Horace Burrows (11 March 1910 – 22 March 1969) was a 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 ...

who played for

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 ...

and

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 of ...

. Burrows was a

left half 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 ...

whose league career lasted from 1932 to 1939, his career was curtailed by the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Burrows also played for the

England national football team The England national football team has represented England in international Association football, football since the first international match in 1872. It is controlled by The Football Association (FA), the governing body for football in Engl ...

on three occasions.

Playing career

Non-league football

Burrows was born in

Sutton-in-Ashfield Sutton-in-Ashfield is a market town in Nottinghamshire, England, with a population of 48,527 in 2019. It is the largest town in the district of Ashfield, four miles west of Mansfield, two miles from the Derbyshire border and 12 miles nort ...

on 11 March 1910, as a youth he won honours with

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

Schools and played for local club Sutton Junction F.C. In February 1929 he was offered a trial by

Division Three South The Third Division South of The Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division North with clubs elected to the League or relegated from Division Two allocated to o ...

side

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English footbal ...

and was signed on after a successful tryout. Burrows never managed to break into the Coventry first team and after a year was forced to drop back to playing

Non-League football Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to de ...

with Mansfield Town who at that time were in the

Midland Football League The Midland Football League is an English football league that was founded in 2014 by the merger of the former Midland Alliance and Midland Combination. The league has four divisions that sit at levels 9–12 of the football pyramid. History Th ...

. He had a successful year at Mansfield playing 44 games and helping them get elected to

The Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

. His good form was noticed by Sheffield Wednesday manager

Bob Brown Robert James Brown (born 27 December 1944) is a former Australian politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasman ...

and he signed for Wednesday on 1 May 1931 for a fee of £200.Since 1888.
Gives career statistics.

Sheffield Wednesday

Burrows found it impossible to force his way into the Wednesday side at left half, initially being kept out by Gavin Malloch. He eventually made his debut on 27 December 1932 against

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

and became Wednesday's regular left half for the next six seasons up to the outbreak of World War II. He played in 136 consecutive games for Wednesday from April 1933 till March 1936. This sequence of games included Wednesday's

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 ...

run in

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * ...

when they lifted the trophy. He subsequently played as Wednesday won the

1935 FA Charity Shield The 1935 FA Charity Shield was the 22nd FA Charity Shield, a football match between the winners of the previous season's First Division and FA Cup competitions. The match was contested by league champions Arsenal and FA Cup winners Sheffield W ...

. He was also capped three times by England in this period, being first called up in May 1934 against

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. Subsequent internationals followed against

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

and

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...

before he lost out to

Wilf Copping Wilfred Copping (17 August 1909 – June 1980) was an English footballer who played for Leeds United, Arsenal and the England national team. Career Leeds United Copping was born in Middlecliffe, Barnsley, Yorkshire, but was rejected by his ...

in the national side.''"The Men Who Made Sheffield Wednesday Football Club"'', Tony Matthews, Gives details of Sheffield Wednesday career.www.englandstats,com.
Gives details of England career.www.thefa.com.
Gives details of England career.

War and retirement

At the outbreak of war, Burrows continued to play for Wednesday in the wartime leagues and work in a sports shop that he had opened in his home town of Sutton-in-Ashfield. He played 49 wartime games for Wednesday and several as a guest for

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east ...

before being called up in January 1942 and joining the

Sherwood Foresters The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for just under 90 years, from 1881 to 1970. In 1970, the regiment was amalgamated with the Worcestershire Regiment to f ...

. He fought and was injured in the

First Battle of El Alamein The First Battle of El Alamein (1–27 July 1942) was a battle of the Western Desert campaign of the Second World War, fought in Egypt between Axis (German and Italian) forces of the Panzer Army Africa—which included the under Field Marshal ...

. After leaving the army in 1945 he re-opened his sports shop in Sutton-in-Ashfield, he also became player-manager of Ollerton Colliery for a time. Horace Burrows continued to run his shop until his death on 22 March 1969. The shop is no longer trading, but was run by his son Adrian who also played professional football between 1979 and 1993 making over 200 appearances for

Plymouth Argyle Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. As of the 2021–22 season, the team are competing in League One, the third tier of English football. They have played at Home Park, ...

.''"The Wednesday Boys"'', Jason Dickinson & John Brodie, Page 52 Gives biographical information.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burrows, Horace Mansfield Town F.C. players Sheffield Wednesday F.C. players England international footballers English footballers Association football midfielders 1910 births 1969 deaths Sutton Junction F.C. players FA Cup Final players British Army personnel of World War II Sherwood Foresters soldiers Military personnel from Nottinghamshire