Gerald William Harris (8 October 1935 – 28 July 2020) was an English 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 le ...
. He spent the majority of his league career with
Wolverhampton Wanderers, with whom he won two league championships and the
FA Cup.
Career
Harris was signed up by Wolves as an amateur after an unsuccessful trial at
West Bromwich Albion in 1953. He turned professional in January 1954, but spent a few seasons in the reserves before finally making his senior debut on 29 August 1956 in a 5–4 win over
Luton Town.
He initially only found himself in the team in order to cover for the then-injured
Bill Shorthouse, but made the position his own. He was a virtual ever-present over the period 1956–1961, which saw the club win two successive league championships - missing out on a third by a single point - and the
1960 FA Cup. He also appeared in every
European Cup
The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...
game in the club's history to date.
The emergence of
Bobby Thomson
Robert Brown Thomson (October 25, 1923 – August 16, 2010) was a Scottish Americans, Scottish-born American professional baseball player, nicknamed the "Staten Island Scot". He was an outfielder and right-handed batter for the New York Giants ( ...
in 1962 though, pushed Harris out of the first team and he was again consigned to reserve team football over the next few seasons. He returned to contention in the
1964–65 campaign which ended in relegation. He played just twice more for the club after the drop, before moving to neighbours
Walsall in 1966, after a total of 270 appearances for Wolves. However, injury curtailed his career with the ''Saddlers'' after just 12 months.
Harris died in July 2020 aged 84.
Honours
* Football League First Division: 1957–58, 1958–59
* FA Cup: 1959-60
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Gerry
1935 births
2020 deaths
Footballers from Shropshire
English men's footballers
England men's under-23 international footballers
English Football League players
Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players
Walsall F.C. players
Men's association football defenders