Harwich & Parkeston FC traces long-lost 1953 Wembley cup final player

Robert 'Jock' Haugh is pictured in the black and white strip, second in the line out of the Wembley tunnel

A non-league football club has traced a long-lost player from its Wembley line-up on the 70th anniversary of a momentous cup final.

Harwich & Parkeston faced Pegasus FC - a side of Oxbridge players - in the FA Amateur Cup final in front of a sell-out 100,000 crowd on 11 April 1953.

The club thought it had accounted for all players, but then found it had nothing on the late Robert Haugh.

Programme writer Andy Schooler said: "I thought it wasn't going to happen."

Haugh is pictured on the right in action at Wembley, where his side was defeated by 6-0

Mr Schooler, 47, has been working for months on the anniversary programme, to be published for its Eastern Counties League game against Parson Droveon 10 April.

He said the Essex club thought the captain, Eric Tyrell, who died in 2014, was the Wembley squad's last surviving member.

However, while going through club records Mr Schooler, a freelance sports journalist and former committee member, realised one player, Robert 'Jock' Haugh, was still unaccounted for.

Bob Haugh (second out of the tunnel) about to play in front of 100,000 spectators

"We've got a club historian who has looked at old papers, so we knew he'd emigrated to America, but didn't know much else," said Mr Schooler.

After some internet digging, Mr Schooler found Haugh had moved a year after the final and died in California in 2016, aged 94.

But it wasn't until the club launched a social media appeal, that he discovered someone called Bob Haugh had coached a cup-winning youth team and been pictured with them at Los Angeles Coliseum.

Haugh coached the South Bay Wolverines to victory in the Youth Soccer Cup Tournament at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1967

Haugh's daughter Elizabeth Orras confirmed it was her father and told how he left England soon after marrying, initially living in Pennsylvania.

Someone who had watched the WW2 D-Day veteran play for a top amateur side in the state offered him a job in California in exchange for playing football there.

The father-of-two worked in newspaper ad sales before buying the paper and expanding it into four cities.

Bob Haugh pictured far right, with his son-in-law George, daughter Elizabeth, wife Joan and son John (left to right)

"I just found it odd that no-one knew what had happened to this guy and I was determined to find out," said Mr Schooler.

"It was a bit of a struggle and I was thinking it wasn't going to happen... there was a bit of luck involved."

Mr Schooler's father, also called Andy, is the club's secretary and welcomed Mrs Orras on a tour of the ground this week.

Elizabeth Orras was taken on a tour of the Harwich & Parkeston ground and also visited the town's museum, which is currently hosting an exhibition about the Wembley game

She said: "To have the opportunity to go back and retrace my father's footsteps was an incredible honour.

"Playing at Wembley was clearly one of the highlights of my father's life, along with marrying my mother and the births of his children and grandchildren.

"He used to talk about the fact they had no subs and played the entire game, and how it was important to get in there, fight and support the team.

"To say my father loved soccer/football is an understatement - it was his love for the game and talent that served as a constant in building a better life."

Mrs Orras said her parents "both had a drive for more opportunities and a better life from what they knew"