Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Full name | Jack Firth [1] | ||
Date of birth | 8 August 1907 | ||
Place of birth | Brightside, Sheffield, England | ||
Date of death | 8 December 1987 | (aged 80)||
Place of death | Doncaster, England | ||
Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) [1] | ||
Position(s) | Wing half, inside forward | ||
Youth career | |||
Woodlands Prims | |||
Senior career* | |||
Years | Team | Apps | ( Gls) |
19??–1926 | Brodsworth Main Colliery | ||
Doncaster Rovers | 0 | (0) | |
1926–1933 | Birmingham | 93 | (7) |
1933–1936 | Swansea Town | 102 | (16) |
1936–1937 | Bury | 7 | (4) |
1937–19?? | Brodsworth Main Colliery | ||
*Club domestic league appearances and goals |
Jack Firth (8 August 1907 – 8 December 1987) was an English professional footballer who made more than 200 appearances in the Football League playing as a wing half or inside forward for Birmingham, Swansea Town and Bury.
Jack Firth was born on 8 August 1907 [1] in Brightside, Sheffield; [2] he was a son of Albert Firth, a coal miner, and his wife Harriet. The family spent time living in Barnsley [3] before settling in Woodlands, where Firth attended the village school and captained its football team. [2] He was a member of the Doncaster schools representative team that played in the English Schools Shield. [2] On leaving school, he worked at Brodsworth Main Colliery, first as a screener and then in the office. [2] He began his football career with Woodlands Prims, and then joined his works team, initially in the reserves. [2] A trial with Doncaster Rovers during the 1925–26 season came to nothing, and in March 1926, he joined Football League First Division club Birmingham on a similar basis. The trial went well, he signed professional forms, "and was glad to forget the colliery and the coal-getting." [4] [2]
Firth made his first-team debut for Birmingham on 29 October 1927, replacing the indisposed Wally Harris as stand-in for Johnny Crosbie at inside right for the 3–1 defeat away to Sheffield United, [5] the team Firth supported as a boy. The Sunday Mercury reporter wrote that he "revealed a great deal of footcraft, but he was too slow in parting with the ball and should have fed his partner oftener." [6] [2] Starting at inside left, he scored his first goal 12 minutes into the visit to Middlesbrough on 25 February 1928 following a corner, and finished the game at right half after Jimmy Cringan was injured; it was only after the reorganisation that Middlesbrough equalised. [7] He ended the season with six appearances, and made twice that number in 1928–29, six at inside forward and six at right half, in the last of which he broke a collarbone. [8] [9]
He was a regular at right half the following season and for the first couple of months of the next, until dropped in favour of Cringan. [10] [11] Brought into the forward line to face Grimsby Town with Joe Bradford away on international duty with England and George Briggs and George Hicks injured, [12] and despite carrying an injury for much of the second half, Firth scored a hat-trick in the last half-hour of the game to secure a 4–1 win. [13] He regained a regular place in the side from mid-February onwards, scored in the FA Cup sixth round replay and played in the semi-final win against Sunderland, but Bob Gregg was preferred for the 1931 FA Cup Final, which Birmingham lost 2–1 to West Bromwich Albion. [14] [15] He remained at the club for another two years, during which he made just 14 appearances, and was not retained at the end of the 1932–33 season. [16] [17]
Firth signed for Swansea Town of the Second Division in August 1933. [18] He was a regular in their team for three seasons, mainly as an inside forward, and in his first season scored ten goals from 34 league appearances, a return that made him Swansea's second top scorer with only one fewer than Syd Lowry's 11. [19] He was made available for transfer in 1936, [20] and signed for Bury, another Second Division club. His manager, Norman Bullock, thought he would "prove a very good utility player", [21] but, apart from a run of five games at inside right in February 1937 that produced four goals, he rarely played. [19]
He returned home at the end of that season, and rejoined Brodsworth Main, both colliery and football team. [19] [22] In addition to football, Firth played league cricket in Yorkshire. [23]
Firth died in Doncaster on 8 December 1987 at the age of 80. [1]
Club | Season | League | FA Cup | Total | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
Birmingham | 1927–28 | First Division | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 |
1928–29 | First Division | 12 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 1 | |
1929–30 | First Division | 36 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 39 | 0 | |
1930–31 | First Division | 25 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 27 | 5 | |
1931–32 | First Division | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | |
1932–33 | First Division | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | |
Total | 93 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 98 | 8 | ||
Swansea Town | 1933–34 | Second Division | 34 | 10 | 4 | 0 | 38 | 10 |
1934–35 | Second Division | 36 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 38 | 4 | |
1935–36 | Second Division | 32 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 33 | 2 | |
Total | 102 | 16 | 7 | 0 | 109 | 16 | ||
Bury | 1936–37 | Second Division | 7 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 4 |
Career total | 202 | 27 | 12 | 1 | 214 | 28 |