a manager, Lee would never make it beyond the non-league scene, despite sustained success both in league campaigns and the national competitions - the FA Cup and FA Trophy.

“I still find it hard to believe now that Tony never got a job with a professional club at the times of all of those successes,” Sills reflected.

“A lot of teams certainly could’ve done a lot worse than to have picked Tony to take them forward but maybe it was because of his record with referees - both him and Sue!”

Tony is survived by his sons Graeme - now manager of Marske United - and Anthony, as well as his wife Sue, who was probably more feared in the Northern League than any of Tony’s teams by referees and opposition players alike.

Anthony and Graeme still refer to Sue as “the real manager” - and though she may have mellowed with age, the stories of Sue’s escapades in the Northern League still burn bright and are recalled well - whether that’s fondly or otherwise by the people recalling them.

“Sue was ferocious,” Sills continued.

“If Tony didn’t tell you what to do, Sue definitely would. She was just a mad, mad supporter.

“I remember when we played at North Shields one day and Harmison, the big centre half, was coming out after half-time and he said to me ‘Sillsy, make sure that woman’s not there before I go out’ because she’d nearly ripped his hair off as he’d walked back to the tunnel.

“He’d had a bit of an altercation with me and Geoff Lilley as you did in those days. He was kicking us and we were having a battle. But as Harmison was walking off, Sue had grabbed him by the hair and lifted him off the ground. He was 6ft 4’ and didn’t want to walk back out onto the pitch in case she was still there.”