THE widow of former Trowbridge Town FC goalkeeper Ralph Whatley has celebrated her 100th birthday in Warminster with their family.

Olive Whatley was the guest of honour at a party at the West Wiltshire Golf Club attended by more than 95 people.

Born on November 30 1919, she celebrated her 100th birthday at the weekend with family and friends.

Olive said: “I’ve been a very lucky person. My doctor took my blood pressure and couldn’t believe it - it was as good as it was 30 years ago.”

Mrs Whatley met Ralph in the late 1930s after she and a group of friends went to watch the men playing cricket on Trowle Common.

The couple celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary in 2005. Mr Whatley died in 2007 at the age of 92.

Born in Westrop near Corsham, Olive is the 12th of 13 children born to Elizabeth and Lewis Hayward. The family lived in a cottage on Lord Methuen’s Corsham Court estate.

She left school at 14 to become a parlour maid at Iford Manor. Olive later worked in London before coming back to Wiltshire. She married Ralph in 1940 aged 21.

During the 1930s, Ralph played for Trowbridge Town FC when they were a hugely successful team.

At one point, he was asked to trial for Exeter City but the war intervened.

For a while, the couple lived with a family in Chesterfield where Mr Whatley was stationed with a Royal Artillery regiment.

He was posted to India and Burma, returning home four years later in 1945. The couple have two children, Tony Whatley and Marlene Newman.

Olive now has two grandchildren, Andrew and Victoria Newman, and a great-grandson, also called Ralph.

The couple lived in Edington for almost 25 years, where Ralph rang the church bells at the Priory church.

In 1986, they moved to Flers Court in Warminster, where Mrs Whatley visits the Morrisons store almost every day.

Staff at Morrisons laid on balloons and a cake for her 100th birthday when she made her regular visit to the store on Friday.