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LoveItIfWeBeatU

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Guest Howaythetoon

Guest Howaythetoon

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http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2018/01/07/22/47DD15BD00000578-5244615-image-a-1_1515365253486.jpg

 

A shot in time: Defences were scared of Chelsea's famously infamous hitman Hughie Gallacher

 

Imagine this trio turning up at your door. More like bailiffs — or worse — than the Chelsea forward line, Jackie Crawford, Hughie Gallacher and Andy Wilson carried more than a goal threat when they posed like this.

 

It was 1931 and in west London, as well as Chicago, Al Capone was in vogue. These three look like they are on their way to, or on the way back from, a hit.

 

Two, Crawford and Gallacher, are smoking, because that was what you did. The other, Wilson, has one glove on, not because he had returned from somewhere he did not wish to leave fingerprints, rather Wilson had fought in the First World War and received a gunshot injury to his lower left arm at Arras.

 

A Scotland winger, Wilson was a Middlesbrough player then. He joined Chelsea in 1923 and stayed in the team for eight seasons. After that he joined QPR, and all that time he wore a glove. Later he underwent amputation.

 

Wilson was 34 in this picture, as was Crawford. He too was a winger, from Jarrow in the North East, where he worked in the shipyard before joining Hull City. He moved to Chelsea at the same time as Wilson.

 

Crawford played for England — once. At 5ft 2in, he is thought to be the smallest ever England international. His height meant that he was one of the few players 5ft 5in Gallacher could look down on.

 

The two Chelsea wingers were, appropriately, either side of their famously infamous centre forward, Gallacher. He was the headline act. ‘Wee Hughie’ Gallacher was a walking headline.

 

Born in 1903 near Glasgow, Gallacher came to Newcastle United’s attention playing for Airdrieonians. By the time he was 23 he had won the Scottish Cup with Airdrie and finished runner-up in the league twice. He had scored 100 goals in 129 appearances and won his first Scotland cap.

 

In December 1925, he moved to Newcastle for £6,500 — £50 short of the British transfer record. He scored on his debut at St James’ Park and never stopped.

 

In his first full season — 1926-27 — Gallacher was made captain. It was a surprise to someone with a reputation for getting his retaliation in first but he responded with four goals in the opening day 4-0 win over Aston Villa.

 

Hat-tricks against Tottenham and Everton followed and in the last home game of the season, against Sheffield Wednesday, Gallacher scored both goals in a 2-1 win. It gave Newcastle the league title for the first time since 1909. And for the last time.

 

In 41 league and cup appearances, Gallacher scored 39 goals. In four and a half seasons at St James’ this phenomenon scored 143 goals in 174 matches — an 82 per cent strike rate.

 

Years later his team-mate Stan Seymour said of Gallacher: ‘Stanley Matthews has only a fraction of his casual genius.’

 

The Newcastle Journal wondered if Gallacher possessed ‘more than the usual complement of feet’. Gallacher became a Geordie hero. There was more to it than goals: he was a man about town, liked a drink, then another one, a sharp dresser with a sharp wit.

 

But he also had a temper and a willingness to spend. Ultimately those characteristics influenced his life as much as his talent. Frequent suspensions, court appearances, front-page headlines and an offer of £10,000 meant that Newcastle sold arguably their greatest ever individual to Chelsea in May 1930.

 

There was uproar on Tyneside. Gallacher was an idol. Chelsea’s first away game the next season was at Newcastle. It was on a Wednesday afternoon and 68,386 turned up to see him, with at least 10,000 locked outside. It is still St James’ Park’s record attendance.

 

At Chelsea Gallacher was still the star, just not as prolific — but then he was on a two-month FA suspension in this picture for abusing a referee. Later in the year he was declared bankrupt. His Scotland career had ended by then — 24 goals in 20 caps (only Law and Dalglish have scored more). Gallacher left Chelsea, without a trophy, for Derby in 1934, then on to Notts County, Grimsby and back to the North East with Gateshead, where he settled.

 

He was content, still scoring — in total 463 goals in 624 games. But there was tragedy in his past and more in the future.

 

At 17, Gallacher had married and his wife Annie had a son, Hughie, who died before his first birthday.

 

With his second wife Hannah, they had three sons, but when she died in 1950, Gallacher was shattered. He kept the house together but after a row with his youngest son, Mattie, in 1957, Mattie was taken into care.

 

Gallacher was due in court again but that morning, he wrote a note apologising for his behaviour and made his way to a stretch of the London-Edinburgh railway line at Gateshead. It was known as Dead Man’s Crossing.

 

Some locals would later say they had seen him convulsed with anguish. Aged 54, Gallacher stepped in front of a train.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-5244615/A-shot-time-Defences-scared-Hughie-Gallacher.html

 

:smitten:

 

He once gave his fur coat to a tramp outside the Central Station and would regularly drink with fans. Ive read many a match report from his games and he must have been some player to watch.

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gdm

gdm

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As mentioned in the article Gallacher also played for my home town team Airdrieonians and there are streets in the town named after him and frank brennan who also played for both clubs

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Guest firetotheworks

Guest firetotheworks

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You'd probably be forgiven for thinking Souness would make a good manager based on his punditry...and you somehow managed to pay so little attention that you missed him having already been a consistently shit manager over the space of 15-20 years.

 

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Guest neesy111

Guest neesy111

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[emoji38] Did Souness get us to the Waffa Cup semi?

 

Nar, he got us to the quarter final where we completely dropped our arses m8.

2-0 up across both legs with an away goal with 30 minutes left to play.  [emoji38]
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Guest Howaythetoon

Guest Howaythetoon

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Souness is a good pundit, but was a shit shit manager. Set us back years and destroyed a perfectly decent team that just needed tweaked.

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WarrenBartonCentrePartin

WarrenBartonCentrePartin

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[emoji38] Did Souness get us to the Waffa Cup semi?

 

Nar, he got us to the quarter final where we completely dropped our arses m8.

2-0 up across both legs with an away goal with 30 minutes left to play.  [emoji38]

 

:anguish: then the FA Cup semi final on the Sunday. I think everyone on my coach down to Cardiff was already accepting defeat by the time we hit Scotch Corner.

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LFEE

LFEE

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Souness is a good pundit, but was a s*** s*** manager. Set us back years and destroyed a perfectly decent team that just needed tweaked.

 

The daft thing is he said as much in his first interview.

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Tooj

Tooj

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Hutchinson is a typical mackem, talks about us way more than he does about down the road despite having no affiliation to us.

He's from Gateshead man so of course he has some form of affiliation to us.
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