History of overseas* goalscorers in the top flight. Walter Bowman (Canada) scored for Accrington when there was only one division. Berry Niewenhuys (South Africa) played for Liverpool before George Robledo overtook his record in the early 1950s.
George’s 45 goals for Barnsley don’t count in this stat.
George and Ted were the first South Americans to play professional football for a British team.
George became the first overseas* player to become top scorer in England, scoring 39 goals from inside-forward (previous top-scorers had almost always played centre-forward)
George held the record for most goals scored by an overseas* player in the top flight for almost 50 years.
George was the first South American to play in the FA Cup final 1951
George and Ted played in the FA Cup final in 1952 – the first time two foreign players had played in one team in a Cup final.
John Lennon (aged 11) drew Robledo scoring the winning goal in the 1952 FA Cup final – this sketch was later used for Lennon’s album cover, “Walls and Bridges”.
George played and scored in the 1950 World Cup finals for Chile. Ted joined George in the national team. Appearing together in the side beaten 1-0 by Argentina in the final of the 1955 South American Cup in front of 65,000 people in Santiago’s Estadio Nacional.
In the early 50’s George introduced lightweight rubber football boots to his Newcastle team-mates, after returning from an international match.
The 1950 World Cup involved 286 players with the 13 competing nations. And George Robledo, for Chile, was the ONLY player among the 286 playing his club football outside his own country at the time; he was with Newcastle then.
Locally, George played and scored in the Totty Cup final (1939) and Montagu Cup final (1944), before doing the same in the FA Cup final (1952) and World Cup finals (1950)
At Brampton Ellis School in the 1938-9 season, George scored 56 goals on the way to helping the team win 5 trophies.
*overseas – non-British (excluding Ireland)