Brian Hornsby (born 10 September 1954) is an English former professional
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
who played as a
midfielder
A midfielder is an outfield position in association football.
Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...
for
Arsenal,
Shrewsbury Town
Shrewsbury Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of English football. The club plays its home games at the New Meadow, having mo ...
,
Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield Wednesday Football Club is a professional association football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1867 as an offshoot ...
and
Carlisle United in the English league. He also had short spells playing abroad for
Edmonton Drillers (Canada),
IK Brage
Idrottsklubben Brage, also known as IK Brage or simply Brage, is a Swedish football club located in Borlänge. The club is affiliated with Dalarnas Fotbollförbund and play their home games at Domnarvsvallen. The club colours, reflected in th ...
(Sweden) and
Falu BS
Falu Bandysällskap, ''Falu BS'', is a bandy club from Falun in Sweden.
Falu BS was founded as ''Falu Bollsällskap'' on 10 December 1935, by merging Falu BK, Holmens IF, Falu SK and IFK Falun. All these clubs were playing bandy.
In 1936 ...
(Sweden) for whom he was
player-manager
A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the s ...
. Hornsby played 222 English league games and scoring 48 goals. His career was seriously curtailed by a hamstring injury when playing for Sheffield Wednesday in 1980.
Playing career
As a schoolboy Hornsby captained
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
Boys and earned England caps at School boy and Youth level.
Arsenal
Hornsby joined Arsenal straight from school in 1970, he was member of the Arsenal team which won the
FA Youth Cup in 1971, beating
Cardiff City 2–0 over two legs. He signed as a professional for Arsenal in September 1971. Arsenal had just won
The Double in the
1970–71 season and had a very strong team. Hornsby's chances of breaking into the first team were very rare and he did not make his debut until May 1973 in the final league game of the
1972–73 season in a 6–1 defeat at
Leeds United
Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road ...
. He was very much a reserve and squad player for the Gunners making 26 league appearances in his almost five seasons at
Highbury
Highbury is a district in North London and part of the London Borough of Islington
in Greater London that was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Roads.
The manor house was sit ...
, scoring six goals. Hornsby was released by Arsenal at the end of
Bertie Mee
Bertram Mee OBE (25 December 1918 – 21 October 2001) was an English footballer who played as a winger for Derby County and Mansfield Town. Mee was also a manager, noted for leading Arsenal to their first Double win in 1971.
Playing career
Bor ...
's reign as manager and he signed for Shrewsbury Town in May 1976 for £40,000.
Shrewsbury Town
Hornsby while playing under Shrewsbury boss
Alan Durban
William Alan Durban (born 7 July 1941) is a Welsh former international footballer and manager, whose career was at its peak between the 1970s and 1990s. He played in the Football League for Cardiff City, Derby County and was player-manager of ...
and was virtually ever present during his almost two years at
Gay Meadow
Gay Meadow was the home ground of Shrewsbury Town football club in Shropshire, England. Just outside the town centre, on the banks of the River Severn, it opened in 1910.
The ground closed at the end of the 2006-07 Football League season and t ...
playing in 75 league games and scoring 16 goals. He helped Town win the
Welsh Cup
The FAW Welsh Cup ( cy, Cwpan Cymdeithas Pêl-droed Cymru), currently known as the JD Welsh Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a knock-out football competition contested annually by teams in the Welsh football league system. It is considered the mos ...
in 1977. In February 1978 Durban left to be manager of
Stoke City and the following month Hornsby signed for Sheffield Wednesday in a £45,000 deal.
Sheffield Wednesday
Sheffield Wednesday manager
Jack Charlton
John Charlton (8 May 193510 July 2020) was an English footballer and manager who played as a defender. He was part of the England national team that won the 1966 World Cup and managed the Republic of Ireland national team from 1986 to 199 ...
had been tracking Hornsby for some time and he finally got his man. There is a famous anecdote regarding Hornsby which sums up Charlton's laconic personality. Wednesday were playing Shrewsbury away at the end of February 1978, just before Hornsby's move to Sheffield. Charlton was giving his pre-match team talk and midway through turned to Wednesday midfielder
Jeff Johnson and said, "You're up against the lad Hornsby, he's a very skilful player ... I'm buying him to replace you".
As it happened there was room for both Hornsby and Johnson in the Wednesday team.
Hornsby made his debut for Wednesday on 18 March 1978 in a 3–1 away defeat to
Lincoln City, however after that Wednesday only suffered one more defeat in the remaining 12 matches that season. On signing, Hornsby had said on local radio that he would score plenty of goals from midfield, his first came on 25 March in a 2–0 away win at
Rotherham
Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...
. It was a 25-yard volley into the roof of the net which was named as Goal of the Season on
Yorkshire Television
ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...
by
Martin Tyler
Martin Tyler (born 14 September 1945) is an English football commentator. He has worked as a commentator for Sky Sports since 1990, covering the Premier League and UEFA Champions League, as well as other domestic and international competition ...
. Jeff Johnson scored the other goal that day.
The
1978–79 season saw Hornsby finish as top scorer for Wednesday with 21 goals in all competitions including three in the
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...
3rd round marathon against former club Arsenal.
1979–80 saw Wednesday promoted from Division Three but Hornsby's goal contribution was only three, missing a third of the matches through injury. The following season (
1980–81) in Division Two started well for Hornsby scoring three goals in 12 matches, however in October 1980 he suffered a troublesome hamstring problem and missed the rest of the season. Hornsby made one more appearance for Wednesday, as a substitute at
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
in December 1981. A few weeks earlier he had made four appearances for
Chester City on loan.
Latter career
Hornsby spent part of 1982 playing for the Canadian
NASL team Edmonton Drillers but returned to England after they hit financial trouble and folded. He signed for Carlisle United in the summer of 1982 and spent two years there, making ten appearances and scoring one goal against
Newcastle United, described as "a brilliant chip over Kevin Carr" by one football writer.
in November 1982. After a brief spell on loan at Chesterfield, Hornsby moved to Sweden in 1984 to play for IK Brage for a season, making 20 appearances and scoring 1 goal. He then moved to the town of
Falun
Falun () is a city and the seat of Falun Municipality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 37,291 inhabitants in 2010. It is also the capital of Dalarna County. Falun forms, together with Borlänge, a metropolitan area with just over 100,000 inhabitan ...
to be player-manager of Falu BS (Bollsällskap). On returning to the UK he played
non-League football for
Spalding United and
Holbeach United.
After football
Hornsby later lived in
Peterborough
Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
. For more than 15 years he has been captain of the Arsenal F.C. former professionals and celebrity team raising money for charities and the Arsenal Trust. He is also involved with the charity
Action Medical Research and along with friend
Tony Hadley
Anthony Patrick Hadley (born 2 June 1960) is an English pop singer. He rose to fame in the 1980s as the lead singer of the new wave band Spandau Ballet and launched a solo career following the group's split in 1990. Hadley returned to the ban ...
undertook a trek to
Machu Picchu to raise funds for the charity.
Honours
Arsenal
*
FA Youth Cup:
1971
Shrewsbury Town
*
Welsh Cup
The FAW Welsh Cup ( cy, Cwpan Cymdeithas Pêl-droed Cymru), currently known as the JD Welsh Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a knock-out football competition contested annually by teams in the Welsh football league system. It is considered the mos ...
:
1977
Events January
* January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
* January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...
Sheffield Wednesday
*
Football League Third Division
The Football League Third Division was the third tier of the English football league system in 1920–21 and again from 1958 until 1992. When the FA Premier League was formed, the division become the fourth tier level. In 2004, following th ...
:
1980
Individual
*
Football League Third Division PFA Team of the Year: 1979
External links
Photos of Brian in his Arsenal days.Photo of Brian with Tony Hadley.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hornsby, Brian
1954 births
Living people
People from Great Shelford
Footballers from Cambridgeshire
English men's footballers
Men's association football midfielders
English Football League players
North American Soccer League (1968–1984) players
Allsvenskan players
Arsenal F.C. players
Shrewsbury Town F.C. players
Sheffield Wednesday F.C. players
Chester City F.C. players
Edmonton Drillers (1979–1982) players
Carlisle United F.C. players
Chesterfield F.C. players
IK Brage players
Falu FK players
Spalding United F.C. players
Holbeach United F.C. players
English expatriate men's footballers
English football managers
English expatriate sportspeople in Sweden
Expatriate men's footballers in Sweden
English expatriate sportspeople in Canada
Expatriate men's soccer players in Canada