December 1978
(Reverted to playing role to January 1978)

Clubs as Player:

Bolton Wanderers
Wigan Athletic
Prague FC (Sydney, Australia)
Australia National team
Stalybridge Celtic
Buxton
Mossley (2 spells)
Droylsden
Frickley Athletic (Player Manager)

Born in Barnsley on on 20th June 1943. Geoffrey "Geoff" Sleight joined Bolton Wanderers after leaving school and was thrust into the first team spotlight almost immediately by then Bolton manager Bill Ridding and made his debut against Manchester City in September 1961.

During his time with the club he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Nat Lofthouse, Eddie Hopkinson, Doug Holden, Bryan Edwards and Francis Lee. Sadly, after just three first team games in the Outside Left position and in the shadow of England international Brian Pilkington he was told there was no long term future for him at Burnden Park and he was released in 1963. He went on to play for Wigan Athletic then still in the Cheshire League, making 16 appearances in the 1963/64 season.

Sleight then went to Australia and signed for the Prague club in Sydney and won representative honours, firstly in 1965 when he played for Sydney XI vs Hapoel Tel-Aviv. On the back of his performances in Australia he was invited to represent the Australian National team and made two appearances in World Cup qualifiers against North Korea and Cambodia.

Returning to England in 1967 Sleight returned to Cheshire League football and joined Stalybridge Celtic before moving on to Buxton where he made 174 appearances.

Bob Murphy brought Sleight to Mossley in August 1974 and he made his Mossley debut on the left side of midfield in a 0-0 draw at Scarborough on 17th August 1974 playing in all bar one of Mossley’s 75 competitive games that season. Mostly employed at left back in the following seasons Sleight proved to be a very consistent and popular player at Mossley as he went on to make 148 appearances, scoring 10 goals for the Lilywhites.

When Bob Murphy’s first spell as Mossley manager ended in November 1976, Sleight took over as Caretaker-Manager and took charge of six games which saw Mossley win 4, draw 1 and lose 1. He was overlooked for the manager’s job which went to fellow Yorkshire man Howard Wilkinson and Sleight departed to play for Droylsden after just four games of Wilkinson’s reign.

Sleight briefly returned to Mossley in September 1978 but made just 2 further appearances again under Bob Murphy.

He was then appointed as player-manager of Frickley Athletic, and guided the team to promotion to the Football Conference in 1980.

He then later had a spell as manager of Goole Town.

Sleight was later reunited with Howard Wilkinson as he was appointed as chief scout for Leeds United between 1993 and 1996.