Jeff Hall (footballer)
Encyclopedia
Jeffrey James "Jeff" Hall (7 September 1929 – 4 April 1959) was an English footballer who played as a right back
for Birmingham City
and England
.
It was the death of Hall – a young, fit, international footballer – from polio
which helped to kick-start widespread public acceptance in Britain of the need for vaccination
. Though the disease was generally feared and the Salk vaccine was available, takeup had been slow. In the weeks following Hall's death emergency vaccination clinics had to be set up and supplies of the vaccine had to be flown in from the United States to cope with the demand.
, Lincolnshire
and brought up in Keighley
, West Yorkshire
. After leaving school in 1945 he played for various junior clubs in the area before joining his local Football League
club, Bradford Park Avenue
, then in the Second Division
, where he remained an amateur
and never made a first team appearance.
It was while playing at right half
for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
during his National Service
that he was spotted by Birmingham City
chief scout
Walter Taylor, whose other successes included Gil Merrick
, Trevor Smith
and Ken Green
. Hall signed on professional forms in May 1950.
He was converted to full back
while playing for Birmingham's reserve team
, and made his first-team debut in that position in January 1951, though did not become a regular for the first team until 1953. He was part of the Birmingham City side which won the Second Division Championship in 1954–55. The following season, 1955–56, he was part of the team which reached the club's highest ever finishing position, sixth in the First Division
, and the Cup Final
, losing 3–1 to Manchester City
. He also played in Birmingham's Inter-Cities Fairs Cup
campaign.
Also that season, he won his first representative honours, a cap for England B
against West Germany B,
soon followed by his first full cap for England
, in a 5–1 victory in a friendly away to Denmark
. He played every minute of this and England's next 16 international matches, until losing his place to West Bromwich Albion
's Don Howe in October 1957.
He finished on the losing side only once for England, and formed a fine understanding with regular defensive partner Roger Byrne
of Manchester United
.
Hall's last match for Birmingham was away to Portsmouth
in March 1959. He became ill, was diagnosed with polio
, and died in a Birmingham hospital just two weeks later, on 4 April 1959. A clock and scoreboard were erected in his memory in Birmingham City's ground, St Andrew's, later that year; they did not survive the ground redevelopments of the mid-1990s. In his home town of Keighley, a trophy was presented in his honour to the newly-formed Sunday League
in the early 1960s for their cup competition which is still competed for today.
Birmingham City commissioned a second memorial clock to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hall's death. Centrally sited above the main stand at St Andrew's, it was unveiled in September 2008 by Hall's teammates Alex Govan
and Gil Merrick
. However, adverse reaction to the clock's size and position provoked the club into ordering a larger replacement.
Defender (association football)
Within the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to prevent the opposition from attacking....
for Birmingham City
Birmingham City F.C.
Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, they became Small Heath in 1888, then Birmingham in 1905, finally becoming Birmingham City in 1943.They were relegated at the end of the...
and England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
.
It was the death of Hall – a young, fit, international footballer – from polio
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
which helped to kick-start widespread public acceptance in Britain of the need for vaccination
Vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of antigenic material to stimulate the immune system of an individual to develop adaptive immunity to a disease. Vaccines can prevent or ameliorate the effects of infection by many pathogens...
. Though the disease was generally feared and the Salk vaccine was available, takeup had been slow. In the weeks following Hall's death emergency vaccination clinics had to be set up and supplies of the vaccine had to be flown in from the United States to cope with the demand.
Biography
Jeff Hall was born in ScunthorpeScunthorpe
Scunthorpe is a town within North Lincolnshire, England. It is the administrative centre of the North Lincolnshire unitary authority, and had an estimated total resident population of 72,514 in 2010. A predominantly industrial town, Scunthorpe, the United Kingdom's largest steel processing centre,...
, Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
and brought up in Keighley
Keighley
Keighley is a town and civil parish within the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England. It is situated northwest of Bradford and is at the confluence of the River Aire and the River Worth...
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
. After leaving school in 1945 he played for various junior clubs in the area before joining his local Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...
club, Bradford Park Avenue
Bradford Park Avenue A.F.C.
Bradford Association Football Club, previously also known as Bradford and since its reformation in the 1970s now referred to as Bradford Park Avenue, is a football club based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England...
, then in the Second Division
Football League Second Division
From 1892 until 1992, the Football League Second Division was the second highest division overall in English football.This ended with the creation of the FA Premier League, prior to the start of the 1992–93 season, which caused an administrative split between The Football League and the teams...
, where he remained an amateur
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
and never made a first team appearance.
It was while playing at right half
Wing half
In association football, the position of wing half or wing half back) was popularly used in the late nineteenth and first half of the 20th centuries...
for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers
The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers is a corps of the British Army that has responsibility for the maintenance, servicing and inspection of almost every electrical and mechanical piece of equipment within the British Army from Challenger II main battle tanks and WAH64 Apache...
during his National Service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
that he was spotted by Birmingham City
Birmingham City F.C.
Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, they became Small Heath in 1888, then Birmingham in 1905, finally becoming Birmingham City in 1943.They were relegated at the end of the...
chief scout
Scout (sport)
In professional sports, scouts are trained talent evaluators who travel extensively for the purposes of watching athletes play their chosen sports and determining whether their set of skills and talents represent what is needed by the scout's organization...
Walter Taylor, whose other successes included Gil Merrick
Gil Merrick
Gilbert Harold "Gil" Merrick , was an English footballer and football manager. Considered one of the best goalkeepers in the UK during the mid-1950s, Merrick was one in a long line of great Birmingham City keepers which included the likes of Johnny Schofield and Harry Hibbs...
, Trevor Smith
Trevor Smith (footballer)
Trevor Smith was an English footballer, who played as a centre half for Birmingham City and the England national football team.- Biography :...
and Ken Green
Ken Green (footballer)
Kenneth "Ken" Green was an English footballer born in West Ham, London, who played as a full back. He played for Birmingham City from 1943 to 1959, making 443 appearances in all competitions and scoring 3 goals, and played in the 1956 FA Cup final which Birmingham lost to Manchester City 3-1...
. Hall signed on professional forms in May 1950.
He was converted to full back
Defender (association football)
Within the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to prevent the opposition from attacking....
while playing for Birmingham's reserve team
Reserve team
Large professional sports clubs often have far more players under contract than could possibly play in a match. As a result, many of these clubs create second teams composed of players who need playing time, but have little hope of playing on the first team. The players on this second team are...
, and made his first-team debut in that position in January 1951, though did not become a regular for the first team until 1953. He was part of the Birmingham City side which won the Second Division Championship in 1954–55. The following season, 1955–56, he was part of the team which reached the club's highest ever finishing position, sixth in the First Division
Football League First Division
The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....
, and the Cup Final
1956 FA Cup Final
The 1956 FA Cup Final was the final match of the 1955–56 staging of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, better known as the FA Cup. The showpiece event was contested between Manchester City and Birmingham City at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday...
, losing 3–1 to Manchester City
Manchester City F.C.
Manchester City Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Manchester. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's , they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894...
. He also played in Birmingham's Inter-Cities Fairs Cup
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup
The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971. The competition was the idea of Swiss pools supremo Ernst Thommen, Ottorino Barassi from Italy, and the English Football Association general secretary Stanley Rous, all of whom later became senior officials...
campaign.
Also that season, he won his first representative honours, a cap for England B
England B national football team
England B is a secondary football team run occasionally as support for the England national football team. At times they have played other nations' full teams; they have also played matches against 'B' teams from other football associations...
against West Germany B,
soon followed by his first full cap for England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
, in a 5–1 victory in a friendly away to Denmark
Denmark national football team
The Denmark national football team represents Denmark in association football and is controlled by the Danish Football Association , the governing body for the football clubs which are organized under DBU...
. He played every minute of this and England's next 16 international matches, until losing his place to West Bromwich Albion
West Bromwich Albion F.C.
West Bromwich Albion Football Club, also known as West Brom, The Baggies, The Throstles, Albion or WBA, are an English Premier League association football club based in West Bromwich in the West Midlands...
's Don Howe in October 1957.
He finished on the losing side only once for England, and formed a fine understanding with regular defensive partner Roger Byrne
Roger Byrne
Roger William Byrne was an English footballer and captain of Manchester United F.C.. He died at the age of 28 in the Munich air disaster....
of Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
.
Hall's last match for Birmingham was away to Portsmouth
Portsmouth F.C.
Portsmouth Football Club is an English football club based in the city of Portsmouth. The club is nicknamed Pompey. Portsmouth's home matches have been played at Fratton Park since the club's formation in 1898. The team currently play in the Football League Championship after being relegated from...
in March 1959. He became ill, was diagnosed with polio
Poliomyelitis
Poliomyelitis, often called polio or infantile paralysis, is an acute viral infectious disease spread from person to person, primarily via the fecal-oral route...
, and died in a Birmingham hospital just two weeks later, on 4 April 1959. A clock and scoreboard were erected in his memory in Birmingham City's ground, St Andrew's, later that year; they did not survive the ground redevelopments of the mid-1990s. In his home town of Keighley, a trophy was presented in his honour to the newly-formed Sunday League
Sunday league football
Sunday league football is a term used in the United Kingdom to describe those association football leagues which play on Sunday, as opposed to the more usual Saturday. These leagues tend to be lower standard amateur competitions, whose players may have less ability, or less time to devote to...
in the early 1960s for their cup competition which is still competed for today.
Birmingham City commissioned a second memorial clock to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hall's death. Centrally sited above the main stand at St Andrew's, it was unveiled in September 2008 by Hall's teammates Alex Govan
Alex Govan
Alexander "Alex" Govan is a Scottish former professional footballer who played at outside left. Most of his career was spent with Plymouth Argyle and with Birmingham City during their most successful period in the 1950s...
and Gil Merrick
Gil Merrick
Gilbert Harold "Gil" Merrick , was an English footballer and football manager. Considered one of the best goalkeepers in the UK during the mid-1950s, Merrick was one in a long line of great Birmingham City keepers which included the likes of Johnny Schofield and Harry Hibbs...
. However, adverse reaction to the clock's size and position provoked the club into ordering a larger replacement.
Honours
with Birmingham City- Football League Second DivisionFootball League Second DivisionFrom 1892 until 1992, the Football League Second Division was the second highest division overall in English football.This ended with the creation of the FA Premier League, prior to the start of the 1992–93 season, which caused an administrative split between The Football League and the teams...
champions: 1954–55The Football League 1954-55-Overview:The 1954–1955 season was the 56th completed season of The Football League.-Final league tables :The tables below are reproduced here in the exact form that they can be found at website and in Rothmans Book of Football League Records 1888–89 to 1978–79, with home and away statistics... - FA CupFA CupThe Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
finalists: 19561956 FA Cup FinalThe 1956 FA Cup Final was the final match of the 1955–56 staging of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, better known as the FA Cup. The showpiece event was contested between Manchester City and Birmingham City at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday...