Rotherham United

Alan Lee has been voted as Rotherham United’s greatest player by the club’s fans in a poll conducted as part of The Football League's 125th Anniversary celebrations.

Lee joined Rotherham in time to net 15 goals to help them to promotion from the Second Division in 2000/01, and was a consistent scorer in the First Division too, before moving to Cardiff City in 2003. He won the player vote on 39% ahead of Gladstone Guest (30%), Ronnie Moore, Dave Watson and Gerry Forrest.

Lee’s manager for that promotion success, Ronnie Moore, was voted the Millers’ greatest ever boss.  He was in charge at the club from 1997 to 2005 – a period that saw the Millers promoted from the Third Division as runners-up in 1999/2000 before going up again the following season to reach the second tier of the English game where Moore consolidated them over the coming seasons.

He returned to Rotherham in 2009 and in his first season back led the club to a first visit to the new Wembley for the League 2 Play-Off Final against Dagenham & Redbridge. Moore polled 76% of the votes as the club’s greatest boss, a long way clear of Ian Porterfield, Reg Freeman, Jim McGuigan and Tom Johnston.

Another key player in that rise under Moore was Kevin Watson, who has been honoured in the poll as the club’s greatest captain.

Watson had joined Rotherham from Swindon Town in 1999 and in more than 100 appearances he led the side to those successive promotions. He won the captain vote on 35%, ahead of Tony Grealish, Johnny Quinn, Jimmy Goodfellow and Jimmy Mullen.

Rotherham’s 2000/01 season picked up 46% of the votes to take the honour as the club’s greatest, beating 1980/81, 1981/82 and 1954/55.

The Millers trio sit alongside legends of the game including Brian Clough, Sir Bobby Robson, Sir Tom Finney, Billy Wright, Sir Stanley Matthews, Trevor Francis, Billy Bremner and Herbert Chapman who have all been named in a list of the greatest contributors to clubs’ league history in a vote as part of The Football League’s 125th Anniversary celebrations.

The names feature in lists for each of the current 72 Football League clubs’ greatest in various categories including managers, players, captains, fan favourites, matches and seasons.  The polls were run by The Football League to celebrate each club’s own contribution to the last 125 years of league football.  The results have been announced on the anniversary of The Football League’s formation on 17th April 1888 to bring down the curtain on a year of activity celebrating the start of the world’s original league football competition.

Nearly 100,000 votes were cast in the polls after clubs were first invited to compile their own shortlist for each category based on fans’ nominations via social media.

A list of the winners in each category can be seen at www.FL125.co.uk/vote, and a club-by-club breakdown for each vote with more detail on the winners can be seen at www.fl125.co.uk/rotherham-united.

Supporters can find out more about The Football League’s 125th Anniversary at www.FL125.co.uk.  Fans also still have a chance to visit a special exhibition called ‘Game Changers’ at the National Football Museum in Manchester celebrating 125 years of The Football League, with contributions from every club.  The exhibition is free to enter and open 7 days a week – for more details visit http://po.st/GameChangers.