Peter Dobing broke Stoke City's transfer record when he signed and it proved to be one of the best deals the club has ever done

Peter Dobing, who has died at the age of 87, didn't always come across as the kind of fella you would expect to be one of the most revered football players at one of the world's oldest clubs.

That doesn't mean that his superstar potential wasn't easy to spot for a very long time. He was so young when he broke through at Blackburn Rovers that he was helping the club challenge for promotion to the top flight as well as reach the FA Youth Cup quarter-finals.

And he was such an all-rounder that, at the end of that debut season, he played cricket for Lancashire second XI in the Minor Counties Championship. He loved his angling too.

Dobing had played cricket for Crewe LMR while he was growing up along with brother Brian, who would become goalkeeper for Crewe Alexandra. It was a sporting family; their dad George had been a rugby league centre for Salford Red Devils.

He also had a trial at Port Vale was playing football for Crewe Rangers when he was scouted by Blackburn – and made his debut in 1956 at the age of 17.

He helped win promotion in his second season, scoring 20 goals as part of a prolific double act with Roy Vernon, who would also move to Stoke a few years later.

Over the next three seasons he netted 60 times in 120 Division One games and helped reach the 1960 FA Cup final – when Eddie Clamp’s Wolves ran away to a 3-0 win after Dobing’s teammate Dave Whelan broke a leg and left Blackburn down to 10 men.

In 1961, Manchester City shelled out £35,000 to make him Torino-bound Denis Law’s replacement and, two years later, Stoke – fresh from promotion and bankrolled by mega gate receipts inspired by the return of Stanley Matthews – broke their transfer record to get him to the Victoria Ground.

Tony Waddington later explained: “When I was in the process of strengthening the Stoke squad on our return to the First Division, I heard that Peter, whose father kept a hotel in Crewe, was unsettled at Manchester City and still played cricket locally.

“Dobing was already in the England under-23 side, so I arranged with Joe Mercer, then managing Manchester City, to meet us in a friendly game at Lilleshall Road.

“The deal, a record £38,000 for Stoke, was completed after the match. It was money well spent.”

Dobing would spend the next decade at Stoke and became the first player to captain the team to a major trophy, lifting the League Cup at Wembley in 1972. It was said that he could find space to receive a pass inside a phone box and he was one of the most crucial players through one of the club's most golden of eras.

He would also, in a sign of the times, introduce several of his Stoke teammates to pipe-smoking, a habit he had inherited from his old Blackburn pal Derek Dougan.

A man of simple, certain pleasures, he would later insist: “You give me a fishing rod and a dram of whisky and I am happy.”

Give him a football and he’d make a lot of other people happy.