Jack Firth (footballer)

Jack Firth was born on 8 August 1907[1] in Brightside, Sheffield;[2] he was a son of Albert Firth, a coal miner, and his wife Harriet. The family spent time living in Barnsley[3] before settling in Woodlands, where Firth attended the village school and captained its football team.[2] He was a member of the Doncaster schools representative team that played in the English Schools Shield.[2] On leaving school, he worked at Brodsworth Main Colliery, first as a screener and then in the office.[2] He began his football career with Woodlands Prims, and then joined his works team, initially in the reserves.[2] A trial with Doncaster Rovers during the 1925–26 season came to nothing, and in March 1926, he joined Football League First Division club Birmingham on a similar basis. The trial went well, he signed professional forms, "and was glad to forget the colliery and the coal-getting."[4][2]

Firth made his first-team debut for Birmingham on 29 October 1927, replacing the indisposed Wally Harris as stand-in for Johnny Crosbie at inside right for the 3–1 defeat away to Sheffield United,[5] the team Firth supported as a boy. The Sunday Mercury reporter wrote that he "revealed a great deal of footcraft, but he was too slow in parting with the ball and should have fed his partner oftener."[6][2] Starting at inside left, he scored his first goal 12 minutes into the visit to Middlesbrough on 25 February 1928 following a corner, and finished the game at right half after Jimmy Cringan was injured; it was only after the reorganisation that Middlesbrough equalised.[7] He ended the season with six appearances, and made twice that number in 1928–29, six at inside forward and six at right half, in the last of which he broke a collarbone.[8][9]

He was a regular at right half the following season and for the first couple of months of the next, until dropped in favour of Cringan. [10][11] Brought into the forward line to face Grimsby Town with Joe Bradford away on international duty with England and George Briggs and George Hicks injured,[12] and despite carrying an injury for much of the second half, Firth scored a hat-trick in the last half-hour of the game to secure a 4–1 win.[13] He regained a regular place in the side from mid-February onwards, scored in the FA Cup sixth round replay and played in the semi-final win against Sunderland, but Bob Gregg was preferred for the 1931 FA Cup Final, which Birmingham lost 2–1 to West Bromwich Albion.[14][15] He remained at the club for another two years, during which he made just 14 appearances, and was not retained at the end of the 1932–33 season.[16][17]

Firth signed for Swansea Town of the Second Division in August 1933.[18] He was a regular in their team for three seasons, mainly as an inside forward, and in his first season scored ten goals from 34 league appearances, a return that made him Swansea's second top scorer with only one fewer than Syd Lowry's 11.[19] He was made available for transfer in 1936,[20] and signed for Bury, another Second Division club. His manager, Norman Bullock, thought he would "prove a very good utility player",[21] but, apart from a run of five games at inside right in February 1937 that produced four goals, he rarely played.[19]

He returned home at the end of that season, and rejoined Brodsworth Main, both colliery and football team.[19][22] In addition to football, Firth played league cricket in Yorkshire.[23]

Firth died in Doncaster on 8 December 1987 at the age of 80.[1]

• Matthews, Tony (1995). Birmingham City: A Complete Record. Derby: Breedon Books. ISBN 978-1-85983-010-9.