|
|
|
Tommy
Lawton |
Everton FC,
Chelsea FC, Notts County FC
23 appearances,
22 goals, two penalties
P 23 W 16 D
4 L 3 F 76: A
21
78% successful
1938-48
captain: none
minutes played: 2070 |
|
 |
|
Timeline |
| |
Thomas Lawton |
|
Birth |
6 October 1919 in 43 Macdonald
Street, Farnworth, Bolton,
Lancashire [registered in
Bolton, December 1919].
Attended Tonge Moor Council School & Castle Hill
School in Bolton. Also Folds Road Central School. |
|
|
According to the 1939
register, Thomas is a professional footballer, living at 1 Edgemoor Drive
in the Fazackerley area of Liverpool. |
|
first marriage |
to Rosaleen May Kavanagh in January 1941
[registered in Liverpool North, March 1941], one child, Amanda, they
divorced in March 1951. |
|
second marriage |
to Gladys M. Rose on 23 September
1952 at Caxton Hall [registered in Westminster,
September 1952], two children, Carol and Thomas junior |
|
Death |
6 November 1996, aged
77 years 31 days
[registered in Nottingham, November 1996] of pneumonia. His ashes
are held at National Football Museum, after he was cremated at Bramcote
Crematorium in Beeston. |
|
Source |
 Douglas Lammings' An
English Football Internationalist Who's Who [1990] & |
|
Biographies |
Football Is My
Business - Tommy Lawton (Sporting Handbooks, London 1948)
Soccer: The Lawton Way
- Tommy Lawton (Nicholas Kaye, London 1954)
My
Twenty Years in Soccer - Tommy Lawton (Heirloom,
Norwich 1955)
When The Cheering Stopped - Tommy Lawton
(Golden Eagle, Leicester 1973)
The Complete Centre-Forward: The
Authorised Biography of Tommy Lawton - David McVay & Andy Smith (Sportsbooks,
Worcester 2000)
"Get In There!" Tommy Lawton - My Friend, My Father - Barrie Williams &
Tom Lawton Junior (Vision Sports Publishing, Kingston-upon-Thames
2010) |
| |
x.
- A Football Compendium, Peter J. Seddon (1999). |
|
Club Career |
|
Club(s) |
Through his schoolboy
football, Lawton was chosen to play for Bolton Town Schools and representing Lancashire schools
and was
scoring for fun in the Bolton League, for Hayes Athletic FC. After leaving
school, however, the Lawton family turned down the opportunity for him to sign for
Bolton Wanderers FC, so the 15-year old Tommy signed for Lancashire
Combination's Rossendale United FC.
Liverpool FC, Bury FC and Blackburn Rovers FC all invited Lawton for
trials, but Lawton signed for Sheffield Wednesday
FC, but that move was usurped by his family. So instead, Tommy signed for Burnley FC in May
1935, being paid as the club's secretary's assistant. The deal also
included a job as assistant groundsman at Turf Moor for his grandfather,
Jim Riley, also his surrogate father. The whole family too, were moved to
Burnshaw Road in Burnley, rent-free, and the sixteen year old made his debut
in March 1936 and would play 25 league matches, scoring sixteen
goals. He signed professional forms with Burnley shortly after his
seventeenth birthday. His for, was soon noted and
Burnley would sell to
Everton FC on 31 December 1936 for a record fee for a teenager, £6,500,
scoring an astonishing 65 goals in 83 league appearances.
During the war, which saw Lawton become a Training Instructor, achieving
Company Sergeant Major status, he still played for Everton and he guested
for Leicester City FC, Aldershot FC and even Greenock Morton FC,
earning a solitary Scottish League appearance and a single goal.
As the hostilities concluded, in July 1945, Lawton handed in a transfer
request to Everton which was eventually accepted under protest. He did not
want to leave Everton FC, but he had to leave the city and his failed
marriage. It was Chelsea FC that signed him, on 7 November 1945 for £14,000. He would score thirty goals in 42 league appearances.
However, his refusal to join his club on a tour of Scandinavia because of
mental and physical fatigue spelt the end for Lawton, and when his
transfer request was again, eventually accepted under protest, Lawton
chose Notts County FC, and on 13 November 1947 for a £20,000 fee
(£17,000 plus Bill Dickson), a deal was finalised. Despite
dropping from the First to the Third Division of the Football League, it
showed the measure of the man Lawton was. It was down to Arthur Strollery,
the man who signed him at County was the masseur at Stamford Bridge, he
became Lawton's confident through his difficult Stamford Bridge days. On
the day Chelsea sacked Strollery, Lawton promised to sign for him should
the opportunity arise, the handshake was the contract, so when the list of
club's arrived for Lawton to consider, Strollery's Notts County was the
only club for him. But eventually, Stroller left, and Lawton
displeased the County directors and after ninety goals in 151
league matches, he was eventually sold to Brentford FC in March
1952 for £15,000. Another 50 league matches, but a less emphatic
seventeen goals followed. But as Lawton became despondent at
Griffin Park, resigning from his position as the manager on 9 September
1953, the opportunity
arose for him to join Arsenal FC, and a move he had dreamed off since his
Chelsea days. On 18 September 1953, following Arsenal's poor start to a
season, Lawton signed for Tom Whittaker for
£7,500 and Jimmy Robertson. After a return to the top division, Lawton
ended his career with 35 league appearances and thirteen goals.
Upon his retirement, in September 1955, Lawton had amassed 231
league goals in 390 appearances. |
|
Club honours |
Lancashire Schools Cup
runners-up 1932-33; Glasgow Empire Exhibition Cup
runners-up 1938; Football League Champions
1938-39; Football League Division Three (South) winners
1949-50; |
|
Individual honours |
Football League (three appearances, four debut goals) |
|
Distinctions |
On 28
March 1936, Tommy Lawton, aged 16 years and 174 days, became the youngest
ever centre-forward to play in the Football League, for Burnley FC against
Doncaster Rovers FC.
Also played cricket rather well in his youth, for
the Burnley Cricket Team in the Lancashire County League. |
|
Height/Weight |
5'
11", 12st.
0lbs [1947]. |
|
Source |
Douglas Lammings' An English
Football Internationalist Who's Who [1990] & Tom Lawton's biography. |
|
Management Career |
|
Club(s) |
Lawton
turned down the opportunity who became the Notts County's player-manager in the
summer of 1946. When the opportunity arose again, Lawton grasped it
when he was six months into his time at Brentford FC, in September 1952.
But Lawton soon found the task difficult, so resigned from the managerial
position a year later, 9 September 1953. A week later, he left Griffin Park to secure his dream move
to Highbury. A third opportunity arose to manage a team, this time
Southern League team Kettering Town FC, his sole position would be to
manage the side in September 1955. It was the move that added to his
decision to retire from playing. Kettering paid Arsenal a £1000 fee.
In the summer of 1957, Lawton retuned to Notts County, who had since
dropped divisions, as their new manager. He was unceremoniously sacked on
7 June 1958. He did, however, return to Kettering to help them on a
part-time basis in 1964-65. But could not save them from relegation. In
1968, Lawton once again returned to Notts County, this time in an
advisory capacity. For the final time, he was sacked in 1969 as a new
chairman came in. |
|
Club honours |
None |
|
England Career |
|
Player number |
647th
player to appear for England. |
|
Position(s) |
Centre-forward |
|
First match |
No. 219, 22 October 1938, Wales 4
England 2, a British Championship match at Ninian Park, Sloper Road, Cardiff, aged 19 years
16 days. |
|
Last match |
No. 241, 26 September 1948, Denmark 0 England
0, a friendly match at Idaetsparken, Kobenhavn, aged 28 years
356 days. |
|
Major tournaments |
British
Championship 1938-39, 1946-47, 1947-48; |
|
Team honours |
British
Championship shared 1938-39, winners 1946-47,
1947-48; |
|
Individual honours |
England
wartime international (24 appearances, several as captain, 23 goals),
England Schoolboy trialist
England's Top Goalscorer
1939 (2); 1946 (6 along
with Mannion), 1946-47 (10), 1947 (9 along with Mortensen); |
|
Distinctions |
Youngest-ever England penalty scorer and the youngest player, until May
2016, to score on
his debut. |
|
Beyond England |
|
Tommy and his wife, Gay, became
the licensees of the Magna Charta in Lowdham in October 1958 until 1962.
Aferwhich, he came an insurange agent. A failed venture that should have
resulted in the Tommy Lawton Sports Good brand failed to last, instead,
Lawton worked for Vernon's Pools in the Nottingham area until he returned
to football. After he hit the hardest of the times, he was offered the job
as director of his own company, Tommy Lawton Furniture Ltd, and after
fruitful beginnings, again ended up in liquidation. -
Tom Lawton's biography |
|
The Numbers |
|
parties |
Apps |
comp. apps |
minutes |
|
goals ave.min |
comp. goals |
Pens |
captain |
|
23 |
24 |
9 |
2070 |
23 |
90½
min |
8 |
2
|
none |
|
minutes are an approximation, due to the fact that many matches rarely stick to exactly ninety minutes long, allowing time for injuries and errors. |
|
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
FTS
|
CS |
FAv |
AAv |
Pts% |
W/L |
|
23 |
16 |
4 |
3 |
76 |
21 |
+55 |
2 |
12 |
3.304 |
0.913 |
78.3 |
+13 |
Venue Record
|
Venue |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
FTS
|
CS |
FAv |
AAv |
Pts% |
W/L |
|
Home |
9 |
7 |
2 |
0 |
35 |
7 |
+28 |
0 |
5 |
3.889 |
0.778 |
88.9 |
+7 |
|
Away |
14 |
9 |
2 |
3 |
41 |
14 |
+27 |
2 |
7 |
2.929 |
1.00 |
71.4 |
+6 |
Competition Record
|
Competition |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
FTS |
CS |
FAv |
AAv |
Pts% |
W/L |
|
British Championship |
9 |
6 |
2 |
1 |
29 |
10 |
+19 |
0 |
4 |
3.222 |
1.111 |
77.8 |
+5 |
| Friendly |
14 |
10 |
2 |
2 |
47 |
11 |
+36 |
2 |
18 |
3.357 |
0.786 |
78.6 |
+8 |
Tournament Record
|
British Championship Competition |
|
Type |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
FTS |
CS |
FAv |
AAv |
Pts% |
W/L |
|
BC 1938-39 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
11 |
5 |
+6 |
0 |
1 |
3.667 |
1.667 |
66.7 |
+1 |
|
BC 1946-47 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
11 |
3 |
+8 |
0 |
1 |
3.667 |
1.00 |
83.3 |
+2 |
|
BC 1947-48 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
7 |
2 |
+5 |
0 |
2 |
2.333 |
0.667 |
83.3 |
+2 |
|
BC
All |
9 |
6 |
2 |
1 |
29 |
10 |
+19 |
0 |
4 |
3.222 |
1.111 |
77.8 |
+5 |
|
All Competition |
|
Type |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
FTS |
CS |
FAv |
AAv |
Pts% |
W/L |
|
BC |
9 |
6 |
2 |
1 |
29 |
10 |
+19 |
0 |
4 |
3.222 |
1.111 |
77.8 |
+5 |
|
9 |
6 |
2 |
1 |
29 |
10 |
+19 |
0 |
4 |
3.222 |
1.111 |
77.8 |
+5 |
,%20Tommy.jpg)
|
Club:
Everton F.C. - eight full
appearances (720 min) 6ᵍ |
F.A. International Select Committee
- eight full appearances (720 min) 6ᵍ�x
|
|
apps |
match |
pic |
match details |
comp |
res. |
rundown |
shirt |
|
Club:
Chelsea F.C. - eleven full
appearances (990 min) 13ᵍ |
manager: Walter
Winterbottom -
fifteen full appearances (1350 min)
15ᵍx |
|
|
England
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