Albert Geldard (11 April 1914 – 19 October 1989) 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 ...

who played as an outside right for

Bradford Park Avenue Bradford (Park Avenue) Association Football Club is an association football club based in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The team compete in , at the sixth tier of the English football league system. The name derived from their former hom ...

, Everton,

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

and Darwen. At Everton he won the FA Cup Final in

1933 Events January * January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wis ...

. He made four appearances for

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 ...

during 1933–1937. At Bradford Park Avenue; he became known as the youngest player to appear in 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 ...

, a distinction shared jointly with Ken Roberts until

Reuben Noble-Lazarus Reuben Courtney Noble-Lazarus (born 16 August 1993) is an English-born Grenadian professional footballer. On 30 September 2008, he became the youngest player to debut in the English Football League, at 15 years and 45 days old, breaking the recor ...

took the record in 2008.

Playing career

Bradford Park Avenue

Geldard was born at

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

, Yorkshire and played his youth football with Bradford Schools and Manningham Mills. Magic was one of Geldard's hobbies, with ''toffeeweb'' referring to the winger as "a real wizard, both on and off the pitch. His hobbies included magic tricks and he was one of the trickiest right wingers ever seen: he was devastatingly fast and he had a trick-bag that seemingly never ran out." He joined

as a professional in 1928. His debut came at

The Den The Den (previously The New Den) is a football stadium in New Cross, south-east London, and the home of Millwall Football Club. The Den is adjacent to the South London railway originating at , and a quarter of a mile from the Old Den, which it ...

on 16 September 1929 against Millwall to become the youngest player to appear in the

at just 15 years and 158 days old. He left Bradford Park Avenue having scored six goals in 34 games; signing for Everton on 14 November 1932 for a then record fee of £4,000.

Everton

Joining Everton, his debut came against

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

where he scored a goal. Geldard formed a duet with

striker Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

Tommy Lawton Thomas Lawton (6 October 1919 – 6 November 1996) was an English football player and manager. A strong centre-forward with excellent all-round attacking skills, he was able to head the ball with tremendous power and accuracy. Born in Fa ...

, by producing good crosses for him to head home. Tony Matthews described Geldard as; "Geldard was a slippery customer who possessed an exceptional turn of speed, could shoot with both feet and enjoyed taking on opponents, either on the outside or inside." Taking part in the ''cup-tie of the century'' on 30 January 1935, Geldard scored two goals to help Everton progress into the fifth round of the 1935 FA Cup after the 6–4 defeat of

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

. Geldard was part of the Everton side that won the

1933 FA Cup Final The 1933 FA Cup Final was a football match between Everton and Manchester City on 29 April 1933 at Wembley Stadium in London. The deciding match of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (better known ...

with a 3–0 win over

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 ...

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

with goals from Jimmy Stein,

Dixie Dean William Ralph "Dixie" Dean (22 January 1907 – 1 March 1980) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward. He is regarded as one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time and was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in ...

and James Dunn; with Geldard crossing in for the third goal.

was disappointed at the trade of Geldard saying; "He was the fastest thing on two legs over ten yards. We had other wingers like Torry Gillick, Wally Boyes and

Jimmy Caskie James Caskie (30 January 1914 – 19 May 1977) was a Scottish footballer, who played for St Johnstone, Everton, St Mirren (wartime guest),Stan Matthews out of the team. I thought we'd miss him." In total Geldard had made 140 appearances for Everton scoring 38 goals.

Bolton Wanderers

signed Geldard for £4,500 in July 1938, and his debut came against

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in C ...

on 27 August 1938 and scored his first goal for ''The Trotters'' on 18 February 1939 against his former club Everton. He enlisted in the

53rd (Bolton) Field Regiment, Royal Artillery 53rd (Bolton) Field Regiment was a Royal Artillery (RA) unit of Britain's part-time Territorial Army (United Kingdom), Territorial Army (TA) during World War II. It was descended from the Bolton Artillery, first formed in the Lancashire town of B ...

, in May 1939 to fight in the

Second World War 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 ...

along with 14 of his Bolton teammates.

Darwen

He returned from the war with an agreement with Bolton for him to play on semi professional terms for Darwen and played a few games for the Lancashire-based club, after World War II, Geldard returned to play for Bolton in 1946 and played nine games scoring a single goal, but was forced to retire from football after a knee injury in 1947.

International career

He made his debut for

on 13 May 1933 at the age of 19 against

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

in a 1–1 draw at Stadio Nazionale PNF, making him the 10th youngest player to ever appear for England; at this time he was playing at Everton, going onto make four appearances for England in total in games against;

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

International appearances

References

External links

*
England profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geldard, Albert 1914 births 1989 deaths Footballers from Bradford Men's association football outside forwards English men's footballers England men's international footballers Bradford (Park Avenue) A.F.C. players Everton F.C. players Bolton Wanderers F.C. players Darwen F.C. players English Football League players English Football League representative players British Army personnel of World War II Royal Artillery soldiers