Towards the end of Les Ferdinand’s time at Hayes, Clevere Forde joined from Tooting & Mitcham United, having played for Staines Town briefly and Harrow Borough for three seasons before that. His first task was to wear Les’s No. 9 shirt, although he normally operated on the left wing. He made 44+19 appearances over the next year, scoring eight goals, before joining Wycombe Wanderers briefly.

Edgar Francis was already a Welsh international when he joined Hayes from Hounslow in the summer of 1939. He was an inside-forward who moved back to wing-half later in his career. He spent only the 1939-40 season with Hayes, during which time he joined the RAF. While at Church Road he made 24 appearances, scoring 23 goals. He assisted QPR reserves at Brighton on the afternoon when Hayes, champions of the Great Western Combination, played the Rest of the League in early May 1940. After the war, he joined Southall for two seasons and then moved to Wealdstone in 1947-8, playing his last game for them in April 1954. He worked at the HMSO offices at Headstone Lane nearby.

Joe Francis was one of Terry Brown’s first acquisitions in the Conference to boost the strength of the team which had won the Isthmian League in 1996. He had played at a high level with Bromley, Welling United and Enfield, and Brown had been chasing him for some time. He was a stylish player, but prone to injury, and never really lived up to the £6,000 fee which was paid for him. In almost two seasons at Hayes he made 35+18 appearances and scored six goals He was transferred to Kingstonian, whom he helped to win promotion to the Conference, for £5,000, and later played for Ashford Town in Kent, and was player-coach of Cray Wanderers in 2002-3

The claim to fame of the third Francis, Martin Francis, is that he is the brother of former England captain Gerry. He joined from Hounslow in August 1979 and made 27+5 appearances, scoring 3 goals. He left a year later and joined Epsom & Ewell in December 1980.

Known as ‘Fraz’, Neil Fraser was a leading scorer in the reserves who took a long time to break into the first team. He was a striker, who was particularly strong in the air, and could also play at the back; over six seasons he made 98+31 appearances and scored 29 goals. He came on as a substitute for the Isthmian League against champions Slough Town in April 1990 and scored two goals in a 4-1 win. He followed Harry Manoe to Harrow Borough in the summer of 1993.

The next two players shared an unusual surname, but were not related. However, they both shared a certain amount of notoriety.

Joe Friday was brought up in Fulham and played for West London and London Schools as a boy. Friday made his début for Hayes reserves in February 1935 at the age of 21, but made only two first-team appearances that season. He established himself as a scheming inside-forward, supplying Len Townsend and Maurice Batchelor with scoring opportunities. He continued in this role until his last full season in 1938-9, when he moved to centre-forward with immediate and devastating effect. In the opening match of the season against Athenian League champions Bromley, he scored all six goals in a 6-1 win. In the entire season he scored 40 goals in 40 games; this compares with his best previous season when he scored only nine goals. That he should succeed in the more physical centre-forward position was surprising in view of the contemporary opinion that he was “clever rather than robust, but must be strong as he has had a minimum of injuries”. During this season he was also selected to play for Middlesex, the Athenian League, against the Isthmian League and a team of  French Amateurs at Amiens, and an FA XI against Guernsey. At the start of the abortive 1939-40 season he joined Walthamstow Avenue, newly elected to the Isthmian League, to great local disappointment. He came back after the war to play three matches for Hayes in an emergency in cup ties at the start of 1946, while still serving in the Forces. During his career at Hayes, he made 125 appearances and scored 66 goals. At the start of the 1937-8 season he played briefly for the Lyons Club, where he was employed. Like his later namesake, he did get into trouble with the authorities. In February 1936 he was summoned by the Middlesex FA to attend the hearing of a complaint from Southall that he had been playing Sunday football, and was therefore an ineligible player for a fiery Middlesex Senior Cup tie. (At the time, players were not allowed to play in Sunday football as well as in competitions played under the auspices of a county association.) It was stated that Friday had been a Sunday league player, but had been reinstated in March 1935, and had not played since. Nevertheless Southall produced witnesses to say that they had seen him playing in front of a Hayes committee member. He got off with a ‘not proven’ verdict, claiming that the offending player was his cousin, also J Friday; but there was a clear suspicion that he should have been found guilty. When WT Holmes asked for Hayes’ costs to be recompensed by Southall, the chairman (Mr WW Heard) said “I would not press that claim if I were you”. The matter was the third to be heard at the hearing which concerned Hayes – the first had been an inquiry into the sending off of Leslie Smith of Hayes and Jack Poxon of Southall (later of Hayes) during the same Middlesex Senior Cup tie, and the second had been a complaint by Southall against the refereeing in the match. In the circumstances, Friday was lucky to get off scot-free.