Ray was born in Smethwick November 1941. He attended Corbett Street Junior School and James Watt Technical School in Smethwick. He represented Smethwick and Birmingham Boys, Staffs County FA and Staffordshire Boys.
He joined Albion May 1959 turning professional August 1959. However it wasn’t until 20th March 1963 that he made his debut in the first team away at Anfield in front of a 43,987 crowd in a 2-2 draw the first of 7 appearances that season.
The 1963-64 season Ray only made 1 appearance at home in a 4-3 victory over Aston Villa 1964-65 he made 6 appearances He was a fierce tackling fullback solid and strong unfortunately for him Albion had some very good fullbacks in the squad and it was always going to be difficult to establish himself in the team. However by the 1965 – 66 season he began to make more appearances in the first before establishing himself a regular in the first team.
In total Ray made 90 appearances plus 2 as a substitute scoring 1 goal in a European Fairs cup 3RD Rd 2ND leg match against Bologna, March 8th 1967. Albion lost the match 3-1. He played in the League cup final against West Ham United were he collected a winners tankard.
His final game in an Albion shirt was away at Sunderland in a 0-0 draw when he deputised for an injured Graham Williams and if Williams had not recovered in time he would have played in 1968 Fa Cup final. On leaving Albion he joined Northampton Town where he made 116 appearances.
After leaving Northampton he joined Wellingborough Town and Olney Town before retiring from football in 1979. He worked at the Albion in 1974 as commercial assistant and assistant secretary before joining port Vale as club secretary and also worked for Aston Villas ticket office.
Image from www.oldbaggies.com
