Hugh Morris (1872 – 20 September 1897) was a Welsh

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 lea ...

who played as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

for

Manchester City Manchester City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the English football league system, top flight of Football in England, English footbal ...

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football. They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history ...

and

Grimsby Town Grimsby Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England, that competes in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "the Mariners", the club was f ...

in the 19th century. Born in

Chirk Chirk () is a town and Community (Wales), community in Wrexham County Borough, Wales, south of Wrexham, between it and Oswestry. At the 2011 census, it had a population of 4,468. Historically in the historic counties of Wales, traditional coun ...

, Wales, he gained three caps for the Welsh national team.

Career

Club career

Morris was first spotted by

Ardwick Ardwick is an area of Manchester, England, southeast of the city centre. The population at the 2011 census was 19,250. Historically in Lancashire, by the mid-nineteenth century Ardwick had grown from being a village into a pleasant and wealt ...

when playing for

in the Welsh cup and the

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

side duly signed him in 1891. Morris was the leading goalscorer for the club in the 1891–92

Football Alliance The Football Alliance was an association football league in England which ran for three seasons, from 1889–90 to 1891–92. History In 1888, the same year the Football League was founded, The Combination was established by clubs who had been ...

season, scoring 10 goals in 22 appearances, including a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three Wick ...

against

Walsall Town Swifts Walsall Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Walsall, West Midlands, England. The team competes in , the fourth level of the English football league system. The club's nickname, "The Saddlers", reflec ...

. The following season Ardwick were admitted to the newly formed

Football League Second Division The Football League Second Division was the second level division in the English football league system between 1892 and 1992. Following the foundation of the FA Premier League, the Football League divisions were renumbered and the third tier ...

and Morris played in the club's first ever Football League fixture, scoring twice as Ardwick beat

Bootle Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Bootle (UK Parliament constituency), Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449. It is pa ...

7–0. Morris continued to play regularly for Ardwick before he was transferred to

, then of the

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in December 1893. He became a regular in United's first team for the following 18 months, having rejected an offer to play in the United States in 1894, and made 39 league appearances, scoring nine goals for the

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

club. In September 1895 Morris was suspended for "lodging in a public house" (the club was run on strict Methodist lines at the time and this was against the terms of his contract), before being transferred back to Ardwick, now renamed

, in the following November along with Joe Davies and

Bob Hill Robert W. Hill''The Sporting News: 1992-93 Official NBA Register''. St. Louis, Missouri: The Sporting News Publishing Co. 1992. (born November 24, 1948) is an American basketball coach. Hill grew up in Mount Sterling, Ohio, moving to Worthingt ...

. Returning to Hyde Road, Morris made 20 appearances in his second spell at the Manchester club, before moving to

in May 1896 where he played for a further season. Morris moved to Southern League side

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 Poplar, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east of ...

in the summer of 1897, but contracted tuberculosis not long after his transfer and died before he could make his debut.

International career

While at Sheffield United, Morris won his first cap for Wales in a

British Home Championship The British Home Championship (historically known as the British International Championship or simply the International Championship) was an annual football competition contested between the United Kingdom's four national teams: England, Scotlan ...

match against

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

on 24 March 1894. Morris scored twice, but Wales lost 5–2. Morris gained a second international cap in a 9–1 defeat to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in March 1896 and earned the last of his three international caps in March 1897, a 4–0 defeat against England at his former club ground

Bramall Lane Bramall Lane is a association football, football stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which is the home of Sheffield United F.C., Sheffield United. The stadium was originally a cricket ground, built on a road named after the Bramall ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Hugh 1872 births Sportspeople from Chirk Footballers from Wrexham County Borough 1897 deaths Welsh men's footballers Wales men's international footballers Men's association football forwards Manchester City F.C. players Sheffield United F.C. players Grimsby Town F.C. players Millwall F.C. players English Football League players 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Wales