Career
A central defender, he played league football for Hull City, Scarborough and Hartlepool United. Bennyworth began his football career as an apprentice with Hull City. He made his first-team debut as a 17-year-old in the last match of the 1979-1980 season, a 1–0 defeat to Bury in the Third Division, and came on as a substitute in an Anglo-Scottish Cup match at the beginning of the following season, but those were his only competitive appearances.
He moved on to Gainsborough Trinity, where he played in the Northern Premier League, before moving up a level to Nuneaton Borough of the Alliance Premier League (which became the Football Conference).
He made 57 appearances at that level for Nuneaton, then, in September 1986, signed for their divisional rivals Scarborough for a fee of £1,500. Because the club had little money to spare, the fee was paid in instalments by Bennyworth himself.
His second appearance in the Football League was Scarborough"s first: a 2–2 draw at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers marred by £20,000-worth of damage to the ground, fighting on the terraces, 54 arrests, and a visiting supporter falling through the roof of a stand. In the club"s second season in the League, Bennyworth helped them reach the play-off semi-final and eliminate Second Division Portsmouth from the League Cup.
He and Scarborough went one better the following season, in what the Daily Mirror dubbed "one of the most humiliating Cup defeats in history".
Scarborough were two goals behind on the night, 3–1 down on aggregate, to Chelsea, who were then in second place in the First Division, with 24 minutes to go in the second round of the League Cup. They drew level with goals from Tommy Graham and Paul Robinson, then Martin Russell converted a penalty to complete the victory. Bennyworth scored on debut in a 4–1 defeat of his previous employers.
He made his last Hartlepool appearance in November 1991, then returned to Gainsborough for a second spell, and was later on the books of Boston United.