Sadly,
on Monday last George Hudson, the legendary Coventry City
centre-forward from the 1960s passed away at the age of 83. 'The Hud'
as fans knew him, thrilled City fans between 1963-66 and in an era in
which there were so many legends he shone like a star with his silky
skills and his phenomenal scoring record.
Friend
and fellow City historian David Brassington had no doubts about his
legacy: 'One
has to rely on our shaky, possibly unreliable memories but no one
will ever convince me that 'The Hud' wasn’t the greatest City
player I ever saw. What
is indisputable, no one - not even Hutch, Cyrille or Dion was so
worshipped by the Highfield Road terraces'.
George's arrival at Highfield Road in
1963 caused great controversy within the supporters – he was
replacing leading scorer Terry Bly – and his departure, in 1966,
similarly brought howls of anguish from his adoring fans; these
moments were undoubtedly two of the defining moments of Jimmy Hill's
reign at the club.
George was born in the Manchester
suburb of Ancoats, one of seven boys. A prodigious schoolboy player,
he was recommended for a trial with Blackburn Rovers and after doing
his National Service he went to Ewood Park as an apprentice. After
signing a full professional contract in 1958 he made his first team
debut in the First Division home game with Manchester City in April
1959 playing alongside illustrious stars of the day Ronnie Clayton,
Roy Vernon and Peter Dobing. Rovers won 2-1 and George retained his
place for the final three games of the season, scoring his first
senior goal in a 3-1 home win over Luton. The following season he was
back in the reserves and with Derek Dougan scoring prolifically
George was unable to get a first team start. Rovers had a good season
– they were second at Christmas and although they fell away in the
New Year they did reach the FA Cup final only to lose 3-0 to Wolves.
In the summer of 1960 Rovers allowed George to move to nearby
Accrington Stanley. Accrington were in dire financial straits and
finished 18th in Division Four but George scored 35 goals
in 44 games, a total only topped by the man he would succeed at
Highfield Road, Peterborough’s Terry Bly. Early the following
season Stanley's situation was even worse and they sold him to
Peterborough for £5,000 just before the bailiffs arrived and a few
months before they resigned from the league.
At Posh Hudson was playing one division
higher but continued his goalscoring feats, and scored 25 goals in
1961-62, alongside Bly who netted 29. Jimmy Hill signed Bly for the
Sky Blues and the tall, rangy forward proceeded to score 29 goals in
42 games as the Sky Blues reached the sixth round of the FA Cup and
were well placed for promotion. At London Road Hudson had scored 25
goals but Hill believed that the Mancunian was the man City needed to
get out of Division Three.
Four days after losing to Manchester
United in the FA Cup, the transfer deadline approaching, and a better
than good chance of promotion, Hill paid a club record £21,000 for
Hudson making it clear that there was no place for the goal-machine
Bly as Hudson would be his first choice centre-forward. Not since
1950 when the club had paid £20,000 for Tommy Briggs had City paid
out such a large fee.
Posh were managed by former City
manager Jack Fairbrother who said that Hudson had never been put up
for sale but: ‘…a staggering fee is offered and we would have
been silly not to have taken it.’
A week earlier Fairbrother had been
quoted as saying: ‘I will not sell…within the next two seasons
Hudson will get an international cap.’
Hill was known to be an admirer of
Hudson but apparently had no hint that Posh would be prepared to sell
until he read that Middlesbrough and Newcastle were bidding for him.
There was a risk he would lose Hudson and he moved fast.
Former colleague Dietmar Bruck
remembers Hudson’s arrival at Highfield Road: ‘He arrived in a
smart grey suit with a velvet collar with his hair in an ‘Elvis-like’
quif - a real dandy. He had this Charlie-Chaplin-like walk and looked
nothing like a footballer. Any doubts the other players had went
after his first game – he was pure genius.’
The fans were mystified – why had
Hill had rejected a centre-forward who had scored virtually a goal a
game that season – but in time the fans realised that the manager
had pulled off an inspired deal. Hudson scored a hat-trick in the
first half of his debut, a 5-4 win over Halifax, to leapfrog Bly in
the scoring charts but Hill faced a barrage of criticism from
supporters for weeks afterwards before Bly joined Notts County where
his career went downhill.
After the Cup run and the dire weather
City’s fixture list was impossible. Despite the powers extending
the season until the end of May the team played 16 league games in
seven weeks after the Cup exit and missed out on promotion by five
points. George netted six goals in 15 games which when added to his
goals for Posh made him Division Three's leading scorer.
In the autumn of 1963 he was
devastating, by the end of November he had netted 24 league and cup
goals as City raced towards promotion, leading the division by eight
points at New Year. He scored hat-tricks in three successive games
for the club, against QPR in the league, German club Kaiserslautern
in a friendly and Trowbridge in the FA Cup. His goals were put away
with clinical disdain. He’d spit on the turf, turn and waddle back
to the halfway line with that curious Charlie Chaplin walk. There was
no fuss or kissing and cuddling and he never milked the crowd’s
adulation.
In January he picked up a groin strain
and needed an operation when he returned he looked out of touch and
meanwhile City had failed to win in 11 games and the fans were biting
their nails. Hill signed another centre-forward George Kirby and
Hudson was dropped after just one goal in six games. Kirby's arrival
steadied the ship and promotion was back on. On the final day in a
game City needed to win to go up Hudson was recalled and playing
alongside Kirby he netted the only goal, his 28th of the season, that
defeated Colchester and confirmed City as champions.
The goal that clinched the Division Three title in 1964
Division Two held no fears for George
and another 25 goals hit the net in 1964-65 including one in a 3-0
Christmas home win over Preston on a frozen, snow covered pitch, a
game in which the Coventry Telegraph described his performance
as ‘almost beyond belief’. The only blemish on another good
season came at Huddersfield when he took offence at a bad challenge
by John Coddington and got his marching orders for landing a punch on
the centre-half.
George started the 1965-66 season in
regal form. Four goals in a pre-season friendly victory over First
Division Nottingham Forest was followed a week later by a brace in a
victory over Wolves and he was averaging almost a goal a game by the
end of October. In September in a 5-1 win over Southampton he scored
arguably his most memorable Coventry goal when, with his back to goal
he flicked the ball over Tony Knapp’s head, turned, then casually
headed past a startled keeper. In his match report in the Coventry
Telegraph Nemo wrote prophetically: 'It was the sort of goal that
will live in the memory and even two of the Southampton players
applauded it as the crowd exploded with excitement.'
George's 'wonder' goal v Southampton (September 1965)
The goals however dried up for George
over the winter and he netted only twice in 15 games. Hill gave Bobby
Gould a few games and then, desperate to win promotion, signed
another striker, Ray Pointer, at Christmas. George netted twice in an
FA Cup replay with Crewe but there were signs of frustration about
his performance against Bristol City a few days later. In the second
half Hill moved George to the right-wing, frustrated with the number
9’s first half input. ‘The Hud’ scored City’s second
equaliser but on the Monday Hill named Hudson in the reserve team to
play Southampton the following evening. With an FA Cup fifth round
tie at Goodison Park looming speculation rose that George may be
dropped for the game. Nemo explained that it was the first ‘official
admission that Hudson’s form has been below par’ and he reminded
supporters that their favourite had scored only five goals in his
last 18 appearances. Reading between the lines it is difficult not to
conclude that Hill had been concerned for some time but some were
convinced that there had been a fall-out between the manager and the
player that was never made public. For many fans however George could
do no wrong and they chose to overlook the statistics because Hudson
was their God.
Almost 8,000 fans plus hordes of club
scouts watched City’s Reserves thump Southampton 7-1 and Hudson
scored one goal but was overshadowed by 19-year-old Gould who scored
two and ran the Saints’ defence ragged all night.
The next morning Hill took a phone call
from Northampton boss Dave Bowen who offered Hill a large fee for
Hudson. The Cobblers were having a hard time in their first ever
season in the First Division and were trying to keep their head above
water near the foot of the table. Bowen saw Hudson as the man who
might just save them. With the transfer deadline less than two weeks
away Hill knew this was the time when fees were inflated by desperate
buyers.
Not for the first time Hill made an
unpopular decision and faced the wrath of the supporters. He agreed a
fee of £28,500 with Northampton – a profit of £7,500 - and then
spent weeks trying to justify his decision to angry fans. He knew
that time would be the judge of his actions – and he was probably
proved right - but City’s stuttering form to the end of the season
didn’t help his cause.
Several coach-loads of City fans
travelled to Northampton to see Hudson’s debut against Leeds United
rather than travel to Goodison Park to support City in the FA Cup and
ITV television rubbed salt in the wounds by showing the highlights
from Northampton with Hudson at his cultured best, bamboozling the
England centre-half Jack Charlton and scoring a superb goal in the
Cobblers’ 2-1 victory.
Coventry City 1964-65 with George next to JH
Hill justified the shock sale: ‘With
every player, there is a time to sell and a time to buy. I give the
fans this assurance – I would never do anything against the
interests of Coventry City.’ Looked at in retrospect, Hudson,
despite scoring a few goals, failed to keep the Cobblers in the top
flight and was sold to Tranmere for £15,000 less than a year later.
Apart from helping dump City out of the FA Cup in 1968 he never set
the football world alight again and his recurring groin injuries
forced him to retire the following year. His son Alan believes there
were other factors in his decline: 'He was sad that he had left
Coventry, where the fans adored him and he and the family were
settled. He told me later that he fell out of love with the game
after leaving Highfield Road'.
Some City fans believe 'The Hud' could
have been thrived in the First Division for Coventry and still
believe it was a mistake by Hill to sell him. Perhaps, some argue, it
exposed a flaw in JH's management style, namely an apparent inability
to handle the flamboyant star – he later had bigger problems with
Ian Gibson. We'll never know the answer.
City, in the short-term, missed
promotion that season but they got an inflated fee for George which
went towards signing Gibson in the summer. In Bobby Gould Hill had a
ready-made replacement centre-forward who, whilst not the exciting,
charismatic player that Hudson was, would score the goals that got
City promotion a year later.
In his book Miracle in Sky Blue,
Marshall Stewart sums up Hudson: ‘He was a rare combination: a
player without personal glamour who attracted the fans’ adulation
by his disregard of the unnecessary and his ability to reap the
maximum effect from the most discreet amount of effort. He had star
quality without the spotlights…’
He scored 75 goals in 129 games for the
Sky Blues and holds the unenviable record of being the only City
player sent off in the five-year era under Jimmy Hill. His career
league record was 298 appearances and 163 goals. He once told me that
his toughest opponent was Everton's Brian Labone who he faced playing
for Accrington in a League Cup tie however he never relished a
training game with City's legendary captain, George Curtis.
After retiring from the game he had
various jobs the longest which was at the Daily Mirror in his native
Manchester where he worked in the machine room. Interviewed in 1987
he was modest about his feats at Highfield Road: ‘I never believed
in taking any credit for the goals I scored. I were only one bloke.
There were ten other blokes out there with me.’ He did acknowledge
his goal against Southampton: ‘Yes that was the best I ever scored.
I remember it as though it were last night.’
In retirement he never sought the
spotlight and kept himself very much to himself with his wife
Bernadette who sadly pre-deceased him, his four children Donna,
Anthony, Alan and Colette, and numerous grandchildren and great
grandchildren. He was persuaded to join the Former Players
Association several years ago and attended several Legends Days,
usually with a good number of family members and a good day out was
enjoyed by all. There was genuine emotion as he was reunited with his
60s team-mates and the memories transported them back to City's
golden era. Despite playing for the club almost fifty years earlier
his appearances generated more interest from supporters than for any
other former player and the great man was visibly overwhelmed by the
reception he got from the Ricoh crowd. RIP George
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