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Pitch Publishing Ltd - Jeff Holmes

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223 pages

English

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Tortured: The Sam English Story is the fascinating yet tragic tale of a footballer destined to become one of the greatest goalscorers in Scottish football history, but who by his own admission became 'an embarrassing, grizzly peep show'. English was a veritable goal machine at Yoker Athletic in the late 1920s, netting nearly 300 in three seasons, and was soon being chased by a posse of big-name clubs. Legendary Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman offered him a blank cheque, but 22-year-old English chose Rangers. He hit 44 league goals in his debut season - still a record today - but tragedy struck early in the campaign. In the first Old Firm match of the season, Celtic keeper John Thomson lost his life after bravely diving at the feet of the entirely blameless English. In an instant, English became one half of a tragic accident and his life changed forever. He moved to Liverpool, but was haunted by the fatality and its accompanying demons. He was cast as a villain and made a pariah. His life would be defined by that one tragic incident.

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	14 septembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785318030
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2020
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Jeff Holmes, 2020
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785317255
eBook ISBN 9781785318030
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Contents

Introduction
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Introduction

IN AN era when many centre-forwards ploughed a self-regarding furrow up top, Sam English was the antithesis. So far removed from the role of maverick striker, he preferred instead to embrace combination - and it didn t stop the goals flowing.
Pulling his story together took around five or six years; a wee bit longer than normal but, as my granny often said, If you re going to do something, you might as well do it right. When researching an era such as this, confirming data to be accurate can be a real issue. I like to find at least two sources which corroborate the information, but sometimes you don t have that luxury. You need to make a judgement call, especially on the few occasions where even verifying an interesting piece of information proves impossible. It s so frustrating when it s something that s far too good to chuck in the bin.
In the early days of my research, when a young colleague heard what I was working on, he asked, Sam English - isn t that the guy who killed John Thomson?
Strangely enough, it s a line I d been brought up believing. Sam English played for Rangers long before I started going to Ibrox, some 40 years or so, but it was a common misconception for those who didn t know any better, regardless of era. And it also illustrates to some extent what English must have been forced to endure throughout not just his career but most of his life. The guy who killed John Thomson, regardless of the truth.
Thing is, he was no more to blame for the death of the young goalkeeper than any of the other players on the park that day. It was the most unfortunate of accidents, and while the Celtic goalkeeper tragically passed away a few hours after the match, it s no exaggeration to say that a big part of Sam English also died in the Glasgow hospital that night.
Sam s career had really taken off during his time at Yoker Athletic. The young man, born in the north of Ireland but brought up in Scotland from before the age of two, was the genuine article in front of goal and quickly became the hero of Holm Park. Due to a split within the structure of Junior football, Senior clubs were prohibited from signing players from the Intermediate ranks, and the Yoker committee took full advantage of the situation to assemble a thoroughly decent side - spearheaded by 20-year-old English - that were regularly in the hunt for top honours.
In his three seasons at Yoker, he scored more than 250 goals, an incredible haul which marked him down as a wanted man once the Intermediate dispute was over. When the time came, a glorious line of top clubs were queuing up to sign the young shipyard worker with magic in his boots. Arsenal and Rangers were at the front of the queue, but there were many others. Legendary Gunners boss Herbert Chapman had personally travelled north - just days after an operation - in an attempt to secure Sam s signature. In a face-to-face with the player, in a twilight rendezvous at a Glasgow hotel, he would say, I ll admit I don t know much about you, but as every other club seems to want your signature, I would be foolish not to join the queue!
Of course, Bill Struth - who had been slipping Sam regular bungs during the Intermediate period - won the race to sign English and the talented centre-forward had the most sensational debut campaign. I offer up 44 league goals as proof; an Ibrox record which still stands today, 88 years after it was set. A first-year rookie knocking it out the park was real-life Roy of the Rovers stuff, but there was certainly more to this young man than goals.
He had the lot. His control of the ball was top-drawer, he could shoot with both feet, he possessed near-Olympic style speed over the necessary distance, and his ability to link up play from middle to front was positively revolutionary.
And for a man a shade under 5ft 8in, he could head the ball with a technical accuracy that was anything but an integral part of the game in the 1930s. Dixie Dean, of Everton, is frequently held up as the perfect centre-forward; the best in the history of British football, but the late, great Bob McPhail - no slouch in front of goal himself - once said, Though I never played with the great Dixie Dean, I did play against him. I would have taken English before him.
The revered right-half, Chic Geatons, who played for Celtic from 1927 to 1941, said, Sam English was quickly becoming one of the best centre-forwards of his time. He was not a rough player; he was a cultured footballer, and I know that if anyone could have avoided that impact [with John Thomson] it would have been Sam.
While English played for Liverpool it was suggested that he led the Anfield line in a way no one had done previously. He was a team player, had a devotion to combination and always put the good of the team before his own interests.
English would also play for Queen of the South and Hartlepools United, but by that time he was going through the motions and playing merely for a wage. Any love he d once had for the beautiful game had long since dissipated, which was no surprise as on arriving home one day, after playing a round of golf on a rare day off, he was greeted by the sight of his three little girls waiting patiently in the driveway of his Dalmuir home. Daddy, did you kill a man? asked Eleanor, his youngest. While playing in the local park, a boy of primary school age had asked young Eleanor that very question. This was a few years after the incident. At that moment, it was clear there would be no rest for Sam; a tragic accident in a football match would define him for the rest of his life.
When he finished playing he went back to work in the shipyards, and even when ill health forced him to give up work, the odd Saturday afternoon outing to the football would be met with the type of stares normally reserved for a grotesque peep show.
As much as the kind words from fellow professionals and team-mates were welcome at the time of the accident, these were soon vastly overshadowed by the terracing taunts, shouts in the street and the sick comments from fellow pros on the park. No matter how much he tried to get on with his life, and career, the events of Saturday, 5 September 1931 refused to conform, and followed him around like a recurring nightmare.
The bright light which had once illuminated this young, talented footballer was slowly dimming, and despite finding some form of solace on the football field for a time after the accident, at the end of that season the light had not only dimmed quite considerably, it had all but gone out. Try as he might - and boy did he try to keep his career illuminated via several fresh starts - it was more or less over. Not even the comforting words of John Thomson s parents, who said that they truly hoped he could overcome the events of that horrific day, were enough to give him the strength to continue to do what he had been doing so well. As the light faded, so too did the soul of Sam English.
Seven joyless years of sport indeed.
One

IF EVER one could choose their birthplace, the tranquillity, beauty and lush, rolling hills of Crevolea would be an excellent place to start. The slow pace of life and natural splendour entranced both Richard English and his wife, Jane Milliken, just like their parents before them, so it was no great surprise when they chose to raise their family in the small townland they called home.
Crevolea is one of more than 60 such townlands in the parish of Aghadowey, which is situated in the vast county of Londonderry, in the north of Ireland, just slightly east of centre. The town closest to Crevolea is Coleraine, just eight miles to the north, while the village of Garvagh is less than five miles away in the opposite direction.
The birthplace of Sam English takes in an area of around half a mile and has just a single street. You can hear a pin drop as you walk along the narrow, but deserted pavements in the picture-postcard hamlet. Time has stood still in Crevolea, where a couple of dozen houses are protected from the outside world by rows of carefully planted trees, standing guard jealously in perfect formation, just 40 minutes - but a world away - from the nearby city of Londonderry.
Our story starts a few hundred yards from the main Drumcroon Road on the morning of Saturday, 8 August 1908, when Richard and Jane English introduced Samuel as their tenth child. When the fair-haired baby was settling down to life in the brood, he had nine sets of sibling eyes trained upon his tiny frame, as well as those of his pro