WEST HAM UNITED
theyflysohigh : Steve Marsh
FOOTBALL PROGRAMMES &
Memorabilia through the Decade
A Pictorial History
Syd King
#171
ALFRED LEAFE
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#172
THOMAS BRANDON
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#173
THOMAS LONSDALE
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#174
JOHN GODDARD
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#175
ALFRED TIRRELL
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#176
WILLIAM BOURNE
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#177
JACK TRESADERN
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#178
FRANK DENYER
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#179
ARTHUR STALLARD
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#180
ROBERT BEALE
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JOSEPH WEBSTER
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WILLIAM COPE
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GEORGE SPEAK
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ALFRED FENWICK
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PERCY WRIGHT
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#186
JAMES CARR
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#187 =
EDWARD HUFTON
Born: 25 November 1892, Southwell, Nottinghamshire
Signed: 19 may 1919, Sheffield United
Fee: £350
Debut: 30 August 1919 Lincoln City (H)
Last game: 7 May 1932, Chelsea (A)
Appearances: 402
Transferred: Watford
Date: 7 June 1932
Died: 2 February 1967 (aged 74)
Edward Hufton played as a schoolboy at Louth in Lincolnshire, naturally as a goalkeeper. An iron-moulder by trade, his first amateur club was Norfolk & Atlas in the Sheffield Junior League. He signed professional forms for First Division Sheffield United in 1912. Hufton seized the first team spot at Bramall Lane and acquitted himself well enough to prompt the Blades to transfer their regular goalkeeper.
The goal custodian joined the Coldstream Guards during World War One and attained the rank of corporal before being injured in action in France. Whilst being on sick leave and recovering from his wounds, he made the first of 64 war-time guest appearances for West Ham against Fulham on 18 December 1915, paving the way for his eventual transfer when hostilities ceased. He played for the South v. North in the English trials at Stamford Bridge in April 1919.
Hufton’s permanent registration with the Hammers came on 19 May 1919 for a fee of £350 and he was the custodian between the posts when West Ham kicked-off life as a Football League Second Division club on 30 August of the same year, when they secured a 1-1 draw with Lincoln City at the Boleyn Ground. Those early Football League days were memorable ones for Hufton, and it was around this time that he acquired the nickname "Penalty King", by saving 11 out of 18 spot-kicks in two seasons. International recognition followed in the Cup Final and promotion year of 1922-23, but Ted had to decline the cap versus Sweden due to injury.
He became West Ham’s first goalkeeper to gain a full international cap when he made his debut for England the following year, when he won the first of six caps against Belgium in the 2-2 draw at Bosuil Stadion, Antwerp on 1 November 1923. The veteran keeper remained a fixture for the Hammers until the team was relegated at the end of the 1931-32 season.
Hufton was given a free transfer and joined Watford on 7 June 1932, before retiring. He then became a representative for a motor car distribution company until World War II began. After the War, Ted returned to the Hammers as press-room steward on match-days. Tragedy struck during the last few years of Ted’s life; he began to lose his sight, bringing a 17-season association with the Club to an end.
#187 =
ALF LEE
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HARRY LANE
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JAMES McCRAE
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DAVID SMITH
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JAMES MOYES
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ROBERT MORRIS
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HARRY BRADSHAW
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HORACE BIGGIN
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TOMMY GREEN
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WILLIAM JOHNSTON
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FRANK MURRAY
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JAMES PALMER
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#200
GEORGE KAY
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Born in Manchester on this day in 1891, George Kay was one of a few men who have led out a team at an FA Cup final as both a player and manager. Kay, was West Ham United captain in the first-ever final at Wembley Stadium in 1923 and Liverpool’s manager in 1950.
As a schoolboy he represented Manchester at centre-half before graduating to junior football with Ancoats Lads’ Club and playing for Eccles Borough F.C. while supplementing his income as a salesman in the cotton trade. Kay signed professional forms for Bolton Wanderers in 1911, however his opportunities were limited at Burnden Park, leading to a move to Irish side Distillery, where he had the distinction of becoming the first Englishman to captain a representative XI in a match against the English League at The Hawthorns, which his team won 2-1.
However, his time in Ireland was marred when in December 1912, on his long road to recovery after a bout of influenza and the later effects of leg weakness, Kay wrote to his employers stating he would not accept any wages until able to play. Nine weeks later he found his resources were almost depleted and requested some assistance, but none was forthcoming. When he finally recovered and declared himself fit, he asked for the return of the letter or a written guarantee it wouldn’t be used against him. This was not agreed to, The club offered half wages to play in the Reserves, the centre-half refused to play and was suspended.
Having signed a two year agreement with Distillery, Kay took his appeal to the Irish FA who upheld the club’s justification in suspending him, declaring his contract should be honoured up to 30 April 1914. In September 1913 Kay returned to the first team and full wages and saw out the rest of his contract. By which time he was enjoying his football once more, so-much-so that in April 1914 he signed on for another season and went on to make 91 appearances, scoring 14 goals.
The First World War curtailed his progression, he was commissioned to the Royal Garrison Artillery and in his spare time trained with Portsmouth. Manager Syd King handed Kay his first West Ham appearance, a war time London Combination fixture with Arsenal on 2 September 1916. Despite being wounded and gassed and suffering from shell-shock, a condition that forced him to miss the whole of the 1917/18 season, Kay was able to resume war-time football for the Hammers paving the way to his eventual transfer to east London, signing professional forms from the Distillery club on 5 May 1919 for a £100 fee.
Under King’s management the defender made his first team debut against Barnsley in a Second Division fixture at Upton Park on 8 September 1919. Kay took over the team captaincy from William Cope for the eventful 1922/23 season, leading the Irons to Wembley against his former club Bolton in a match more famous for the mass crowds and certain white mount called Billie and promotion to the First Division.
His career was interrupted by a nasty injury suffered during a summer tour to Spain in 1925. Kay began to haemorrhage blood and it would be three weeks before he and assistant manager Charlie Paynter were able to return to England. Despite that setback, his consistency during West Ham’s first six seasons made him among the first to reach 200 appearance for the club. In all, he would make 259 senior appearances before transferring to Stockport County on 27 April 1927.
In July 1928, Kay entered management by taking up a trainer-coaching role with Luton Town, before picked up the managerial reins with Southampton in May 1931, spending five years with the Saints where his abilities attracted Liverpool, who took him to Anfield in 1936.
Had it not been for outbreak of the Second World War, it was the general feeling in football circles that his team would have collected a major honour in the early 1940's. As it was, his first success, was winning the First Division in 1946/47.
In 1950 he guided the Reds to an FA Cup Final against Arsenal, but it was touch and go if he would make it, afflicted by ill-health due to the long-term effects of his First World War ordeals, Kay collapsed two days before the final and was confined to his sick bed. On the day he proudly led his players on to the Wembley turf for the presentation to His Majesty The King. There was no fairytale ending as his side lost two-nil, just as the Hammers had been 27 years previously. Kay retired from football on medical advice in February 1951, and sadly passed away on 18 April 1954, aged 62.
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CYRIL TURNER
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CECIL PHIPPS
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#203
JOHN WOODBURN
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PERCY ALLEN
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ROBERT ALLEN
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#206
GEORGE CARTER
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#207
STEPHEN SMITH
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#208
JAMES CUMMING
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#209
EDGAR SMITHURST
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#210
FRANK BIRCHENOUGH
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#211 =
VIVIAN ROBERTS
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THOMAS STANLEY
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#213
JACK YOUNG
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#214
JIM SIMMONS
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Second Debut
DANNY SHEA
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#215
GEORGE CROWTHER
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#216
VICTOR WATSON
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Of all the great centre-forwards to have worn the number nine shirt for West Ham United over the years, Victor Watson stands head and shoulders over the rest. In a career stretching 15 seasons with the Hammers he played 505 games and scored an incredible 326 goals.
Contrary to popular belief that the striker arrived at the Boleyn Ground via Wellingborough Town, there is no documentary proof to support this fact. However, there is overwhelming evidence from the Peterborough newspapers that the Cambridgeshire-born forward was regularly selected and scoring goals for his local side Cambridge Town. Watson was spotted playing for the Lilywhites at the Amalgamation Ground, and recommended to Syd King by former West Ham player Patrick Tirrell. Six months prior to his arrival in east London Watson had played twenty-one games and scoring a remarkable 28 goals, the amateur player was also regularly in the starting eleven for the Peterborough based Brotherhood’s Engineering Works.
On 6 March 1920, Watson was scheduled to play for the works side against Stamford in the Northampton Senior League but instead accepted an invitation from Syd King’s Hammers to play that afternoon at Upton Park in a London Combination fixture against Crystal Palace Reserves. Vic grabbed his chance and scored a debut goal against the south Londoners in the 2-2 draw. In the remaining ten Combination fixtures that season he notched a further 11 goals and gave the manager one of the easiest decisions he would have to make that season - on 15 April 1920 Watson puts pen to paper and signs his first professional contract.
As a goodwill gesture for securing his signature the Directors donated £50 to Cambridge Town and the manager also agreed to send a reserve strength side, including Vic to Trinity New Ground for a friendly fixture played on 29 April, the home side won comfortably 3-0. Five months later, the 22-year-old made his Second Division debut on 25 September 1920 against Cardiff City at Ninian Park in a 0-0 draw. The honours followed thick and fast, with his 22 League goals largely responsible for Hammers' promotion to the First Division along with his five strikes in the FA Cup contributing to the club's appearance in the first Wembley Cup Final during a memorable 1922-23 season which included two of his five England caps.
Watson’s club record 326 goals is an achievement unlikely to be beaten in the modern era. The all-time leading marksman also bagged a record 42 First Division goals in a single 1929-30 season, in addition he scored four goals in a match on three separate occasions he tallied an astonishing thirteen hat-tricks during his Hammers' career. A personal triumph in a West Ham shirt came on 9 February 1929 on a cold winter’s afternoon at Upton Park, an unforgettable 8-2 thrashing of Leeds United when he scored six times against the Yorkshiremen.
Watson’s individual scoring record stood for 39 years until Geoff Hurst, England’s FIFA 1966 World Cup hero equalled the feat against Sunderland in October 1968, but what makes his success all the more outstanding is that the West Ham team of the time were struggling for league points, while visitors Leeds were among those challenging for the First Division title that winter. While the vast majority of the 18,055 fans who turned out might have forecast the Hammers upsetting their Yorkshire rivals by the odd goal, the demolition that ensued was surely beyond their wildest dreams of anybody of a claret and blue persuasion. While goals were generally easier to come by in those days than they are in the modern age of football West Ham scored 86 and conceded 96 that 1928-29 season, however it was still a shock to see a top-flight team let in eight in a single match.
Eighteen months later, ‘Watson the Wonder’ and ‘Irresistible West Ham’ screamed the banner headlines after yet another memorable afternoon for the marksman and his team-mates, as well as the majority of the watching 11,682 crowd, as he banged in four of the seven goals against Liverpool on 1 September 1930.
His strike-rate record works out at one goal every 1.55 games. When you consider that he was signed for a modest £50 donation this works out at a fantastic rate of return on club’s initial investment.
Victor Watson died in the same village, he was born in, a couple of miles north of Cambridge city centre, on 3 August 1988, aged 90.
#217
SYD BISHOP
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After a humble beginning as a forward with Isthmian League llford F.C. and a spell with Crystal Palace reserves, Sidney Macdonald Bishop, to give him his full title, rose to the pinnacle of his profession after signing for the Hammers on 10 May 1920.
Born at the turn of the century just a few short months before the foundation of West Ham United F.C., he was affectionately nicknamed "Sticks" by the Upton Park faithful in recognition of his 5ft.-11ins.-11-stone frame. Bishop kick-started his Boleyn Ground career on Christmas Day 1920 by scoring on his debut against Birmingham in the 1-1 draw. A member of the side which gained near immortality by appearing in the first Wembley Cup Final in 1923, Syd was one of the few "utility" players of his generation; playing in nearly every position for Hammers — including goal when Ted Hufton was injured on one occasion.
It has often been said that the best half-backs are those who have had experience in the forward positions, gaining first-hand knowledge of the type of service the men up front need in the process. Syd's career certainly gained from this drill. Well known as a big-occasion player, he was named as reserve for England versus Ireland at Wembley in 1924, but was destined to wait until after he'd left Upton Park before gaining full international recognition.
His departure for a £4,000 fee from the Boleyn Ground to Leicester City on 5 November 1926 was regretted by his many admirers long after he'd left; but there could be no denying that this great player had lost form during his last season in east London. He even reverted to his old positions in the forward line in a desperate effort to regain his lost sparkle.
All this changed with his move to Filbert Street, however. Although he continued to live in London (a decision which must have brought its own difficulties in the days before motorways), his form improved to such an extent that he won four full caps for his country in 1927 versus Scotland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. In two seasons with the Foxes he played in 49 league games scoring seven goals. It was a more mature Syd Bishop who returned to his beloved London to sign for Chelsea in 1928 for a fee of £4,400, with brain rather than brawn being the hallmark of his play. Syd Bishop was in the Chelsea side which won promotion to the First Division in 1930 and ended his playing days at Stamford Bridge in May 1933, having played 109 games and scoring six goals, somewhat earlier than he might have done due to injuries. At the sadly premature age of 49, he died in his Chelsea home in 1949.
#218
TOMMY HAMPSON
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#219
WILLIAM JAMES
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#220
HERBERT COWELL
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#221
LESLIE ROBINSON
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#222
JOSEPH HART
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WILLIAM GATLAND
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JACK HEBDEN
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JOHN CALLADINE
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WILLIAM BROWN
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