THE PRINCE OF CENTRE-HALVES
THE LIFE OF TOMMY ‘T.G.’ JONES
THE PRINCE OF CENTRE-HALVES
THE LIFE OF TOMMY ‘T.G.’ JONES
First published as a hardback by deCoubertin Books Ltd in 2017.
First Edition
deCoubertin Books, Studio I, Baltic Creative Campus, Liverpool, L1 OAH www.decoubertin.co.uk
eISBN: 978-1-909245-54-9
Copyright © Rob Sawyer, 2017
The right of Rob Sawyer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be left liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover design and typeset by Thomas Regan | Milkyone Creative.
Printed and bound by Standart.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by the way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it was published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for photographs used in this book. If we have overlooked you in any way, please get in touch so that we can rectify this in future editions.
In loving memory of Louise Hitchmough (1967–2016)
Greatly missed sister, friend and fellow Evertonian
CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTES
FOREWORD BY DR DAVID FRANCE
FOREWORD BY KEVIN RATCLIFFE
INTRODUCTION
1EARLY YEARS
2EVERTON CALLING
3CHAMPIONS
4THE WAR YEARS
5BIRTH OF THE NOMADS
6WANT-AWAY
7PRINCE OF PWLLHELI
8CITIZEN OF BANGOR
9NAPOLI
10MOVING ON
11PLAYING EXTRA TIME
MEMORIES OF T.G.
T.G.’S PLAYING RECORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SOURCE MATERIAL
INDEX
AUTHOR’S NOTES
FOR THIS BOOK, I WAS FACED WITH THE DILEMMA OF HOW to refer to Thomas George Jones. While he is best known as ‘Tommy’ in his homeland, his friends and family often shortened this to ‘Tom’. In English football circles, on Merseyside in particular, he was referred to by his initials: ‘T.G.’ For consistency, I refer to him as ‘T.G.’ throughout this biography, except when directly quoting articles or interviewees. Those interviewed frequently interchanged ‘Tommy’, ‘Tom’ and ‘T.G.’ – sometimes within the same sentence. In such instances, I have not amended the monikers used.
Transcripts of three interviews with T.G. have provided invaluable source material for this biography. John Rowlands, Rogan Taylor and Andy Smith all spoke with T.G. during the course of researching their respective books: Everton Football Club: 1878–1946, Three Sides of the Mersey, and The Complete Centre Forward: The Authorised Biography of Tommy Lawton. I am grateful to John, Rogan, and Andy, as well as John Williams and Andrew Ward, who generously gave me access to these fascinating interviews.
Either side of the Second World War, the Merseyside sports scene was blessed with a cadre of talented journalists – most of whom used sobriquets. The likes of Ernest Edwards (often writing as Bee) and his son Leslie (who inherited the Bee byline from his father), Don Kendall (Pilot), Joe Wiggall (Stork), Louis T. Kelly (Stud Marks) and Bob Prole (Ranger) delivered in-depth, perceptive and pithy reporting on Everton affairs. I am fortunate that Billy Smith has transcribed so much of their output onto his Blue Correspondent website (www.bluecorrespondent.co.nr).
Where appropriate, I have used the current Welsh spelling of locations. However, where the names of publications were anglicised at the time, I have used those (e.g. Caernarvon and Denbigh Herald, as opposed to Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald). Any errors are entirely my own. I have tried to attribute all sources where possible, but some newspaper cuttings I had access to came with nothing to indicate their provenance. For brevity I have referenced the most commonly quoted sources in superscript as follows:
Andy Smith interview with T.G. – AS
John Rowlands interview with T.G. – JR
Rogan Taylor interview with T.G. – RT
Liverpool Echo – LE
Liverpool Football Echo – FE
Daily Post – DP
Liverpool Evening Express – EE
Caernarvon and Denbigh Herald – CDH
North Wales Chronicle – NWC
Western Mail – WM
Everton match-day programme – EP
Everton board of directors minutes – BM
Harlech Television/HTV – HTV
FOREWORD
Dr David France
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD WAS COLOURED BY THE DEAN VERSUS Lawton debate. Bill ‘Dixie’ Dean was the champion of my grandfather, Tommy Lawton the hero of my father. They were united, however, in their opinion of who was the finest centre-half in the land: that was the unflappable T.G. Jones. Both my grandfather and father had seen T.G. in action and lauded his sublime talents. They claimed that he dribbled with the dazzling skills of Stanley Matthews, passed with the accuracy of Cliff Britton, tackled with the flawless timing of Joe Mercer, and headed the ball with the power of both Dean and Lawton, all while reading the game like, well, T.G. Jones. Younger fans may be unfamiliar with such stars, so let’s say that his game embraced the best parts of Franz Beckenbauer, Alan Hansen, Paolo Maldini, Bobby Moore, Rio Ferdinand, and (dare I add) John Stones, who is known in our household as ‘T.G. Stones’.
‘The Uncrowned Prince of Wales’ was something of an acquired taste. Used to no-nonsense defensive pivots who preferred to lump the ball (as well as the odd opponent) upfield, Goodison Park held its collective breath at the sight of Jones gliding across his own box, executing the 1930s equivalent of Cruyff turns around the penalty spot before playing the ball through midfield. Apparently, his party piece had the stomachs of the Gwladys Street faithful in knots. At corners, he would cushion headers back to goalkeeper Ted Sagar.
I was sceptical about such nostalgia and solicited the opinions of the men who had walked in his giant footsteps. T.E. Jones, a centre-half who played over four hundred games for Everton between 1950 and 1961, told me: ‘Imagine having the burden of following Tom Jones, especially with sharing the same first and last names? In my lifetime, he was the finest British defender to wear a number five shirt, and that includes his countryman John Charles.’
Next, I sought the counsel of Brian Labone, who had enjoyed more than five hundred games and great success between 1958 and 1971: ‘By the late 50s I had become a first-team regular and the newspapers were referring to me as a future England international. I was brought down to earth by an old fan outside the Players’ Entrance. After I had signed his autograph book, he looked me in the eye: “Young man, you may be a top-class centre-half but you’ll never be as good as T.G.”’
Finally, I quizzed someone who had played alongside him. Gordon Watson had been a teammate of Dean, won the title with Lawton and T.G., played wartime football with T.G., coached the first team containing Alex Young, and guided the development of youngsters such as Colin Harvey. My opening question was predictable: ‘Was T.G. as comfortable on the ball as old-timers claim?’ His response: ‘Of course not – he was much better! He was refined. No, he was cultured. No, make that debonair!’ And so I queried: ‘Well, how come there is no statue of him at Goodison?’ Then Gordon replied: ‘Like Lawton, Mercer and the rest of the 1938/39 title-winning side, which was expected to dominate English football for a decade or more, his career was impacted by World War Two. Also, his standing was hindered by the fact that he hailed from the wrong side of Offa’s Dyke. If he had been English, people would be talking about T.G.’s immense talents in hushed tones. Then there is the small matter of him not having a good word to say about the hierarchy at Everton Football Club.’
Intrigued, I visited the Bangor home of T.G. on several occasions – all of them memorable. Reluctantly, I must confirm that T.G. didn’t share my love for all things blue, and had in fact boasted about walking away from Goodison in late 1949 to manage a Welsh League club and a hotel in Pwllheli. Clearly, he had not forgiven those responsible for his aborted move to AS Roma of Serie A. Instead of an astronomical signing-on bonus of £5,000, massive wages of £25 per week, a sun-drenched villa, new Lancia car, and first-class travel to and from Italy, the elegant defender settled for the maximum wage of £12 per week at Goodison before bolting to the home of Butlin’s and Welsh nationalism, where – in his words – he enjoyed more respect and dodged playing in a poor Everton side destined for relegation. T.G. enjoyed chatting about representing Wales, but more than anything waxed lyrical about his belated Italian experience as manager of Bangor City in the early 60s. His team of part-timers, who played in the Cheshire League, had hammered AC Napoli of Serie A with a 2–0 victory in the European Cup Winners’ Cup, before losing 3-1 to late goals in the second leg in Italy, and then 2–1 in the replay at Highbury.
Somewhere in royal blue heaven, my grandfather and father will be delighted that I’ve contributed to this volume about one of the unsung heroes of British football. Without question, T.G. Jones was an exceptional footballer whose elegance would have illuminated the playing fields of any era – especially those of the modern-day Premier League.
February 2016
FOREWORD
Kevin Ratcliffe
AS A FOOTBALLER I HAD THE HONOUR OF CAPTAINING BOTH my club and my country. My father made me aware that T.G. Jones, another son of Deeside, preceded me by forty years in those roles for Everton and Wales. T.G. set the benchmark against which Everton centre-halves such as T.E. Jones, Brian Labone, Roger Kenyon, Mark Higgins and myself were measured. If he were playing today, he would be a global star. But although revered on Merseyside and in North Wales, he has not received the wider acclaim that his performances deserved. I am delighted that Rob Sawyer has committed T.G.’s story to print so that future generations may appreciate one of the greatest talents to grace English and Welsh football.
INTRODUCTION
IF I WERE GIVEN THE KEYS TO A ROYAL BLUE TIME MACHINE, I would set the controls for Goodison Park, 5 May 1928. There I would join my grandfather and great-grandfather in watching William Ralph ‘Dixie’ Dean head his record-breaking sixtieth league goal in a season. I would, however, also make a couple of stops en route. First would be 19 August 1967, to see Harry Catterick’s blossoming young side – boasting Colin Harvey, Howard Kendall and Alan Ball in midfield – demolish league champions Manchester United, with Alex Young scoring one of the most sublime Goodison goals. I would continue my journey via the autumn of 1938, to witness the Everton team that some maintain was the most deserving of the ‘School of Science’ tag. Alongside club legends such as Ted Sagar, Tommy Lawton and Joe Mercer, there was the jewel in the crown, a twenty-year-old centre-half called Thomas George Jones, better known to his adoring fans on Merseyside simply as ‘T.G.’
In 2015, John Stones was beginning to display the hallmarks a thoroughbred centre-half. The young Yorkshireman had hearts in mouths as he pirouetted in his own penalty area, leaving opposing forwards in his wake before stroking the ball calmly to a teammate. Commentators were making comparisons with Alan Hansen and Rio Ferdinand, yet Evertonians of a certain vintage nodded sagely. They let their thoughts drift back seventy years, to an age when T.G. Jones bestrode Goodison Park with an air of supreme confidence that was matched by his ability, elegance and just a touch of arrogance. Dominant in the air and on the ground, his artistry enthralled and worried Toffees supporters in equal measure. In a fourteen-year career at the top, he delighted in being dubbed both ‘The Prince of Centre-Halves’ and ‘The Uncrowned Prince of Wales’. T.G.’s level of skill and expertise was so great that Dixie Dean was adamant in naming him as the most complete footballer he had seen.
Jones hailed from the northeast corner of Wales, once known for its coal reserves, but also mined for its rich seam of footballing talent over the decades. Sons of this area, such as Billy Meredith, Roy Vernon, Mike England, Kevin Ratcliffe, Ian Rush, Mark Hughes and Gary Speed, would all go on to enjoy acclaim on the domestic and international stage. T.G. served his homeland with distinction, proudly captaining the national team on a number of occasions, and he stands alongside John Charles, Ian Rush and Gareth Bale as a genuine world-class talent to emerge from Wales. Off the pitch, he was handsome, smart, intelligent, eloquent, opinionated and, as he matured, a touch vain. With these impressive credentials, he should be an icon, and yet in recent decades T.G. has received scant recognition outside of Merseyside and North Wales, much less beyond these shores.
If T.G. had been born in 1997, rather than 1917, he could have become a global star. The camera would have adored him, but as he lived in a pre-television era, only a few glimpses of T.G. on flickering newsreels survive. In spite of all he accomplished, there remains a sense of underachievement and ‘What if?’
What if he had not lost seven prime playing years to the Second World War? What if he had not suffered a career-threatening injury when aged 26? What if, with Everton in post-war decline, he had been granted a desired move to Arsenal, Manchester United – or even Roma, where he might have enjoyed Italian adulation a decade before John Charles? What if he had not walked away from professional football when still capable of gracing the Football League? What if T.G. had fully capitalised on the business, journalistic and managerial opportunities afforded him after his Everton days?
This is the bittersweet story of perhaps Britain and Everton’s greatest ever centre-half, a man who was prepared to take on the football powers and ended up sacrificing his playing career to manage a hotel in North Wales. It encompasses a league title at Everton, leadership of the ‘Invincibles’ of Pwllheli Football Club, heady nights with Bangor City in European competition, and semi-retirement in relative obscurity while living above a newspaper shop.
More than anything, I hope this book gives you, the reader, a rounded insight into T.G., who merits all the recognition the publication may give him, a century after his birth.
EARLY YEARS
ALTHOUGH ONLY SEPARATED FROM ENGLAND BY THE RIVER Dee, the Jones family were Welsh to the core. Residents for many generations in and around Deeside, the men of the family had been employed in the maritime, coal and steel industries. Thomas George Jones Sr and Elsie Plant had married in Connah’s Quay in 1917. Elsie had hailed from the Potteries, but her family had followed the well-trodden path from Staffordshire to work at Shotton steelworks, the largest employer in the area.
With Thomas, a coal merchant by trade, away on duty as an Ordinary Seaman in the Royal Navy, Elsie awaited the birth of their first child at “Jericho”, her parent’s house on Chester Road in Queensferry. The baby boy duly arrived on 12 October 1917 and, as was customary, he was named after his father and baptised ‘Thomas George Ronald Jones’. In family circles he was known as ‘Tom’, but throughout the football world he would come to be known as ‘Tommy’, or ‘T.G.’, after his first two initials. T.G. disliked his second middle name, Ronald, and suffered much teasing for it at the hands of siblings and cousins. In adult life he never made reference to it, and even his daughters were unaware of its existence.
Within months of the birth, the family relocated to Connah’s Quay, initially living on Golftyn Lane and later in a terraced house in Pen Y Llan Street. T.G. was followed into the world in quick succession by four siblings: Bessie (1919), Jack (1921), Ellis (1923) and Ernest (1924). Sadly, Ernest, succumbing to illness, did not live to see his fifth birthday. A gifted sporting all-rounder with a lifelong love of swimming, the teenaged T.G. loved to swim across the River Dee – sometimes with his younger cousin Raynor Hawkes clinging to his back. Although T.G.’s father had no interest in football, his paternal grandfather, George Jones, was devoted to the sport, serving as chairman of Connah’s Quay Football Club for fifteen years. A pillar of the local community, George also served as chorister at St Mark’s Parish Church. In 2003, T.G. told Tony Coates of the Daily Post that his first recollections of watching football were of being taken to see Connah’s Quay beat the Cardiff City team that had played at Wembley in the 1926 FA Cup final.
Aside from his grandfather, several others played a role in setting T.G. on the path to a football career. T.G.’s paternal aunt, Bessie (known as Auntie Bep), and her husband, David Bennett, were never blessed with children. Instead, they lavished time and love on their nieces and nephews. Bessie was a devout football follower, as T.G. recalled: ‘An aunt of mine had put me into football – she was football mad. When I was a schoolboy she would take me watching Everton and Liverpool playing – so I knew what the clubs were.’(JR) A visit to Goodison Park with Bessie was T.G.’s first taste of First Division football, and he would even recount to author John Keith that he witnessed Dixie Dean score his record-breaking sixtieth league goal at the climax of the 1927/28 season (T.G. would only make this claim in an interview once). However, at this stage of his life, playing, rather than supporting a team, was everything: ‘I didn’t take any great interest in watching football until they took me to Wrexham. We didn’t bother very much, as long as we were playing football it didn’t matter. We played football in the streets or any patch of land – it was always a game of football. Sometimes it was a leather football – there wasn’t much money around. If you had a pair of football boots you were a lucky lad.’(AS) Bessie, David and George would follow T.G.’s progress with interest, and attend all his home games once he broke through in professional football.
Another key influence on the bright youngster was an uncle, Jack Hawkes, well known on Deeside as a talented amateur footballer. His daughter, Raynor, recalls: ‘Jack had been wounded in the calf during the First World War – every so often it opened up and pieces of shrapnel would come out. He was a very good footballer and played in the Cheshire League. Stoke and several other good clubs wanted him, but as head of a large family, he had to get a trade instead. He spent hours with Tommy – when he was a little lad – in a small backyard, teaching him what to do with a football.’
Although family members whetted T.G.’s appetite for the game, it was Baden Millington, a teacher at St Mark’s School in Connah’s Quay – just around the corner from the Jones household – who pushed him into playing competitively. T.G. stated in 1962: ‘I was brought up in a keen football area. Instead of PE in school they threw us a football in the schoolyard and told us to get on with it. You may not believe it but I was sometimes reluctant to play soccer, but he [Baden Millington] would say to me, “You’re playing football, and that’s that!” I can’t say if he ever spotted any real ability in me in those days but he certainly encouraged me a lot.’ (WM)
Intriguingly, T.G. revealed in 2001 that his football career had almost followed a different path: ‘I was a goalkeeper to start with at school and at nine or ten I got into the school first team in goal.’(JR) In the end, T.G.’s poise and skill convinced schoolmasters to switch him to the centre-half position.
During the early years of the twentieth century, the centre-half, or ‘pivot’ position, had been the fulcrum of a team – a deep-lying central midfielder in modern parlance, flanked by two wing-halves. Two full-backs would focus solely on defending while half-backs had responsibility for getting on the ball and distributing it to the five forwards. A change to the offside rule in 1925 had seen many teams, notably Herbert Chapman’s successful Arsenal sides, dropping the central half-back role deeper. In this ‘WM’ formation, the centre-half position became, in effect, a third member of the defensive back-line, with a remit, primarily, to defend against the opposition’s centre-forward. Few centre-halves – Jack Barker of Derby County and England being one exception – flew in the face of this ‘stopper’ convention and brought the ball forward regularly. T.G. certainly did not fit the new defensive template; he was loath to let defensive duties, superbly though he fulfilled them, nullify his creativity. In time, very few, if any, could match his ability to combine defensive excellence with playmaking intent.
Success on St Mark’s School’s playing fields led to T.G. captaining Flintshire Schoolboys, and at fourteen years of age he debuted at right-half for the national schoolboy side in two matches against their English counterparts. He commented: ‘Under Mr Millington’s tuition I was capped to play for Wales as a schoolboy, which was a rarity then in North Wales. I think I was the only North Walian playing in the team – they should have called it South Wales Schoolboys!’(AS)
Closer to home, T.G. kicked off the 1931/32 season with Primrose Hill FC in the newly formed Flintshire Amateur League. He remained there for three seasons while also turning out, on occasion, for Connah’s Quay Amateurs. T.G. recalled: ‘When I left school at fourteen I was a big strong lad and the only game I could get was in the men’s league. At fifteen I was playing for Connah’s Quay Amateurs when someone said, “Would you like to come for a trial at Wrexham?” [And] I thought: “Yes, that’s marvellous.” The thought of clubs like Everton and Liverpool was beyond chaps like us.’(AS)
Wrexham’s manager, Ernest Blackburn, was sufficiently impressed by the trialist to take him on as an office boy and ground staff member at the Racecourse Ground, with amateur forms signed in May 1934: ‘They signed me on and gave me a job doing an hour or two in the manager’s office and training. They paid me a sizeable wage really – I couldn’t believe it.’ T.G. was permitted to continue playing for Connah’s Quay Amateurs and, according to some accounts, Llanerch Celts – an outfit which served as an unofficial feeder club for Wrexham FC. Upon reaching the age of seventeen, the following October, T.G. was signed up as a professional at the Racecourse.
His first appearance for a Wrexham side came in a fundraising match to aid the bereaved of the Gresford Colliery disaster. On 22 September 1934, an explosion had ripped through the colliery near Wrexham, claiming the lives of 266 men and leaving 164 women widowed and 242 children without fathers. Wrexham, with T.G. debuting at centre-half, ran out 11–0 winners against Aberystwyth on Wednesday, 16 October. Ten days later, T.G. made his reserve-team debut in the Birmingham League, a 4–1 defeat to Worcester City.
After seeing T.G. make only his second appearance for the reserve team, in a 6–1 humbling of Stafford Rangers on 2 November, the Wrexham Leader’s reporter, ‘Robin’, was already convinced that he had witnessed a player of extraordinary promise with an international future ahead of him.
His match report was remarkably perceptive:
In T.G. Jones, Wrexham have probably one of the most promising half-backs they have ever had on their books. Jones is only 17 years of age but his displays at centre-half in the reserve team’s games… revealed that he possesses exceptional ability – so much so that his future progress will be interesting to note. He plays with the confidence and intelligence of a much older player. One admired the all-round cleverness of his display against Stafford. His headwork was always impressive and the way in which he varied his passing from wing to wing was another feature of his display. The effectiveness of Jones as pivot was one thing which stood out from the game.
In spite of the positive impression made in those first matches, it would be months before T.G. became a regular in the reserve team. Key to T.G.’s football education in this period was a series of visits to Goodison Park, at Wrexham’s behest, to watch Everton. The journalist Stork reflected on this in a 1938 article:
Wrexham sent him along to Goodison Park to see three games – Arsenal, Liverpool and Derby County – and Tommy says that was the turning point of his career. He was struck by the easy way Bradshaw, Barker, and Gee found their men and he decided that, if he was ever to become a top-class centre-half, he would have to master the art. Jones is a studious young man, and he was soon following in the footsteps of the great masters.(LE)
In the summer of 1935, looking ahead to the approaching season, Robin repeated, in the Leader, his assertion that T.G. was destined for great things:
The club will be able to field a strong reserve side… including one of the most promising young players on the club’s books. The player I refer to is T.G. Jones and it is not divulging any secret when I say that many covetous eyes were cast upon him last season. If last season’s improvement is maintained his future is assured.
With the onset of winter, reserve-team match reports indicated that T.G. was ready to make the step up to first-team football. After a 5–1 defeat of Dudley on 7 December 1935, the Leader singled T.G. out for further praise: ‘Jones’ splendid play at centre-half was responsible for much of the side’s success. He was as enterprising in attack as he was resourceful in defence with a splendid goal rounding off a capital performance at centre-half.’
T.G.’s first-team bow duly came on 28 December when Ernest Blackburn selected him to debut in the royal blue shirt of Wrexham (the club would not switch to a more patriotic red strip until 1939) against Rotherham at the Racecourse Ground. T.G. helped his team keep a clean sheet in a 2–0 victory watched by 3,500 spectators. ‘XYZ’, reporting on the match for the Leader, commented: ‘T.G. Jones was creating a very favourable impression upon his first appearance.’
T.G. would retain his place for a further five matches. In only his third game, he played in front of 10,000 people in a 1–1 draw with local rivals Chester at Sealand Road. The derby, described by the local press as ‘literally packed with thrills’, saw Wrexham soak up much Chester pressure. T.G. was described as having ‘shone’ and ‘tackled so surely’. He recalled the match in 1962: ‘I played eight or nine times [sic] for the first team and one of my sternest feats at that tender age was to play in a local derby against Chester – quite an experience for a youngster! But I was really too young for Wrexham’s first team and played mainly in the Birmingham League team.’(WM)
His sixth and, as it transpired, final Football League appearance for Wrexham, on 7 March 1936, saw him contribute to another clean sheet in a victory over York City. The Leader reported:
T.G. Jones came back into the side and gave another promising exhibition. His inches are valuable and his ability to glide the ball to colleagues is a feature of his play. He is a player who should develop into a first-class pivot. I am sure that Mr Jack Sharp and Mr Gibbins of the Everton club, who were at Wrexham on Saturday, must have been delighted with his skilful handling of the ball.
The two Everton directors were in the stand with a specific remit to run the rule over the prodigiously talented eighteen-year-old. Their scouting mission was given urgency by rumours of interest from Aston Villa and Birmingham City. It was becoming clear that T.G.’s days at the Racecourse Ground were already numbered.
EVERTON CALLING
UNTIL THE POST-WAR YEARS EVERTON FOOTBALL CLUB DID not have a team manager. Training the first team was a job left to Harry Cooke, whose association with the club as player and coach went back to 1904. Tactical decisions were largely the preserve of senior professionals in the squad such as the captain Dixie Dean and his vice-captain Jock Thomson. Team selection and transfer activity was the domain of the club’s directorate, with some input from club secretary Theo Kelly. Kelly, the son of sports journalist Louis T. Kelly (writing as Stud Marks) had been promoted to the role in February 1936 upon the death of the incumbent Tom McIntosh from cancer.
Having assessed T.G.’s performance against York at close quarters, Messrs Sharp and Gibbins reported back to their fellow Everton directors that the centre-half was ‘an extremely promising player’(BM). It was agreed to offer Wrexham up to £1,500 for T.G.’s transfer, with an opening bid of £1,250 to be tabled. In the end, £1,400 was enough to persuade Wrexham to do business (erroneously, a figure double that was reported in some press articles). A switch to Everton was not a foregone conclusion, however. Aston Villa’s centre-half, Tom Griffiths, nudged his club to match Everton’s offer to the Wrexham board. T.G. recalled how his manager, Ernest Blackburn, himself a former Aston Villa player, gave him a choice: ‘The manager called me into the office one day and he said, “Look here, two clubs want you to move. We don’t want you to go but we’ve got to get rid of you; we’ve got to get some money from somewhere to pay the summer wages.” I didn’t want to go, I loved Wrexham. The two clubs who were interested were Aston Villa… and Everton… I took the manager’s advice. He said, “Everton, because it’s close to home,” so I went to Everton.’(RT)
T.G. gave a slightly different slant on his decision-making process to George Lerry in 1962: ‘There were several First Division clubs that I could have joined. I fancied Aston Villa but Tommy Griffiths was already filling the Villa’s first-team centre-half position so what chance had I?’(WM)
Griffiths was another one in a line of great centre-halves that Wales would produce. The teenaged T.G., eleven years Griffiths’ junior, had idolised the older man. Griffiths, like T.G., started out at Wrexham before progressing to Everton, where he spent five-and-a-half seasons, winning international honours along the way. Dislodged from the Everton first team in 1931, Griffiths went on to play for Bolton Wanderers and Middlesbrough before moving to Aston Villa.
So, it appears that a combination of Goodison Park’s proximity to T.G.’s home in Connah’s Quay and the more immediate prospect of first-team action was enough to tip the balance in the Toffees’ favour. The deal was sealed by 11 March, with wages set at £5 per week, and an additional £1 bonus when selected for the first team. T.G. recalled that his signing-on bonus was substantial for the time: ‘I signed on for £250, which was a lot of money back then. In those days that was enough to buy a house.’(JR)
Ernest Blackburn, on seeing his protégé leave Wrexham, told the press: ‘He should be a world-beater in a season or two.’(EP) T.G. continued to train midweek with Wrexham for the remainder of the season, travelling to Merseyside only on match days. He would move to live in the city in time for the start of the 1936/37 season.
The departure of the teenager caused apoplexy among Wrexham fans, and an extraordinary general meeting was called at the Mine Workers’ Institute. The club chairman, John Hughes, gave a statement in which he outlined the club’s financial plight and the necessity to cash in so early in T.G.’s career:
The board were [sic] unanimous in agreeing to Everton’s terms for this player. This transfer, the second one of the season, has again been necessary to put the club financially sound, which will again contradict the rumours flying around that a few directors who are resigning are deserting a sinking ship. The only alternative I see to the transfer of players is for the shareholders to endeavour to find a sporting gentleman, two or three if possible, who will back the club to the tune of at least £5,000 which might then help to obtain Second Division football.
As it was, Wrexham remained rooted in the Third Division North until the creation of a national Third Division in 1958.
Having chosen Everton, T.G. was wide-eyed at the prospect of joining a club of such stature. In 1992, he reflected: ‘I was full of ambition, and I wanted to see things, and I looked forward to it tremendously. Mixing with all the players, great names… it was marvellous actually. I used to look with great respect to these players who were at Everton. I used to think, “My God, what an honour.” I would go back and tell my parents and my friends. They would look at me and want to hear all about it because going to a football match from Connah’s Quay was an event.’(RT)
T.G.’s transfer to Merseyside coincided with that of another great name in British football as Matt Busby, then a half-back, moved to Liverpool from Manchester City. Joining T.G. at Goodison Park’s entrance door was Tranmere’s Robert ‘Bunny’ Bell, a prolific striker brought in as back-up for the increasingly injury-prone Dixie Dean.
The belief of T.G. that first-team opportunities would come sooner on Merseyside than at Villa Park may have been misguided. Barring his progression to the Goodison senior ranks were two English international ‘pivots’ in Charlie Gee and Tommy White. Gee was a commanding centre-half in the classical ‘stopper’ tradition, whose meteoritic rise had not been unlike T.G.’s. After less than a season of appearances for his home-town club Stockport County in the Third Division North, he was snapped up by freshly relegated Everton in 1930. Within half a season, he had dislodged the teenage T.G.’s footballing idol, Tom Griffiths, from the first team, and won Second and First Division championship medals in successive seasons. Gee had also won England honours on two occasions but missed out on the 1933 FA Cup triumph due to a chronic knee injury suffered in 1932. He had never quite regained the level of mobility he enjoyed before the injury but, turning 27 in April 1936, he was still in his prime years and a formidable opponent for any centre-forward. Off the field, Gee was a larger-than-life character – adept as a raconteur and ‘choirmaster’ at squad social events. On seeing T.G. train for the first time, he was reported to have commented to teammates that his days at Everton were numbered.
The Lancastrian Tommy White was a versatile player who was comfortable at centre-half or centre-forward, and he often deputised for Dixie Dean during his injury lay-offs. At the time of T.G.’s arrival from Wrexham, White was holding down the centre-half position in the first team. T.G. would have to be content in the short term with life in the Central League (reserve) team. He and Bob Bell debuted for the second string in an away defeat to Oldham Athletic on 14 March. T.G. recalled the trepidation he felt playing alongside household names: ‘Their reserve side was frightening to me… Warney Cresswell was left-back. Cliff Britton was right-half and they put me in at centre-half. There were seven or eight full internationals in the reserve side.’(RT)