JJ Sefton
Live, Laugh, Love
The First World War lasted for another three years. It was a near unique trauma with 750,000 British men dying between 1914 and 1918.
On the morning of July 1st 1916 the men of the Sheffield Pals battalion, the ordinary United and Wednesday supporting men who had enlisted so enthusiastically and drilled at Bramall Lane, went over the top at battle of the Somme. By the evening 513 of them were dead. One survivor wrote “‘Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our history.” The war hit home even more directly when Sheffield was bombed by zeppelins in September 1916 killing 28 people.
One of the men who didn’t come home was young Jimmy Revill. As understudy to Bob Evans Revill had shone in the United side that reached the Cup semi final in 1913. He was a totally loyal club man and even when he was regularly playing he never pushed for the maximum wage he deserved. One Bank Holiday, when there was no public transport, he walked to Bramall Lane from his home in Chesterfield. He served with the Royal Engineers and was killed on the first day of the battle of Arras in April 1917 and buried along with 3,000 other men at Bethune. To modern players who complain about ‘only’ earning £55,000 per week the Jimmy Revill’s of this world ought to act as a shaming example.
Early 1915 saw the failure of the Gallipoli offensive and the Allied offensive in France and it became apparent that the war was going to last for some time. The decision was taken to suspend league football for the duration and a system of regional football was set up with United going into the Midland Section. The effects of the war made themselves felt with the emergence of guest players. As footballers joined up they found their war service moving them around the country so they would often turn out for whichever team was nearest.
In these circumstances it wasn’t such a shock when United were beaten 7-3 away at Lincoln on the opening day of 1915 – 1916 with Joe Kitchen getting a hat trick. There were four derby matches and on January 15th Brelsford and Glennon were sent off for each side after a punch up, a grotesque parody of the violence in France and Belgium. Crowds were predictably low and one match away at Bradford recorded a crowd of just 450. The season ended with a 3-0 win over Wednesday at the Lane the final goal coming after a comic mix up in the Wednesday defence. The full back, Womack, took a goal kick and knocked it sideways for the keeper. He was busy doing his laces up and Oliver Tummon latched on to the loose ball and knocked it into an empty net.
The make do and mend attitude threw up some bizarre incidents. For one away match against Leeds City in the 1916 – 1917 season United were short handed and one Blades fan’s dreams came true when he was asked to fill in. A match against Grimsby in the final wartime season saw the linesman sent off for arguing with the referee. Against Hull the Blades arrived without a kit and had to play in borrowed boots. Hull’s David Mercer rattled in 6 goals before the match was abandoned due to bad light.
One of the bright spots of wartime football was the opportunity it gave young players and the best of the bunch was centre forward Harry Johnson. The son of Harry Johnson, who had won the League and Cup with United, he broke into the first team in 1916 after one reserve match where a fan threatened him with a gun. On his return from the army Harry quickly became a crowd favourite with his tireless effort and good looks becoming a bit of a heart throb for female fans.
In the first full season after the war, 1919 – 1920, season Johnson scored 11 goals in 24 League games including a hat trick against Bolton but it was apparent that four seasons off had taken their toll on some of the teams major players, specifically Sturges, Brelsford, Utley and Simmons. Some comfort was to be had by Wednesday’s relegation but the presence of so many senior servants not only indicated that United could be following them but caused a fall out among the players. Back when Utley had signed one of the terms of his contract was that a League match would be named a benefit and he would be guaranteed £500. This rankled with some of the other players and, after a protest, United were forced to award the same to the rest of them.
Other players came through who would go on to feature after the war. Defender and heavy smoker Harold Pantling joined from Watford in 1914 and soon established himself as a player who wasn’t afraid to get stuck in but not always fairly and in 1918 he had become the first Blades player to be sent off twice in a season. He was capped for England in 1923. Left back Ernest Milton was another, joining the Blades from Kilnhurst Town in 1917 aged 20.
The wartime investment in Sheffield’s steel industry reaped dividends in peacetime and Sheffield, like much of the country, enjoyed an economic boom, which was well under way by mid 1920. United sold every reserved seat for the 1920 – 1921 season and crowds over 20,000 were now the norm. But many of the pre war stars they turned up to see were moving on and it was just as well that local players were coming through. Jimmy Simmons headed to east London to play for the emerging West Ham United and, at the end of the season, Joe Kitchen left for Hull City returning to Sheffield at the end of his career to become landlord of the Wheatsheaf Hotel near Bramall Lane.
With such transition it was a grim season for the Blades and they battled relegation from the start. The alarming statistic of three homes wins before Christmas led the normally frugal United board to splash the cash and in December outside left Fred Tunstall arrived from Scunthorpe United for a hefty £1,000. Tunstall had grown up in Darfield near Barnsley and had worked down Houghton Colliery before the war. It was during his time in the Royal Horse Artillery that he took up football and he developed a searing striking ability. After just 19 appearances for the Lincolnshire side he became a hot property, not the sort of player that tight fisted Sheffield United would normally stump up for. United’s bold move into the transfer market was so surprising that “at the very moment that Tunstall was making his debut for the Blades at White Hart Lane, Peter McWilliam, the Spurs manager, was taking his seat at Scunthorpe to watch this brilliant new prospect”. Fred Tunstall won 7 England caps whilst with United.
At the same time United moved to strengthen their right flank with the signing of David Mercer the Hull player who had ripped United to pieces in a wartime game. Mercer came with a price tag of £4,250 but failed to show much of the ability that had tormented the Blades until the other new signing, right half Tommy Sampy, slotted in behind him from March 1921 onwards.
Sampy’s second game was away against Derby County on March 5th in a desperate relegation clash. United, placed 20th, had lost at home to the 21st placed Rams in the previous match and it was 1-1 at the Baseball Ground, Johnson having missed two golden chances, when the Blades were awarded a penalty. In scenes which would be repeated 60 years later the players began arguing over who was going to take the it, even George Waller got involved. Eventually Gillespie stepped forward but even his nerve failed and he rattled his kick against the post.
The situation was gloomy with another double header looming against high flying Bolton and Unitedites worst fears looked to be confirmed at Bramall Lane with the Blades two goals down with 20 minutes left. It was time for the new men, Tunstall and Sampy, to repay their fees with two goals which snatched a vital point. A week later United gave the Trotters another two goal start and even saw Harold Pantling sent off but the same two, Tunstall and Sampy, nicked another two goals to earn a draw.
But the most remarkable result of the season came at Highbury on March 26th. Without an away win all season United hammered six goals past the Gunners with Harry Johnson getting a hat trick, David Mercer scoring from the spot and Tunstall and Sampy getting one each gain. It was 2-1 to the Blades at half time when Arsenal were ordered to change their red shirts for blue ones.
The four points gained in the two Bolton games and at Highbury probably kept United up at the end of the season with Derby winning only one match in the same period and going down instead. At the AGM it became clear how important this had been with £14,145 being spent on players but just £7,795 recouped. Never again would United be involved in record transfers.
A further bit of good news came in May when United beat Wednesday 2-1 in the first County Cup final in front of a crowd of 21,000.
The 1921 – 1922 season represented some progress with United eventually finishing 11th, well clear of the relegation that had threatened at the turn of the year, but United were knocked out of the Cup in the first round by Third Division opposition as they had been the previous year. Once again it was time to say goodbye to one of the old guard when George Utley left for Manchester City. In the coming season there were further changes in the team with Bill Brelsford ending his playing days and joining the coaching staff, where he remained until 1939, while Albert Sturgess was transferred to Norwich.
The Blades had a promising start to the 1922 – 1923 season, recovering from a wobbly start to win four games in December, but it was in the best Cup run since the bittersweet days of 1915 that this United side exploded into life. The Blades were drawn at home for the first time since 1920 and the game against Nottingham Forest caused great excitement. In a time of political, social and economic upheaval, the Telegraph noted on the morning of the game that
“…Football, however, is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. These almost gladiatorial contests may not secure the ideal combination of a healthy body and a healthy mind, but they head towards this and they certainly act as a deterrent from unhealthiness in both. They are a safety valve against Communism, fanaticism, discontent, and any worse evils there may be, and they help to maintain that standard of manliness of which we as a nation are so justly proud”
Billy Gillespie, having been made team captain, led United out on January 13th but the occasion was a bit of a let down ending 0-0. Indeed, the tie became a dour endurance test needing a further three games to separate the two First Division sides. In the end, after results of 0-0 (in which centre forward Bert Menlove, signed from Crystal Palace at the end of the previous season, broke his collar bone) and 1-1 the ball finally skimmed in off Gillespie’s shin at Hillsborough on January 25th.
Another First Division side, Middlesbrough, were drawn in the next round and, after another 1-1 draw, required another replay which United easily won 3-0 with Gillespie, Johnson and Sampy scoring in a performance described as “virile, competent, persistent and progressive”. But the draw was no kinder to United this time pairing them away against top flight opponents again this time Liverpool at Anfield.
United triumphed in horrendous conditions earning themselves the nickname ‘Mudlarks’ which followed them through the decade, Mercer was especially outstanding. Gillespie and half back James Waugh scored in a 2-1 win in front of a then record crowd of nearly 52,000. United played their first game against lower league opposition in the fourth round in their first meeting with Queens Park Rangers. It was another struggle though and this time United had to rely on Tommy Sampy’s nose to get the ball across the line. Either way United were facing Bolton Wanderers in the semi final, the prize being an appearance in the first Cup final at the new Wembley stadium.
Back in December United had suffered a blow when Harold Gough was injured and his replacement throughout the Cup run was Ernest Blackwell. But Blackwell, a lay preacher, was a brooding character who tended to dwell on mistakes to the detriment of the rest of his game. The upcoming match was to change his life.
Whatever his thoughts were on the morning of March 24th 1923 those of Unitedites were firmly on the biggest match the club had played since the war. The official crowd of 72,000 at Old Trafford was a then record for a match outside London but the gates had been closed an hour before kick off and when the turnstiles were forced thousands more flooded into the ground. In scenes which would be famously repeated in the Final Policemen on horseback had to try and keep the estimated 100,000 fans off the pitch.
Amid such scenes it’s perhaps not surprising that recollections vary. Some sources claim the match offered fans “little to excite them” while others describe “a most exacting and exciting battle”. What is certain is that the game was won late on with a goal from Bolton’s David Jack. Ted Vizard sent a cross into the United area, Joe Smith failed to make a clean contact and the ball was zipping wide until it clipped Jack’s toe. The ball looked to be looping over the bar but a last minute dip saw it loop over Blackwell and into the net. Blackwell was so riddled with self doubt after the match that he asked to be dropped and Gough was brought back into the team. After just nine more appearances in two seasons Blackwell retired from football.
Despite the pain of semi final defeat United had a decent league season which saw them beat Birmingham 7-1, with Harry Johnson getting four, on the way to a finish of 10th. Having survived the transitional period after the war United were putting the finishing touches to a very strong team which played attractive, attacking football, and one of the key pieces in the jigsaw was the signing of George Green from Nuneaton for the start of the 1923 – 1924 season.
According to John Nicholson, the long serving United secretary, left half Green’s £400 transfer was “secured under rather peculiar circumstances” but these remain a mystery. In his time with United he earned eight England caps and took over as captain from Gillespie in 1931. With Green at left half, Tunstall in front on the wing and Gillespie tucked inside, United’s strength lay on the left. Green said “We struck up an understanding almost straightaway”. Ernest Milton recalled
“…Green and Tunstall owed a lot to Gillespie, but the skipper profited from Green’s resilience and strength. George was not very tall, but well made and solid, robust if you like. He was what you would call a brilliant ball-winner, and his distribution was excellent; so with Gillespie’s brain and Tunstall’s speed, it added up to a very effective combination”
The star of the side was Gillespie and after seeing him play one journalist was moved to write
“He is a great forward…A Pied Piper in drawing opponents to him, a conjurer with the ball, the quickest man on either side to “kill” and trap from any sort of pass, and despite that bald pate, smarter off the mark than many a younger one…”
Gillespie
The Blades managed to build on the impressive league form of the previous season with Harry Johnson and Bert Menlove vying for the centre forward spot. Both made a strong case with Johnson getting four against Everton at the Lane in early November and Menlove getting a hat trick in a 6-2 win over Spurs in March. Johnson and Menlove finished the season with 15 and 12 goals respectively but United’s final position of fifth owed much to Gillespie’s 14 goals.
On the morning of July 1st 1916 the men of the Sheffield Pals battalion, the ordinary United and Wednesday supporting men who had enlisted so enthusiastically and drilled at Bramall Lane, went over the top at battle of the Somme. By the evening 513 of them were dead. One survivor wrote “‘Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our history.” The war hit home even more directly when Sheffield was bombed by zeppelins in September 1916 killing 28 people.
One of the men who didn’t come home was young Jimmy Revill. As understudy to Bob Evans Revill had shone in the United side that reached the Cup semi final in 1913. He was a totally loyal club man and even when he was regularly playing he never pushed for the maximum wage he deserved. One Bank Holiday, when there was no public transport, he walked to Bramall Lane from his home in Chesterfield. He served with the Royal Engineers and was killed on the first day of the battle of Arras in April 1917 and buried along with 3,000 other men at Bethune. To modern players who complain about ‘only’ earning £55,000 per week the Jimmy Revill’s of this world ought to act as a shaming example.
Early 1915 saw the failure of the Gallipoli offensive and the Allied offensive in France and it became apparent that the war was going to last for some time. The decision was taken to suspend league football for the duration and a system of regional football was set up with United going into the Midland Section. The effects of the war made themselves felt with the emergence of guest players. As footballers joined up they found their war service moving them around the country so they would often turn out for whichever team was nearest.
In these circumstances it wasn’t such a shock when United were beaten 7-3 away at Lincoln on the opening day of 1915 – 1916 with Joe Kitchen getting a hat trick. There were four derby matches and on January 15th Brelsford and Glennon were sent off for each side after a punch up, a grotesque parody of the violence in France and Belgium. Crowds were predictably low and one match away at Bradford recorded a crowd of just 450. The season ended with a 3-0 win over Wednesday at the Lane the final goal coming after a comic mix up in the Wednesday defence. The full back, Womack, took a goal kick and knocked it sideways for the keeper. He was busy doing his laces up and Oliver Tummon latched on to the loose ball and knocked it into an empty net.
The make do and mend attitude threw up some bizarre incidents. For one away match against Leeds City in the 1916 – 1917 season United were short handed and one Blades fan’s dreams came true when he was asked to fill in. A match against Grimsby in the final wartime season saw the linesman sent off for arguing with the referee. Against Hull the Blades arrived without a kit and had to play in borrowed boots. Hull’s David Mercer rattled in 6 goals before the match was abandoned due to bad light.
One of the bright spots of wartime football was the opportunity it gave young players and the best of the bunch was centre forward Harry Johnson. The son of Harry Johnson, who had won the League and Cup with United, he broke into the first team in 1916 after one reserve match where a fan threatened him with a gun. On his return from the army Harry quickly became a crowd favourite with his tireless effort and good looks becoming a bit of a heart throb for female fans.
In the first full season after the war, 1919 – 1920, season Johnson scored 11 goals in 24 League games including a hat trick against Bolton but it was apparent that four seasons off had taken their toll on some of the teams major players, specifically Sturges, Brelsford, Utley and Simmons. Some comfort was to be had by Wednesday’s relegation but the presence of so many senior servants not only indicated that United could be following them but caused a fall out among the players. Back when Utley had signed one of the terms of his contract was that a League match would be named a benefit and he would be guaranteed £500. This rankled with some of the other players and, after a protest, United were forced to award the same to the rest of them.
Other players came through who would go on to feature after the war. Defender and heavy smoker Harold Pantling joined from Watford in 1914 and soon established himself as a player who wasn’t afraid to get stuck in but not always fairly and in 1918 he had become the first Blades player to be sent off twice in a season. He was capped for England in 1923. Left back Ernest Milton was another, joining the Blades from Kilnhurst Town in 1917 aged 20.
The wartime investment in Sheffield’s steel industry reaped dividends in peacetime and Sheffield, like much of the country, enjoyed an economic boom, which was well under way by mid 1920. United sold every reserved seat for the 1920 – 1921 season and crowds over 20,000 were now the norm. But many of the pre war stars they turned up to see were moving on and it was just as well that local players were coming through. Jimmy Simmons headed to east London to play for the emerging West Ham United and, at the end of the season, Joe Kitchen left for Hull City returning to Sheffield at the end of his career to become landlord of the Wheatsheaf Hotel near Bramall Lane.
With such transition it was a grim season for the Blades and they battled relegation from the start. The alarming statistic of three homes wins before Christmas led the normally frugal United board to splash the cash and in December outside left Fred Tunstall arrived from Scunthorpe United for a hefty £1,000. Tunstall had grown up in Darfield near Barnsley and had worked down Houghton Colliery before the war. It was during his time in the Royal Horse Artillery that he took up football and he developed a searing striking ability. After just 19 appearances for the Lincolnshire side he became a hot property, not the sort of player that tight fisted Sheffield United would normally stump up for. United’s bold move into the transfer market was so surprising that “at the very moment that Tunstall was making his debut for the Blades at White Hart Lane, Peter McWilliam, the Spurs manager, was taking his seat at Scunthorpe to watch this brilliant new prospect”. Fred Tunstall won 7 England caps whilst with United.
At the same time United moved to strengthen their right flank with the signing of David Mercer the Hull player who had ripped United to pieces in a wartime game. Mercer came with a price tag of £4,250 but failed to show much of the ability that had tormented the Blades until the other new signing, right half Tommy Sampy, slotted in behind him from March 1921 onwards.
Sampy’s second game was away against Derby County on March 5th in a desperate relegation clash. United, placed 20th, had lost at home to the 21st placed Rams in the previous match and it was 1-1 at the Baseball Ground, Johnson having missed two golden chances, when the Blades were awarded a penalty. In scenes which would be repeated 60 years later the players began arguing over who was going to take the it, even George Waller got involved. Eventually Gillespie stepped forward but even his nerve failed and he rattled his kick against the post.
The situation was gloomy with another double header looming against high flying Bolton and Unitedites worst fears looked to be confirmed at Bramall Lane with the Blades two goals down with 20 minutes left. It was time for the new men, Tunstall and Sampy, to repay their fees with two goals which snatched a vital point. A week later United gave the Trotters another two goal start and even saw Harold Pantling sent off but the same two, Tunstall and Sampy, nicked another two goals to earn a draw.
But the most remarkable result of the season came at Highbury on March 26th. Without an away win all season United hammered six goals past the Gunners with Harry Johnson getting a hat trick, David Mercer scoring from the spot and Tunstall and Sampy getting one each gain. It was 2-1 to the Blades at half time when Arsenal were ordered to change their red shirts for blue ones.
The four points gained in the two Bolton games and at Highbury probably kept United up at the end of the season with Derby winning only one match in the same period and going down instead. At the AGM it became clear how important this had been with £14,145 being spent on players but just £7,795 recouped. Never again would United be involved in record transfers.
A further bit of good news came in May when United beat Wednesday 2-1 in the first County Cup final in front of a crowd of 21,000.
The 1921 – 1922 season represented some progress with United eventually finishing 11th, well clear of the relegation that had threatened at the turn of the year, but United were knocked out of the Cup in the first round by Third Division opposition as they had been the previous year. Once again it was time to say goodbye to one of the old guard when George Utley left for Manchester City. In the coming season there were further changes in the team with Bill Brelsford ending his playing days and joining the coaching staff, where he remained until 1939, while Albert Sturgess was transferred to Norwich.
The Blades had a promising start to the 1922 – 1923 season, recovering from a wobbly start to win four games in December, but it was in the best Cup run since the bittersweet days of 1915 that this United side exploded into life. The Blades were drawn at home for the first time since 1920 and the game against Nottingham Forest caused great excitement. In a time of political, social and economic upheaval, the Telegraph noted on the morning of the game that
“…Football, however, is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. These almost gladiatorial contests may not secure the ideal combination of a healthy body and a healthy mind, but they head towards this and they certainly act as a deterrent from unhealthiness in both. They are a safety valve against Communism, fanaticism, discontent, and any worse evils there may be, and they help to maintain that standard of manliness of which we as a nation are so justly proud”
Billy Gillespie, having been made team captain, led United out on January 13th but the occasion was a bit of a let down ending 0-0. Indeed, the tie became a dour endurance test needing a further three games to separate the two First Division sides. In the end, after results of 0-0 (in which centre forward Bert Menlove, signed from Crystal Palace at the end of the previous season, broke his collar bone) and 1-1 the ball finally skimmed in off Gillespie’s shin at Hillsborough on January 25th.
Another First Division side, Middlesbrough, were drawn in the next round and, after another 1-1 draw, required another replay which United easily won 3-0 with Gillespie, Johnson and Sampy scoring in a performance described as “virile, competent, persistent and progressive”. But the draw was no kinder to United this time pairing them away against top flight opponents again this time Liverpool at Anfield.
United triumphed in horrendous conditions earning themselves the nickname ‘Mudlarks’ which followed them through the decade, Mercer was especially outstanding. Gillespie and half back James Waugh scored in a 2-1 win in front of a then record crowd of nearly 52,000. United played their first game against lower league opposition in the fourth round in their first meeting with Queens Park Rangers. It was another struggle though and this time United had to rely on Tommy Sampy’s nose to get the ball across the line. Either way United were facing Bolton Wanderers in the semi final, the prize being an appearance in the first Cup final at the new Wembley stadium.
Back in December United had suffered a blow when Harold Gough was injured and his replacement throughout the Cup run was Ernest Blackwell. But Blackwell, a lay preacher, was a brooding character who tended to dwell on mistakes to the detriment of the rest of his game. The upcoming match was to change his life.
Whatever his thoughts were on the morning of March 24th 1923 those of Unitedites were firmly on the biggest match the club had played since the war. The official crowd of 72,000 at Old Trafford was a then record for a match outside London but the gates had been closed an hour before kick off and when the turnstiles were forced thousands more flooded into the ground. In scenes which would be famously repeated in the Final Policemen on horseback had to try and keep the estimated 100,000 fans off the pitch.
Amid such scenes it’s perhaps not surprising that recollections vary. Some sources claim the match offered fans “little to excite them” while others describe “a most exacting and exciting battle”. What is certain is that the game was won late on with a goal from Bolton’s David Jack. Ted Vizard sent a cross into the United area, Joe Smith failed to make a clean contact and the ball was zipping wide until it clipped Jack’s toe. The ball looked to be looping over the bar but a last minute dip saw it loop over Blackwell and into the net. Blackwell was so riddled with self doubt after the match that he asked to be dropped and Gough was brought back into the team. After just nine more appearances in two seasons Blackwell retired from football.
Despite the pain of semi final defeat United had a decent league season which saw them beat Birmingham 7-1, with Harry Johnson getting four, on the way to a finish of 10th. Having survived the transitional period after the war United were putting the finishing touches to a very strong team which played attractive, attacking football, and one of the key pieces in the jigsaw was the signing of George Green from Nuneaton for the start of the 1923 – 1924 season.
According to John Nicholson, the long serving United secretary, left half Green’s £400 transfer was “secured under rather peculiar circumstances” but these remain a mystery. In his time with United he earned eight England caps and took over as captain from Gillespie in 1931. With Green at left half, Tunstall in front on the wing and Gillespie tucked inside, United’s strength lay on the left. Green said “We struck up an understanding almost straightaway”. Ernest Milton recalled
“…Green and Tunstall owed a lot to Gillespie, but the skipper profited from Green’s resilience and strength. George was not very tall, but well made and solid, robust if you like. He was what you would call a brilliant ball-winner, and his distribution was excellent; so with Gillespie’s brain and Tunstall’s speed, it added up to a very effective combination”
The star of the side was Gillespie and after seeing him play one journalist was moved to write
“He is a great forward…A Pied Piper in drawing opponents to him, a conjurer with the ball, the quickest man on either side to “kill” and trap from any sort of pass, and despite that bald pate, smarter off the mark than many a younger one…”
Gillespie
The Blades managed to build on the impressive league form of the previous season with Harry Johnson and Bert Menlove vying for the centre forward spot. Both made a strong case with Johnson getting four against Everton at the Lane in early November and Menlove getting a hat trick in a 6-2 win over Spurs in March. Johnson and Menlove finished the season with 15 and 12 goals respectively but United’s final position of fifth owed much to Gillespie’s 14 goals.
