[Lord Snooty]

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.

[theo_luddite]

Nice bit of work that Snoots, well worth the effort.

I was thinking yesterday that this would be the final match weekend for Town, as even a long run of wins wouldn't be good enough to have us watching another set of penalty shoot-outs (would it?). Chances of a long run of wins with our ability to go from hero's to zero's and back again in a few days is unlikely anyway.

Would I have been in that there Larndan? Or as I have been, in my garden, playing with my boys toys and making a pile of sawdust out of some scraps of wood and a couple of old pallets, turning them into some "upcycled" (puke) bits of garden furniture?

If we were safe, in me garden with a beer or three, or down the local watching the goals go in.  

If we needed a point or a win? Who knows?  

Never been to Meewaaw, not really top of my bucket list to be honest, but I started the away season in that there Larndan at QPR and it would have made a good pair of bookends. It was raining this morning in this part of Muddled England, so 'appen if it had gone to pay-on-the-day?

I like a day out down the Smoke, pub crawling down the routes of the Tube lines on my way to and from the match. Lots more places with decent beer than there used to be. You don't even have to ask 'em to put a head on it in a lot of places these days.  

That said, the games were all scheduled for an early kick-off if I remember rightly, limiting the choice of Battle Cruisers to visit for pigs ear on the way to the grarnd, but as most tickets on the rattlers would be weekend off-peak, no rush to get back. If we do play them this side of August, it will likely be shown on some interweb stream or another, dodgy or otherwise, with Oggy and his hairdressing ex-goalkeeper mate sat in opposite stands, for social distancing purposes of course, and on a school night anyway.

Ho, hum. Work in the morning. Some of us got army volunteered for it.

At least it stops me sitting in the corner of my room, talking to myself.

Stay safe peeps.  




I said 'At least it stops me sitting in the corner of my room, talking to myself.'  

I'd talk to the Trees ............... if only there were any of 'em on here.  

[Marco4]

I had not realised that about Jack Cock; he's still pretty high on Millwall's list of all time scorers, too.