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.
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.
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.'
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.
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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