Today marks the day the current season should've finished, with a trip for us down to Millwall. I was doing the match thread for this one and had already done a bit of research on some players who had played for both clubs. Jack Cock in particular was a very interesting character and so instead of waiting for the match to get rearranged, I'm posting his profile here and now. I know there's only a few of you will read it, but I'm not bothered, I found it interesting to research and that's all that matters really.



Jack Cock: played for Town either side of the First World War and in the Brentford thread I touched on how he and Town skipper Fred Bullock turned out at Griffin Park as guests in the wartime league and how they became champions of the London Football Combination in the season after the war. Cock served in the army, becoming a Sergeant-Major and earnt the Military Medal for "Bravery in the Field" and was Mentioned in Despatches for "gallantry". He was reported as 'missing, presumed dead' at one point during the war. After this, they both returned north to resume their careers at Huddersfield Town. The Town however were in dire financial straits at this time and one of the first things they did about this was to sell Cock to Chelsea for a record fee of £2,500. This was shortly after he had won his first international cap for England.

He scored 9 goals in 18 games for Town, a career that lasted 6 years with little opportunity to play for us. His first goal was against Grimsby Town in December 1914 and his last came at Birmingham City in September 1919 shortly before his transfer. It was possibly his 4 goals in a 5-0 victory at home to Bury three weeks earlier that could've made Chelsea's mind up to sign him.

Jack Cock was born in 1893 in Hayle, Cornwall, but the family moved to London when he was a child and settled in Fulham. His first job was as a caddie at Burnham Beeches Golf Club , from which he was sacked for playing football with a golf ball on one of the greens. Golf clubs were obviously full of snobs even back then (apologies if you are a golf club snob). So he got a job in a foundry and started playing football for West Kensington Utd. Soon after he was offered a place at Brentford, who were in the Southern League then, from where he joined Huddersfield Town in 1914. War broke out and Jack joined the famous "Footballer's Battalion", as mentioned earlier earning himself the Military Medal for Bravery.

After the war, back in Yorkshire playing for Town, he earned an England cap and then got his second England cap after his transfer to Chelsea. And despite scoring in both matches, they were his only two international caps. In his first season at Chelsea, he scored 24 goals and helped them to 3rd in the First Division, their highest finish at the time and also reached the FA Cup semi finals.

That summer though, he began his other career as a film star, playing himself in a silent movie called The Winning Goal. This led him to another alternative career. He had a fine tenor voice and as such became a star in the music halls. Such was his success at this that he considered packing in football to take this up full time, but stayed at Stamford Bridge, totalling 47 goals in 99 matches before transferring back up north, signing for Everton in 1925.

Up in Liverpool he continued to work the halls, playing 69 times for the Toffees, scoring 29 goals. Then he had a couple of seasons at Plymouth scoring 72 goals in 90 matches, before going back to London in 1927 and becoming a Millwall legend. He scored twice on his debut for the Lions in a 9-1 win against Coventry City.

He finished as top scorer in his three seasons at the Den, totalling 77 goals and helping them win promotion to the 2nd division. And all through this time he continued to entertain the masses in the Music Halls and even had a signature song, My Blue Heaven, which reports of the time say the audience always joined in lustily with the chorus.

Haven't got him singing it, but here's a recent version of the song, sung by James Taylor.



He left Millwall in 1931, winding down his football career at Folkestone, but before his retirement he had starred in another football themed film, The Greater Game, in 1930. Filmed mainly at Stamford Bridge, it has the first credited role for Rex Harrison.

He continued with the singing career and landed a record deal with Parlaphone Records and toured the country. Later he would become manager back at Millwall, leading them to the Wartime Cup Final in 1945. He spent 4 years as manager there, before becoming a pub landlord at the White Hart in New Cross.

He died in Kensington in 1966, aged 72. Surely one of the most famous people to have played for Huddersfield Town.

It's long been every Spireite's opinion that AC actually deserved several across the seat of one of his natty suits, but I looked at the club's website today and read quite a long piece by him that is written in a friendly style and is both informative and welcoming. What is happening? Dancing is right, there's been a sea change. Is it some strange side-effect of the virus? Should we get him tested? Has he been doped?

I liked him! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Okay I wasn't so impressed with the list of players who are contracted for next season. McKay, Coddrington and Sick Note Loz worry me for a start. And I wonder about the identity of the other six we are in talks with over a one year extension.

Equally I worry about Pembo being on furlough when I think he could be talking to players he fancies for next season and at least making them promises if not formal pre-contracts, but I do welcome the news we will fall in line with much of non-league and only offer one-year contracts. You can gamble on a couple or so making it from the lower reaches if you don't tie yourself to them for too long. I could give Pembo a list of players who consistently get good reports at our level and lower …… but you only really know when they have to step up for real. For instance you'd think 23 goals in a shortened season for Buxton would make Diego de Girolamo a cert' to step up, especially when you take into account all those age-group caps for Italy and people like Sacchi praising him, but he did next to nothing when we had him on the books. So it isn't that obvious at all! I reckon Pembo is going to have to exercise a lot of brain power to make these decisions and to recruit well enough to mount a challenge. I dunno what you think but it seems to me he's the one bloke we should have on the payroll, whether he's at home or at the club contacting people and drawing up plans.

But where has this Ashley Carson been hiding? That's my question.

Last chance to sign (BBC Sport) for the team who deserve the title of the best Great Escape!
You've only got until 8.00pm this evening to vote. Come on you Baggies, let's get voting.

https://www.facebook.com/44784315079/pos...140950080/

Only remember the latter days of his career, but still a legend.

if this season is declared null and void,and at the moment no decision has been made
what happens to the parachute payments paid to the clubs that were relegated season before last?
will they be withdrawn,seeing as(and it seems very likely)the season was not finished?
the premise of finishing the season as it is and promoted the top 2 in the championship seems like a good idea
but not having relegation from the premier league says to me......more games for sky(providing next season starts on time,which at the minute looks highly unlikely) to show with an expanded premier league.

hopefully sport,not just football can get back to normality once this thing is over
and who is loser in all this?


anyway
a big shout out to all our Health Workers....all heroes
and to the fallen health workers....heroes again


stay safe my friends

Kristien

Today's my Birthday and although we're in lock-down I've had a truly memorable day, especially having a telephone call from Tony (Bomber) Brown to wish me Happy Birthday! At first, I thought someone was having me on, so was very cautious - 'Is this a joke? Am I on 'You've been framed?' I asked. No, the Club wanted to give the fans (golden oldies I suspect) a bit of a lift during this dreadful time and have drawn up a list of people who's birthday it is to have a chat with! He truly is a lovely, genuine man as we chatted (more like - I chatted because he couldn't get a word in) about The Albion. It honestly made my day, although I did think the ploy might be to phone oldies to find out if they were still alive and would be renewing their Season Ticket! What a fantastic club we have? At the end of our conversation, he said that he'd not had a response like mine, and wondered how he was going to prove to me that it really was him! If you got a call, let us know how it went- something to cheer us all up in these challenging times and remind us of our great club. Best wishes, everyone.

Well everybody is doing stupid desperate stuff these days so here is my World XI to beat the Coronavirus:-

GK Jan Oblak - Slovenia

DEF Raphael Varane - France
DEF Correa Marquinhos - Brazil
DEF Virgil Van Dijk - Netherlands

RWB Terence Alexander Arnold - England
CM Miralem Pjanic - Bosnia and Herz'
CM Kevin de Bruyne - Belgium
LWB Gareth Bale - Wales

FWD Cristiano Ronaldo - Portugal
FWD Kylian Mbappe - France
FWD Neymar Jr - Brazil

If they ever won a free kick near the box half the team would be queueing to take it. Bale at wing back is a masterstroke. Why does nobody think of playing him there these days? He'd be devastating.

Show them a recording of Total Football and that'd be it.

And poor old Messi on the bench. Mind you I bet he'd be bloody good when we brought him on in the second half.

if you are using the o2 mobile network
you may have received a txt message claiming to be from them
saying they were unable to process your monthly payments
it provides a link to what looks like the official o2 payment site

be aware this is a scam
i had one sent to my phone yesterday

please forward this information to anyone that uses o2

Stay Safe All

Kristien

Watched the 5-0 win against Rotherham from the 2010-2011 season and was wondering was that team better than the 2013-2014 side which also won the L2 title?

2010-2011 Team

Tommy Lee
Kelvin Lomax
Gregor Robertson
Jamie Lowry
Rob Page
Simon Ford
Mark Allott
Derek Niven
Craig Davies
Danny Whitaker
Dwayne Mattis
Scott Griffiths
Jack Lester
Ian Breckin
Dean Morgan
Ian Morris
Scott Boden
Dan Gray
Jordan Bowery
Deane Smalley
Jack Hunt
Craig Clay
Drew Talbot
Tendayi Darikwa
Kieron Djilali
Javan Vidal
Dean Holden
Shane Redmond

2013-2014 team

Tommy Lee
Ollie Banks
Nathan Smith
Sam Hird
Sam Morsy
Liam Cooper
Tendayi Darikwa
Sam Togwell
Marc Richards
Jay O'Shea
Gary Roberts
Jimmy Ryan
Ritchie Humphreys
Jamie Devitt
Eoin Doyle
Jack Broadhead
Jacob Hazel
Aaron Chapman
Matthew Brown
Ian Evatt
Drew Talbot
Dan Gardner
Jake Beesley

Not only were the teams different but so were the managers and the style of play we played. Under Cook it was free flowing, passing on the floor, attacking, attractive and entertaining football. Sheridan's style was attacking but it would leave us vulnerable at the back as teams would hit us on the counter and create chances.

The 2010-2011 team had a lot of loanees in it and we had a good strike force between Davies and Lester and had a lot of depth in the midfield and in defence. Shane Redmond who was the 2nd choice to Tommy didn't really get a look in because of how good Tommy was between the sticks. If we had kept Davies and signed the loanee players we could have been on for back to back promotions to the Championship.

The 2013-2014 had a lot of depth especially in the midfield but we didn't have much options up front. Doyle and Richards were the 2 strikers we had but a lot of the goals came from the midfielders and attacking midfielders. Cooper and Hird were a perfect partnering at CB and the reason I think why it worked is because Cooper is a left footed player and you don't get many left footed CBs. The only problem with the 2013-2014 team was they couldn't play as a 4-4-2. In 2014-2015 Cook kept the majority of the team together and brought in a few new faces and then when we failed promotion to the Championship that team was broke up and sold off pretty quick.

https://www.facebook.com/44784315079/pos...748030080/

Forgot how good some of his goals were.