SAD NEWS:The forgotten story of the footballer whose death turned tide against…
On the face of it there was nothing particularly memorable about Birmingham City’s 1-1 draw at relegation-bound Portsmouth in March 1959 but for the sense of disappointment the visitors took from it. “Blues did themselves no credit in this so-casual stroll in the sun,” wrote Dennis Shaw in Birmingham’s Sports Argus. “Portsmouth did all they could to show why they have not won a league game since November. Blues were little better. After shooting into the lead shortly before the interval they just hadn’t the skill, and the drive, nor the determination to run up a hefty total. On a pitch like concrete the ball was ballooned back and forth over the halfway line like a ping-pong game.”
At right-back for City, making his 227th league appearance for the club, was 29-year-old Jeff Hall. Two days later he was diagnosed with polio, and within a fortnight he was dead.
“I’m amazed,” said Ron Newman, Portsmouth’s outside-left, when told of Hall’s illness. “Jeff played well and I didn’t notice anything different about him at all. He was very quiet all through the game but then he usually is. I shook hands with him as we left the field and said: ‘Well done.’ He just said: ‘Hard luck – I guess you needed those points pretty badly.’”
Leave a Reply