Former Gills striker, Mike Bickle, has sadly passed away.
Mike Bickle
25 January 1944 – November 2023
Former Gillingham striker Mike Bickle has passed away. He began his footballing career playing semi-professionally for St Austell of the South Western Football League, while working as a milkman, before turning professional in December 1965, at the age of 21, with his hometown team Plymouth Argyle in the Second Division.
He scored nine goals in 17 goals in his first season with the Pilgrims, went on to be the club’s leading goalscorer for the next four campaigns, and, in total, he netted 74 goals in 195 appearances for the club.
In November 1971 Gillingham manager Andy Nelson, who had played alongside Bickle at Home Park, signed him for a fee of around £7,000. Mike scored seven goals in 26 league appearances in 1971-72, to end the campaign as our third-highest scorer.
The 3-2 away win at Stockport in mid-September 1971 saw Bickle suffer a serious injury just before half-time, as a result of a collision with the home side’s Ian Lawther. Whilst Lawther was able to resume in the second half with stitches in a head wound, Mike woke up in hospital paralysed from the chest down after fracturing a vertebra in his neck.
He returned to the first team just over two months later, for the FA Cup first round tie against Reading at Priestfield. However, he suffered a shoulder injury after being brought down in the penalty area and couldn’t continue.
He never played for the Gills again and, in January 1973, retired from playing, at the age of only 29. Mark Agate, wrote in the ‘Blues News’ feature in our programme for the visit of Exeter City in the following month, ‘We learnt with regret of the decision by the Football League specialist that Mike Bickle should never play football again.’ Nelson arranged for the player to have a testimonial at Home Park with former Argyle manager Malcolm Allison bringing his First Division Manchester City team down to the west country on May 2 that year, a game watched by a crowd of 12,541.
Mike, who scored seven times in 38 appearances in all competitions for Gillingham, subsequently returned to Plymouth and went on to work in Devonport Dockyard.
Gillingham Football Club would like to express their condolences to Mike’s family, friends and loved ones at this sad time.