Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2010 21:59:51 GMT
That’s a fantastic clipping about Albert Hutchinson having another annual holiday in Torquay well over twenty years after leaving Torquay United. With him being aged fifty-two at the time I’m deducing it’s the summer of 1963 shortly before his 53rd birthday in the September. The idea of ex-Torquay players taking a fortnight’s holiday in the resort for years to come is a lovely one but, as we know, that’s the type of holiday people took in amazing numbers in the 1950s and 1960s.
And, now Albert’s connection with Sheffield is substantiated, we can see how he moved at least twice whilst still in his teens: once to Luton, then to Torquay (probably as a nineteen-year-old rather than eighteen as mentioned in that newspaper article). That nails the lie about football teams of eighty or more years ago being made up of local lads. In the professional game it was never quite like that from the year dot onwards.
No better time to discuss Albert, as we near his centenary, and the clipping again reminds us what an outstanding figure “Hutch” – as he seemed to be universally known – was in our pre-war history. Look at his 317 league appearances between 1930 and 1939 and you’ll see that’s streets ahead of any other player during that 1927-39 period. From a quick look at the records – and I’m sure Jon will correct me if I’m wrong – there were only ten pre-war players who played more than a hundred Football League games for the club, Percy Maggs being next to Albert with 206. For a club which had only played 504 league games before WW2 (not counting those in the aborted 1939/40 season), 317 would have been a fine individual record.
That made me investigate the history of the Torquay United appearance record for Football League games held, as we know, by Dennis Lewis. Again I stand to be corrected – I suspect various parties are in possession of the appropriate spreadsheets – but, by my reckoning, Bob Smith was the first to clock-up a hundred FL appearances some time during the 1930/31 season hotly pursued by Jack Fowler (wasn’t he Derek Fowler’s granddad?). Fowler outlasted Smith at Plainmoor and finished on 180 league appearances in 1934 to set a new record. Hutchinson surpassed this total towards the end of the 1934/35 season and eventually established a mark that stood - I think -until 1955/56.
Now, at this point, I had assumed Dennis Lewis inherited the record. Then I realised Ron Shaw must have run him pretty close for being the first to 318. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten exactly how it was shown by Messrs Gibbes and Lovis that Dennis Lewis made 443 league appearances rather than the oft-quoted 442. The online Herald Express article of April 2008 quotes John Lovis: "We have discovered three mistakes, with Dennis Lewis credited with one appearance he didn't make (in 1950), but also not given two games which he did play in.”
This makes it particularly interesting because using the centenary history’s appearance charts – which we now know included the errors mentioned above – it appears Lewis and Shaw were neck-and-neck on 296 league appearances at the start of the 1955/56 season, each needing another twenty-two games to beat Albert Hutchinson’s record. The book shows Shaw missed the 14th game whilst Lewis was an ever-present giving him the record which he continued to build upon. But, not remembering precise details of the re-calculation of Lewis’s career tally (when were those two extra games?), does this change things? Who was first to 318 or did Lewis and Shaw achieve that mark together?
And, now Albert’s connection with Sheffield is substantiated, we can see how he moved at least twice whilst still in his teens: once to Luton, then to Torquay (probably as a nineteen-year-old rather than eighteen as mentioned in that newspaper article). That nails the lie about football teams of eighty or more years ago being made up of local lads. In the professional game it was never quite like that from the year dot onwards.
No better time to discuss Albert, as we near his centenary, and the clipping again reminds us what an outstanding figure “Hutch” – as he seemed to be universally known – was in our pre-war history. Look at his 317 league appearances between 1930 and 1939 and you’ll see that’s streets ahead of any other player during that 1927-39 period. From a quick look at the records – and I’m sure Jon will correct me if I’m wrong – there were only ten pre-war players who played more than a hundred Football League games for the club, Percy Maggs being next to Albert with 206. For a club which had only played 504 league games before WW2 (not counting those in the aborted 1939/40 season), 317 would have been a fine individual record.
That made me investigate the history of the Torquay United appearance record for Football League games held, as we know, by Dennis Lewis. Again I stand to be corrected – I suspect various parties are in possession of the appropriate spreadsheets – but, by my reckoning, Bob Smith was the first to clock-up a hundred FL appearances some time during the 1930/31 season hotly pursued by Jack Fowler (wasn’t he Derek Fowler’s granddad?). Fowler outlasted Smith at Plainmoor and finished on 180 league appearances in 1934 to set a new record. Hutchinson surpassed this total towards the end of the 1934/35 season and eventually established a mark that stood - I think -until 1955/56.
Now, at this point, I had assumed Dennis Lewis inherited the record. Then I realised Ron Shaw must have run him pretty close for being the first to 318. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten exactly how it was shown by Messrs Gibbes and Lovis that Dennis Lewis made 443 league appearances rather than the oft-quoted 442. The online Herald Express article of April 2008 quotes John Lovis: "We have discovered three mistakes, with Dennis Lewis credited with one appearance he didn't make (in 1950), but also not given two games which he did play in.”
This makes it particularly interesting because using the centenary history’s appearance charts – which we now know included the errors mentioned above – it appears Lewis and Shaw were neck-and-neck on 296 league appearances at the start of the 1955/56 season, each needing another twenty-two games to beat Albert Hutchinson’s record. The book shows Shaw missed the 14th game whilst Lewis was an ever-present giving him the record which he continued to build upon. But, not remembering precise details of the re-calculation of Lewis’s career tally (when were those two extra games?), does this change things? Who was first to 318 or did Lewis and Shaw achieve that mark together?
