Gerry Hitchens

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Gerry Hitchens - Born Cannock; October 8, 1934. Died 1983.

The idea of English sporting heroes being plucked from down a mineshaft is one which is deeply embedded in the folklore of the nation. Legend would have it that Yorkshire County Cricket Club only needed to shout down the nearest pithead and a decent fast bowler would emerge and the rugby league teams of that area would also have drawn much of their talent from the same source.

Football has had it’s own share of working class heroes although the subconscious tends to date these figures further back in time and imagines them to be either strapping centre halves or centre forwards and the romantic notion has the hero emerging from a coal face in the North East.

The 1950’s saw the mining industry spawn another such star, a footballer, but one who heralded from an area less renowned for its’ capacity to spawn heroes. Perhaps that helps explain why the story of this particular local boy made good was so different from most others.

Gerry Hitchens was brought up in Highley, a small Shropshire town, not far from Birmingham and Wolverhampton, the hotbed of Midlands football. Growing up in this mining community there was a certain sense of remoteness, however, and although the youngster quickly proved himself an able sportsman with a particular aptitude for football there was no immediate clamour for his services from the big local clubs.

Instead Hitchens settled into the lifestyle dictated by his situation and his talents. Like most young men in the area he began work as a miner while his footballing ability quickly made him the star player for Highley Miners Welfare FC. It was not long before his bustling style of play and, more importantly, his goalscoring exploits for this amateur side attracted attention from elsewhere but still the regions’ bigger clubs were slow on the uptake.

It was left to non-league Kidderminster Harriers to show a real interest and they were just in time to secure the services of Hitchens as West Bromwich Albion started showing an interest.

The young, somewhat unassuming, Hitchens was happy enough to take the smaller step up in joining Kidderminster. Any regrets he might have harboured at missing out on joining the Baggies were tempered by doubts as to whether he would have made the grade at first division level while financially he was probably better off staying down the pit and picking up part time money as well with The Harriers.

Football was certainly a different game back then.

Hitchens was an uncomplicated player with obvious natural virtues. He was quick, strong and brave. His goalscoring instincts were sound, having the happy knack of sniffing out a half chance, and he could finish reliably on the ground and in the air. He was an all round striker, good in the air without being an traditional target man and a dangerous predator without being an out and out goalscorer.

His performances with Kidderminster quickly showed that the youngster was equipped for league football and it would only be a little over a year from his joining the club that he would move on again and actually join a first division club. Again there had been rumoured interest from one of the Midlands big clubs, Aston Villa on this occasion, but it was Cardiff City who made a positive move and Hitchens joined the Ninian Park outfit in January 1955.

This transfer did not make Hitchens any kind of Big Time Charlie. He continued his footballing apprenticeship in Cardiff’s junior sides while continuing to work his shift at the pit from 7-30 in the morning until 2-30 in the afternoon. There was also the little matter of National Service on the horizon.

Hitchens immediately began making an impression with his new club as he banged in goals for fun in the Welsh League but he was not considered ready to step up into the first division as Cardiff fought an increasingly tense relegation battle. Eventually, however, the club decided that desperate times called for desperate measures and their raw, but explosive, forward was handed his first team debut at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the penultimate game of the season.

It did not take long for the gamble to pay off. After just three minutes the fearsome Trevor Ford broke away down the wing to put in a centre that Hitchens rose to head home in typically dynamic style. Ford himself would add a couple of goals of his own as The Bluebirds clinched a 3-2 victory which was enough to secure first division football for another season.

Hitchens started the 1955-56 campaign back in the reserves but it was not long before he was stepping into the big mans’ boots when Ford had his first of a series of run ins’ with the clubs’ hierarchy and found himself on the sidelines. Once more Cardiff were struggling and Hitchens found the job of leading the line difficult in the absence of the ferocious Ford.

When Ford returned to the side after Christmas and formed a twin spearhead with Hitchens, however, the new boy found things much more to his liking. Just as brave as Ford but quicker and cleverer Hitchens hit a rich vein of form as his partner resumed his usual role of taking the physical challenge to the opposition defence. Cardiff lost only one game in fourteen as Hitchens rammed home ten goals in fifteen games.

At this point the star of Gerry Hitchens was rising rapidly. Ending the season as top scorer for his club he had already been selected as a reserve for the England “B” side before taking his place on the FA’s summer tour of South Africa, a pleasant bonus for the first division footballer/miner.

Hitchens continued to create a good impression on the tour as he rattled home seventeen goals in twelve games as the FA continued to spread the gospel of football worldwide.

The following season saw Hitchens continuing his development as a centre forward to be feared but his club did not fare nearly as well. With Ford again in dispute with the club, this time it would prove terminal, Cardiff lurched towards relegation yet again and this time there would be no reprieve, despite the twenty one goals provided by Hitchens.

Although his club had taken a step in the wrong direction Hitchens made further progress on the international front during this season as he was selected for the England Under 23 side against Denmark.

It was now that Hitchens enlisted for two years of National Service, which did not seem so bad against the five year term he still had to serve down the mine. This change actually proved beneficial to his footballing schedule as he began life in Division Two with Cardiff. It was hardly surprising that there should be clubs interested in taking Hitchens back into the top flight, however, and when Aston Villa came calling at Ninian Park with a cheque for £22,500 City decided to cash in on their most saleable asset.

Villa were the FA Cup holders at the time and traditionally one of the biggest clubs in the English game but they were actually a team in decline when Hitchens joined them and the dashing new striker was unable to halt the slide.

Villa’s new striker made a steady rather than spectacular start as the team played out the remainder of a mundane season. The following year was far more exciting but mainly for the wrong reasons.

Despite the fact that Hitchens began to score consistently in the league, Villa struggled. While Hitchens and the formidable left winger Peter McParland certainly carried a threat they were not yet a real partnership and Villa struggled to find goals from anywhere else.

An early 7-2 drubbing at West Ham set the tone for a dreadful start to the season and when they lost the return match with The Hammers at the start of January Villa were bottom of the league and had shipped a startling 65 goals from their 26 games.

The FA Cup then began to offer some light relief, however, and as Rotherham, Chelsea, Everton and Burnley were defeated in turn Villa reached the semi finals while league form improved also.

There was an equal possibility of glory or catastrophe as the 1958-59 season reached its’ closing stages for The Villans but the prospect of real success was removed when Nottingham Forest scraped a 1-0 victory in their Hillsborough semi final.

Villa still had their first division status to fight for and Hitchens banged in a hat trick in their next game to ensure a 3-1 win at Bolton. Villa picked up two more points by then beating Luton Town and with nine games to go they enjoyed a five point cushion over the relegation zone.

Only three points came from the next eight games, however, and Villa went into their final game of the season, at home to West Bromwich Albion, needing a win to be certain of avoiding relegation.

On a night of unbelievable tension it was Hitchens who forced home a first half goal to give Villa the lead but with Manchester City also leading at home to Leicester the situation remained on a knife edge with Villa unable to find a clinching second goal and, increasingly, having to defend for their lives.

With less than two minutes remaining Villa’s world caved in as Ronnie Allen scuffed home an equaliser that sealed Villa’s relegation fate and gave all Baggies fans something to crow about over the summer.

Villa looked well equipped to fare well in Division Two, however. Solid rather than spectacular in most areas the dynamic pairing of Hitchens and McParland up front could be expected to cause problems for any second division defence.

McParland was a brave, robust forward who was highly effective in an extremely uncomplicated manner. He ran hard, shot hard, headed hard and was always looking for the shortest route to goal. Hitchens was not dissimilar but had smoother edges.

Quick, strong and brave Hitchens was more insidious in his movements. He would invariably be there to pounce if a defender slipped up and often took his markers by surprise by gliding in front of them undetected to score when there seemed to be no danger at all.

Hitchens had another reason to be cheerful as he anticipated a return to the second division. He had now completed his National Service and, as he approached his 25th birthday, was about to embark on his first season as a full time professional footballer.

Villa enjoyed an excellent start to the season but had shown signs of faltering when they suddenly went into overdrive in the middle of November, winning three games on the bounce and scoring twenty one goals in the process. A rampant Gerry Hitchens weighed in with ten of these goals.

First to suffer were Charlton Athletic who found themselves on the end of an 11-1 hiding at Villa Park in which Hitchens scored five. He then scored a hat trick as Villa won 5-0 at Bristol City while he had to settle for two as Scunthorpe United also suffered a 5-0 thumping back at Villa Park.

From that point on promotion never seriously looked in doubt and Villa once again embarked on a fine cup run. Leeds United, Chelsea, Port Vale and Preston North End were seen off as Villa made it to the last four but this time it was Wolverhampton Wanderers who ended their Wembley hopes with a 1-0 win at The Hawthorns.

Nothing could stop Villa making an instant return to the first division, however, and by the end of the season Hitchens and McParland had shared fifty goals between them in both competitions.

With confidence restored Villa made a positive start to life back in the top flight and Hitchens positively flourished. He scored heavily in the league during the first half of the season, the highlight being a hat trick in a 6-2 drubbing of Birmingham, and he also found the newly formed League Cup much to his liking.

There was widespread scepticism of the new competition among England’s top clubs but the newly promoted Villa were happy to give it a go and eventually charted a tortuous route to the final. They played their first game in the competition in mid October and eventually claimed a place in the final by winning a semi final replay after the league programme had been completed at the start of the following May.

Villa defeated Huddersfield Town, Preston North End after a replay, Plymouth Argyle after two replays, Wrexham and Burnley after a two legged semi final and a replay. In all they scored twenty six goals and Hitchens provided eleven of them.

The highlights of this personal triumph were a hat trick in the 5-3 second replay victory over Plymouth and the semi final saga with Burnley in which Hitchens scored in both the home and away legs before hitting the winner at Old Trafford in the replay.

The final, against Rotherham United, would not be played until the beginning of the following season, however, and by that time Hitchens would no longer be with Aston Villa. The eleven goals he had scored in the competition provided an early benchmark that would not be surpassed until Clive Allen managed twelve for Tottenham Hotspur during the 1986-87 season. Had Hitchens still been around for the two legged final, which Villa won, there is every chance he would have set a record that would never have been beaten.

There is no doubt that by this time Hitchens had become well known to the average English football fan. His distinctive blonde hair and barrel chest made him easily recognisable and his all action style as well as his goalscoring exploits made him a hero to many, especially around Villa Park.

Nothing, however, had prepared anybody for the dramatic turn events were about to take so far as Gerry Hitchens was concerned.

With the help of his League Cup haul Hitchens had scored forty one goals for Villa during the 1960-61 season and this had, not surprisingly, prompted attention from the England selectors. In March he was selected to represent The Football League against The Scottish League and at the end of the season Hitchens was handed his full international debut. In a matter of weeks his life had undergone a complete revolution.

Hitchens’ first game for England was in a Wembley friendly against Mexico. Within a minute Hitchens had bundled home his first goal for his country and then played his part as the Mexicans were crushed 8-0.

This earned him a place on England’s European summer tour and he was selected for his second cap in the prestige friendly away to Italy. This was the game that was to change Hitchens’ life.

Italy had never beaten England at this time and were desperate to do so in front of a typically partisan crowd. Hitchens played a massive part in making sure the Italians went home frustrated after a pulsating game. Firstly he headed England into the lead with typical opportunism after hesitation in the Italian defence and he then burst through to equalise after Italy had recovered to lead 2-1.

England’s day was then completed when Jimmy Greaves raced away to secure victory with a clinical cross shot late on.

At this time Italian clubs were beginning to invest in foreign players in a big way for the first time and British talent, mainly because of the massive impact made by John Charles at Juventus, was high on their shopping lists. From nowhere Hitchens suddenly became a wanted man after his two goals in Rome and before the summer was out he had been snapped up by Inter Milan for the tidy sum of £85,000.

With Greaves, Denis Law and Joe Baker all heading for Italy at the same time Hitchens might well have been the export most people expected to fail but, as it transpired, he was the only one able, or at least willing, to make a go of his career on the continent.

Within a year Greaves, Law and Baker had all returned to the comforts of home but Hitchens remained. This had more to do with character and personality than ability but it says a lot for Hitchens as a man that he was able to overcome the many difficulties and irritations inevitably suffered by an Englishman abroad while the fact that he continued to ply his trade at the top level of Italian football for the best part of a decade proves that, without ever setting the world on fire, he was able to more than hold his own in Serie A.

There is no doubt that Hitchens found the going just as tough as his compatriots in the early stages. The restraints Inter put on him away from the club meant there was little in the way of relaxation while the clubs’ policy of keeping the team together for days in advance of, and sometimes even after, a game was particularly hard to take.

It was not so long since Hitchens had been in the forces doing his national service and he did not appreciate the similarities now.

Perhaps these memories, and those of his days down a Shropshire pit, gave Hitchens the willpower to put up with these irritants and focus on the blessings attached to his move abroad. He was earning wages he could never have dreamed of in England, living in a beautiful villa and probably enjoying the weather a little more than he had been used to in Birmingham.

Hitchens would stay with Inter for fifteen months before moving on to Torino, with whom he spent two and a half seasons, before spending two seasons with both Atalanta and Cagliari.

If Hitchens had drawn up a list of the things he had had to give up with his move to Italy he would probably not have added “England caps” to it but, in reality, that was probably the truth. Despite the good impression the striker had made on England’s European tour it was a case of out of sight, out of mind when the international programme started up again in the autumn. Bobby Smith returned to the fold while Ray Pointer and Ray Crawford were also given opportunities to stake their claims to partner the established Greaves.

Come the following spring, with the 1962 World Cup finals approaching, Hitchens found himself back in the international reckoning. Neither Pointer or Crawford had sufficiently impressed the selectors during their brief opportunities while injury put paid to Bobby Smith’s chances. Hitchens returned for the friendly with Switzerland in May, scored in the 3-1 win and found himself on the flight to South America.

At the start of the World Cup in Chile Hitchens had an impressive record at international level of four goals in five games but his fledgling partnership with Greaves had never truly convinced. Although Hitchens was a willing front runner his real strengths were the same as Greaves’. Both men would have been happier playing alongside the selfless and highly physical Smith.

In England’s opening game of the tournament, a 2-1 defeat against Hungary, Hitchens and Greaves singularly failed to gel and it was Hitchens, inevitably, who carried the can.

Alan Peacock, a second division player with Middlesbrough who had yet to be capped, came in for the crucial second game against Argentina and did well as England scored a fine 3-1 victory and then kept his place as qualification was earned with a dour, depressing goalless draw against Bulgaria.

The quarter finals meant a meeting with the holders, and red hot favourites, Brazil and Hitchens was back in the side after Peacock was stricken with illness on the eve of the game.

In truth England never really suggested that they might spring a shock although they performed with credit before falling to a 3-1 defeat in which goalkeeper Ron Springett, despite several fine saves earlier on, became the scapegoat after the second half goals which ultimately brought Brazil victory.

Again the Hitchens/Greaves partnership failed to ignite although they did combine in a way when Hitchens brought England level before half time. Greaves headed against the woodwork from a Johnny Haynes free kick and Hitchens, with typical alacrity, was on hand to turn home the rebound.

This goal made it five in seven for Hitchens in an England shirt but he would never have the chance to improve on that tally. He was omitted from the England squads for the games immediately following the 1962 World Cup and would never be called up by Alf Ramsey who took control of the England side early in 1963.

That probably didn’t come as much of a surprise to Hitchens. During the 1962-63 season Ramsey had taken his Ipswich Town side, surprise champions of England, to Italy to play AC Milan in the European Cup. Hitchens, a pleasant, friendly man, despite having been transferred to Torino by this time went to greet the Ipswich party at the San Siro but, having offered Ramsey a warm welcome, was met with a frosty “Oh yes, you play in these parts.”

On his appointment as England manager Ramsey quickly made it known that only players playing in England would be considered for the national team and Hitchens was able to forget any lingering international ambitions he may have harboured.

It would seem that Hitchens was not a man to harbour regrets, however, and he remained in Italy well into his thirties before returning home, literally, where he would turn out for both Worcester City and Merthyr Tydfil.

Let’s just recap on Gerry Hitchens’ CV; Highley Miners Welfare FC, Kidderminster Harriers, Cardiff City, Aston Villa, Inter Milan, Torino, Atalanta, Cagliari, Worcester City, Merthyr Tydfil and England. That’s a rare and magnificently varied collection. Hitchens also had the honour of representing both The Football League and The Italian League.

Given his background it is hardly surprising that Gerry Hitchens brought a sense of perspective to his footballing career and, while he was always a fierce competitor, he remained a shining example of sportsmanship and good humour throughout.

These virtues continued to make him a well liked and admired man after his football career was over and it was a great sadness to many when he died prematurely in 1983 whilst playing football in a charity match.

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