Harold Hassall
Born Tyldesley, March 4, 1929.
Seldom can the career of a footballer have been shaped so totally by the fateful hand of injury as the one of Harold Hassall.
Not only was his own career cut dreadfully short by injury but it seemed as though every significant moment in its’ course was destined to be dominated by injury in one form or another.
Hassall was first noticed playing football for Astley and Tyldesley Collieries FC. By rights it should have been Bolton Wanderers, the local professional club, who spotted the raw but talented inside forward but instead it was Huddersfield Town who secured the seventeen year olds’ signature.
It was to prove a costly oversight on the Burnden Park clubs’ part.
Hassall made steady progress at Leeds Road although it would be a couple of years before the youngster could hold down a regular place in a first team continually struggling to maintain its’ place in the first division.
Harold Hassall was a rangy inside left, full of running and energy but with neat skills and a definite eye for goal.
Even at an early age his robust style ensured Hassall was often troubled by niggling injury concerns.
By the turn of the 1950’s it was only injury which would keep him out of the Huddersfield side as, having forced his way into the first team, Hassall quickly became one of its’ most important members.
Hassall was not as elaborate in his style as many of his contemporaries but he was undoubtedly effective. Quick, strong and direct he possessed a real goal threat and backed up his attacking instincts with a terrific work ethic.
The left wing partnership Hassall forged with Vic Metcalfe, similarly direct and powerful, was by far the most dangerous weapon in the Leeds Road armoury.
Harold Hassall’s performances for Huddersfield had begun to attract attention already when he suddenly shot to national prominence in an unexpected manner.
In the 1951 FA Cup fourth round, Huddersfield had been drawn away from home to play Preston North End .
In a typically hard fought cup tie Preston had lost their centre half to a broken leg before Huddersfield’s keeper sustained an injury which only allowed him to continue outfield as nuisance value.
Hassall, versatile and game for anything, took over between the posts.
Midway through the second half and with Huddersfield leading 2-0, Preston were awarded a penalty. Up stepped the North End and England penalty taker Tom Finney to face Hassall.
Finney shot low, as was his norm, across the muddy surface but Hassall dropped to his right and saved.
Some claimed he had walked out and picked up the spot kick rather than dived on it but, whatever the merits of the save, Hassall had a rather strange, but very pleasant, feather in his cap, especially as the game would end 2-0 in his sides’ favour.
Towards the end of this season Hassall would earn his first England cap, at Wembley in the annual fixture against Scotland, not in the nets but his usual inside left position.
This game would also be dominated by injury.
Hassall had apparently struck lucky in gaining his first cap in this game. At a time when England Teams were chosen by a board of selectors and not a team manager selections were often random, baffling affairs.
In coming into the forward line alongside the established quartet of Matthews, Mannion, Mortensen and Finney, Hassall appeared to have been given as good a chance as any newcomer to make his mark.
After a quarter of an hour, however, Wilf Mannion sustained a broken cheekbone and could take no further part in the game and England, long before the advent of substitutes, were a man down.
England’s disadvantage was clear but despite it they were never without an attacking threat.
Hassall showed up well and his capacity for hard work was allowed full license.
In essence, England began to operate without a centre forward, moving Finney to inside right to partner Matthews with Mortensen and Hassall, trojans both, patrolling the left.
Despite being a man light this attack gave one of England’s finest performances with Finney, in particular, a revelation in his more central role.
It was from one of Finney’s through balls that Hassall surged forward to drive England into the lead and although the Scots fought back to take a 3-1 lead it was England who ended the game piling forward in search of an equaliser after Finney had reduced the arrears.
The equaliser would not come but England had given a fine display in defeat, given the handicap of Mannion’s injury.
Hassall himself had created a good impression on his debut and looked a likely candidate for future internationals. Even the unpredictable selectors agreed and he would retain his place for the next three games.
In the last two of these he was even partnered by his club colleague Metcalfe, but the promise of his first game never quite materialised and Hassall was subsequently dropped.
In January 1952, with Huddersfield again struggling against relegation, Hassall was transferred to his hometown club, Bolton Wanderers.
The fee for his signature was reputed to be £30,000, if true a record deal.
The move looked full of promise for Hassall as he would have the experienced England international Bobby Langton, very similar in style to Metcalfe, on his left and the ferocious goalscorer Nat Lofthouse inside him.
Wanderers finished fifth at the end of this season and, although they slipped to fourteenth in the league, the following year they won through to the FA Cup final.
This game would become the most famous final of them all and no-one was more crucially involved than Hassall, although his contribution is now generally forgotten.
Bolton, pitted against Blackpool, were a goal up inside two minutes through Lofthouse.
Shortly afterwards, however, their left half Eric Bell tore a muscle in his leg and became a virtual passenger.
Hassall was the man who gamely dropped back to try and subdue Blackpool’s most potent wing, where Ernie Taylor and Stan Matthews formed such a lethal combination.
Blackpool equalised when a shot from Stan Mortensen deflected into goal off Hassall. Initial reports gave this as an own goal although it was subsequently awarded to Mortensen, thus allowing him to create history after his eventual hat-trick.
With Hassall running himself into the ground Bolton astonishingly fought their way to a 3-1 lead and held this advantage until deep into the second half.
Then left back Ralph Banks began to suffer cramp and Hassall was left the only able bodied man in the way of Taylor and Matthews.
One goal was clawed back but still it seemed as though Bolton would hold out until Mortensen equalised three minutes from time with a thunderbolt of a free kick and Matthews then set up Bill Perry for a last minute winner.
Incredibly hard on Bolton, doubly so on Hassall, the cup, and eternal glory, was Blackpool’s and Matthews’.
Six months after this final Harold Hassall was recalled to the England side and scored twice in a 3-1 victory over Northern Ireland.
Once more his career looked to be taking off, but injury had one last cruel intervention to make, this time with terminal effects on Hassall’s career.
With Nat Lofthouse injured Hassall had been moved inside to play centre forward when he himself suffered a torn knee cap which would force him to retire in 1955 aged just twenty six.
Hassall went on to have a long and distinguished coaching career. He coached the Malaysian national side, England Youth teams as well as being a resident coach at Lilleshall for many years.
Harold Hassall also lectured in physical education and provided the data for a study which discovered that Colin Bell did twice as much running during a game as Ferenc Puskas.
Unfortunately he could not find any scientific explanations for why Puskas was twice as good.
So at least the fickle hand of injury, which played such a pivotal part in Hassall’s playing career, could not prevent him from enjoying a long and varied career in the game which he could only grace for such a cruelly short time.
Harold Hassall Career Stats
CLUB GAMES GOALS
Huddersfield Town FC
74 26
Bolton Wanderers FC
102 34
England
5 4
Total 181 64