Wilfrid Crabtree started his football career at Stonyhurst College, Clitheroe and later became an established outside-right with Blackburn Crosshill in the Lancashire Amateur League. He also regularly played with Clitheroe Central in the Lancashire Combination from 1904, the year he also first played for Lancashire in the Inter-County championship. Crabtree was a member of the final 18-man British squad for the 1908 London Olympics but did not play. He was the only member of the squad not to gain an international cap. The nearest he came to international honours was when he played for the North versus the South in the international trial for uncapped players at Birmingham in February 1909. That same month he was honoured with the captaincy of Lancashire against London in the Inter-County championship. The son of a brewer and local councillor James Crabtree, Wilfrid became a salesman for a Manchester brewery. Crabtree also played cricket for Clitheroe, and during World War I served with Army Service Corps between 1915-19 and was a First Class Signalman in the Royal Regiment of the Artillery (RGA).
Great Britain