Bryan Wells

  1935-2024

It is with great sadness that Somerset FA have to inform you of the death of Bryan Wells, who passed away at the weekend.

Bryan has served football in Somerset for well over 60 years in numerous different roles, originally as a player, then manager mainly for his home village or Oakhill, then serving as an administrator including Shepton Mallet FC which he chaired and then the Mid Somerset League, perhaps for which he will be best remembered. He was to serve as Chairman of the league for many years before becoming President, which he remained for the rest of his life. His service to the league was remarkable, both off the field in attending numerous meetings, where he would never just make up the numbers often being at the centre of any issue being discussed, but also attending matches every week. In the latter he would always thank the referee after the game.

Bryan originally joined the SFA Council in 1980, he then served on council for more than forty years including as a Chairman of Discipline, he is believed to be the only Person that Somerset appointed directly as a chair bypassing the wing roles due to his career as a Justice of the Peace. In spite of being a chair he was also willing to fill in on a commission and became a frequent member of the non-personal panel that meet weekly at Charles Lewin House chaired by Francis Hillier. He also served frequently on the Benevolent subcommittee, a role he also reprised with the Mid Somerset league with the leagues own benevolent fund. In 2005 Bryan became char of the County Cup Committee, in this role he dramatically changed the county cups, making the finals far more of an event for teams, he believed that a county cup final should be a special experience for everyone and pinnacle for a player at county level. Under is leadership the county greatly increased the number of competitions that it played, with The Girls Under 16 Cup, Girls Under 14 Cup Boys Under 15 Cup, Women’s Junior Cup and finally Boys Under 15 Cup (he was to donate the cup that is presented to the winners) all began during his tenure. He would attend County Cup games weekly and until the last few years due to health, never missed a final. When he stood down as chair of the Cups Committee, he remained an active member of the committee, both to help his successor and because he still had the drive and passion to continue to give so much.

Bryan became a Life Member of the Association in 2001 and was made a Vice President of the Somerset FA several years later. In his 60’s Bryan discovered the women’s game and became a champion of it, his Sunday afternoons would often be spent watching women’s football and this in turn saw his drive to create 3 of the 5 female county cups that are held in Somerset. He also became the unofficial Somerset FA “Odd Job Man”; utilising his skills from his days in the Army where he was in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers or REME (or as Bryan referred to his skills, Rough Engineering Made Easy), he carried out numerous tasks for the county from creating a substitute board (he created a manual board that used green numbers for on and red numbers for ff, when the same colour scheme was used for electronic sub boards he lamented not patenting this idea), repairing tables in the county office, mounting the hanger for the defib, along with numerous other parts of Charles Lewin House that he made or repaired.

He will leave a huge hole as a leader and champion of grass roots football in Somerset, but there are countless people in Somerset Football who will have benefited from his service to the game. In the roles he served as a chair of leagues and committees he will have made decisions that will have upset people; however, it will be hard to find people who disliked him; as well as being highly respected he was loved by many across the game. He was a truly great servant of football in Somerset in general and of County Cups and the Mid Somerset League in particular; there will never be another Bryan Wells. We will all miss him greatly.

Our thoughts and condolences are with his family and friends.

We will give of details of his funeral as and when we are aware of them.