Ernest Arthur Hart (3 January 1902 – 21 July 1954) was English

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 le ...

who played for

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 S ...

Mansfield Town Mansfield Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in the town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Stags', they ...

, Tunbridge Wells Rangers and the

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

national team in the 1930s.

Football career

Hart was born in

Overseal Overseal is a village and civil parish in South Derbyshire, south of Swadlincote, west of Ashby-de-la-Zouch and due south-southwest of Derby (16.5 miles by road). The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 2,450. Situated withi ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...

, and showed great promise in Overseal schoolboy and junior football, and later with a side in

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated in ...

named Woodlands Wesleyans. His performances brought him to the attention of League club scouts, and in September 1920 he signed for Leeds United. Over the next sixteen seasons he was a first team regular at

Elland Road Elland Road is a football stadium in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, which has been the home of Premier League club Leeds United since the club's formation in 1919. The stadium is the 14th largest football stadium in England. The g ...

, and was widely recognised as one of the best centre-halves in the game. Hart earned eight England caps between 1928 and 1934, including an appearance in the England team that beat Austria 4–3 in 1932 - the Austria side of the early 1930s were regarded as Continental Europe's strongest side, and had gone 14 matches unbeaten when they met England. His international career should have been longer, but he lost his England place as a result of a ban imposed for swearing at a referee. He played for the "Professionals" in the

1929 FA Charity Shield The 1929 FA Charity Shield was the 16th FA Charity Shield, an annual football match. It was played between the Professionals and the Amateurs at The Den, New Cross in London on 7 October 1929. The Professionals won the match 3–0. Teams Matc ...

. In total, Hart made 472 appearances for Leeds, and scored 15 goals. Between 1936 and 1938 he played for Mansfield Town, then became player manager at Tunbridge Wells Rangers where he stayed until the club folded early in the Second World War on 12 January 1940.

After football

On retirement, he bought a bus and began a coach business based in Doncaster as E.A.Hart, which traded as the Beehive Bus Company, this prospered and later was purchased by Wilfreda Coaches soon after they moved to the new HQ at Adwick-le-Street, Doncaster. The joint company trades as Wilfreda Beehive, a luxury coach company operating from Doncaster and now nationally known. He died on 21 July 1954, aged 52. In a poll of the 100 greatest ever Leeds United players, Hart was voted in at number 76.

References

1902 births People from Overseal Footballers from Derbyshire 1954 deaths English footballers England international footballers Leeds United F.C. players Mansfield Town F.C. players Tunbridge Wells F.C. players English Football League players English Football League representative players Association football central defenders {{England-footy-defender-1900s-stub