SATURDAY 9TH FEBRUARY, 1952
LEAGUE DIVISION ONE AT MOLINEUX, WOLVERHAMPTON
WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 0 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN 0
Parsons; Shorthouse, Gibbons; Wright (capt), Chatham, Baxter;
Hancocks, Broadbent, Short, Dunn, Mullen;
Mills; Gallogly, Boot; McGarry, McEvoy, Quested;
Gunn, Kelly (capt), Shiner, Davie, Metcalfe;
The teams lined up before the start for a minutes silence following the death earlier in the the week of King George VI.
Their was a general aura of gloom all round with the weather and a poor performance from both teams. Lawrie Kelly, normally a full back, played at inside right and captained the Town team against his former club. Wolves experimented with full back Short at centre forward which was not a success. This was my first sighting of Willie Davie, Town's Scottish inside forward, who was to play a major part in reviving Town's fortunes.
SATURDAY 16TH FEBRUARY, 1952
LEAGUE DIVISION ONE AT MOLINEUX, WOLVERHAMPTON
WOLVES 3 (Dunn, Hancocks 2) NEWCASTLE UNITED 0
Williams; Shorthouse, Gibbons; Baxter, Chatham, Wright (capt);
Hancocks, Broadbent, Whitfield, Dunn, Mullen;
Simpson; Cowell, McMichael; Harvery (capt), Brennan, Robledo (E);
Walker, Foulkes, Milburn, Robledo (G), Mitchell;
A much improved performance by Wolves against the very strong Newcastle team. The improvement was very much led by the lively form of diminutive winger Johnny Hancocks with two goals, helped by a promising performance from young inside forward Peter Broadbent.
SATURDAY 23RD FEBRUARY, 1952
LEAGUE DIVISION ONE AT MOLINEUX, WOLVERHAMPTON
WOLVES 0 SUNDERLAND 3 (Ford 2, Bingham)
Williams; Shorthouse, Gibbons; Baxter, Chatham, Wright (capt);
Hancocks, Broadbent, Whitfield, Walker, Mullen;
Mapson; Stelling, Hedley; Aitken, Hall (capt), Wright;
Bingham, Kirtley, Ford, Shackleton, Watson;
Referee:- Mr P Rhodes, York
Wolves erratic form continued. With only one change from last week's team which performed so well against Newcastle they were never really in the game against a very solid Sunderland defence. Centre forward Trevor Ford, Sunderland's big money signing from Aston Villa scored two goals and Irish outside right Billy Bingham the other. The clever ball skills of inside forward Len Shackleton were also seen at their best for once in a convincing win for the Wearsiders.
WEDNESDAY 27TH FEBRUARY, 1952
BIRMINGHAM COMBINATION AT VILLA PARK, BIRMINGHAM
ASTON VILLA 'A' 2 (Styles, Smith) STOKE CITY 'A' 0
Rutherford; Hudman, Hunt; Lamb, Proudler (capt), Clarke;
Styles, Pollard, Roberts, Norman, Smith (A.R.);
School half term enabled me to see a Wednesday afternoon match with the Aston Villa third eleven performing at Villa Park. Some of the Villa's youngest players from a very large professional staff had a chance to shine, but none were particularly outstanding.
The appearance of A.R. Smith meant that Villa now have three wingers of the same name! Probably the best performance came from the veteran goalkeeper Joe Rutherford.
SATURDAY 1ST MARCH, 1952
CENTRAL LEAGUE AT MOLINEUX, WOLVERHAMPTON
WOLVES RESERVES 3 (Stockin, Wilshaw, Taylor) SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY RESERVES 0
Parsons; McLean, Pritchard; Short, Stuart, Deeley;
Smith, (capt), Stockin, Taylor, Wilshaw, Clews;
Capewell; Kenny (capt), Moss; Edwards, Underwood, O'Donnell;
Finney, Quixall, Jordan, Rickett, Whittaker;
Another step into the lower reaches of the football world. Wolves reserves, with a number of players with first team experience made short work of Wednesday's young side. Reg Stockin, recently signed from Walsall, made a good impression and the Wolves defence looked particularly solid.
Main point of interest in the Wednesday ranks was the appearance of the very promising right wing pair of Alan Finney and Albert Quixall. Both are doing their National Service in the Army and seem to be spending the whole time playing football for various Army teams at all levels as well as for Wednesday at weekends.
SATURDAY 8TH MARCH, 1952 Attendance 65,000
LEAGUE DIVISION ONE AT VILLA PARK, BIRMINGHAM
ASTON VILLA 0 TOTTENHAM HOTSPURS 3 (Duqueman 2, Walters)
Jones; Lynn, Parkes; Blanchflower, Moss (F), Dorsett (capt);
Gibson, Thompson, Walsh, Dixon, Goffin;
Ditchburn; Ramsey, Withers; Nicholson, Clarke, Burgess (capt);
Walters, Bennett, Duqueman, Bailey, Adams;
Referee:- Mr G.W. Pullin, Bristol
A huge crowd turned out to watch the League Champions Spurs, who are pressing for the title once again. They were rewarded with a display of vintage football from the visitors, who were missing only outside left Les Medley from their full strength side.
Villa who had Irish international Dave Walsh, signed from West Brom, at centre forward had a difficult job against such a strong defence and the Spurs midfield, with Bill Nicholson, Welshman Ron Burgess and inside left Eddie Bailey were outstanding.
Centre forward Len Duqueman, from the Channel Islands, scored two goals and outside right Sonny Walters the other. There could have been more but the general feeling was it will take a very good side to stop Spurs winning the title again.
SATURDAY 15TH MARCH, 1952
LEAGUE DIVISION TWO AT ST ANDREWS, BIRMINGHAM
BIRMINGHAM CITY 3 (Murphy 2, Trigg) SHEFFIELD UNITED 0
Merrick; Green, Badham; Boyd (capt), Ferris, Warhurst;
Stewart, Briggs, Trigg, Murphy, Wardle;
Burgin; Furniss, McLafferty; Hitchen (capt), Toner, Shaw;
Ringstead, Smith, Browning, Hutchinson, Hawksworth;
Referee:- Mr. H. Tootill, Wigan.
Sheffield United's team included several very tall players, centre forward, Len Browning, the former Leeds United player, looked taller than most as he was opoosed by Irishman Ray Ferris, normally a wing half, who is no giant. Browning continually beat Ferris in the air and proved a great danger, going very close on three occasions early in the game. Birmingham's centre forward, Cyril Trigg, had his right knee heavily bandaged and his slowness sugeested that he was not completely fit.
Burgin injured his arm in brilliantly fisting away a Briggs headers and a minute later Birmingham took the lead. Burgin, Trigg and Toner all went for a high ball near the left hand post, they all missed it and the ball rolled into the goal area leaving Murphy to walk it into the net. Sheffield suffered a further injury when centre half Toner was kicked on the head and had to leave the field with blood streaming from a cut. The standard of football from two likely promotion candidates was very poor indeed. One good Birmingham move ended in Burgin making a great save from a Murphy header.
Half-time 1-0.
Toner, with his head heavily bandaged, resumed at outside right, Shaw moved to centre half, Hitchen to left half and Ringsted to right half. Four minutes after the interval Birmingham went further ahead, Murphy cutting in from the right sent the ball into the middle, Burgin could only push it against the bar and Trigg hit it into the net as the ball dropped to him.
Then further trouble for United, a fierce shot from Briggs hit Burgin's already injured arm and the goalkeeper had to leave his goal and went on to the right wing, the other casualty Toner taking his place between the sticks. Toner was soon in the wars again when a shot from Trigg winded him. Despite some clever footwork from Burgin, now on the right wing, Sheffield could not hope to make a game of it and Murphy added a third goal before the end.
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