Bedford Jezzard

Bedford Jezzard
Personnel
Surname	Bedford Alfred George Jezzard
birthday	October 19, 1927
place of birth	Clerkenwell ,  England
date of death	May 21, 2005
Place of death	London ,  England
position	Center Forward
Juniors
Years	station
	Croxley Boys Club
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1944-1945	Watford FC	0 00(0)
1948-1957	Fulham FC	292 (154)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1954-1955	England	2 00(0)
1954-1955	England B	3 00(6)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1958-1964	Fulham FC
1 Only league games are given.

Bedford Alfred George Jezzard , also known as Beddy Jezzard , (born October 19, 1927 in Clerkenwell , † May 21, 2005 in London ) was an English football player and coach. The center forward scored the third most competitive goals in the history of Fulham FC .

Athletic career

Jezzard grew up in the small town of Croxley Green , just a "hop, skip and a jump" from Watford and northwest of London . He attended the Durrant Senior School in Watford and played football for the Croxley Boys Club during the war and at times as an amateur for Watford FC , for which he came to three missions in the FA Cup in 1945/46 . Before he could embark on a professional sports career, he had served 18 months in India in the Essex Regiment towards the end of the war and after his return he worked as a football amateur for some time while he worked at the Old Merchant Taylors' Sports Club in Rickmansworth .

In July 1948 Jezzard moved to the center of the British capital for Fulham , where coach Joe Bacuzzi promoted him to the professional team after only three missions for the reserve eleven. In the second division season 1948/49 he came primarily as a left half-forward to the train, scored six times in 30 league games and led the "Cottagers" as champions of the second division straight away to promotion to the top English division. Jezzard quickly noticed that the "trees did not grow into the sky". In the following three years, his club struggled, fought hard against relegation against mostly financially well-equipped competition and with an average of slightly more than eight league goals per season, Jezzard, who was used in various forward positions, was a solid attacker, but ultimately still not the hoped-for goalscorer.

This changed fundamentally after relegation in 1952 as bottom of the table. In the following four years until 1956, Jezzard was undisputed as a center forward and leading figure in the attack center. He scored no less than 123 league goals in the Second Division and used 38 times in the opponent's case alongside the "strategist" Johnny Haynes and the filigree Bobby Robson in his best season in 1953/54. Jezzard was a center striker "classic style" who placed a lot of emphasis on his physical presence. The technique was not one of his strengths and although he often suffered from weight problems - especially when he was not exercising, which earned him the nickname “pudding” from his teammates - he was one of the faster attackers of his time. In addition, he was powerful with both feet and dangerous with headers. In May 1954 he earned a first appearance in the English national team , which, however, failed with a historic 7-1 defeat against Hungary in Budapest. His second and senior international match took place in October 1955 against Northern Ireland ; it ended in a 3-0 win, but although he set up all the goals, he was again empty-handed. Much more successful were his three appearances in the B national team, in which Jezzard scored a total of six goals.

The end of his active career came both quickly and unexpectedly. During a tour of the Football Association through South Africa in the summer of 1956, Jezzard broke his leg so complicated that he would never be on the field again in a professional football game. The 154 goals he had scored up to then meant a record for a Fulham player, whom Johnny Haynes later improved.

After the active career

A good year after the painful end, Jezzard accepted a job offer from Fulham FC as a youth coach in August 1957. It was the beginning of a success story, because only nine months later, the ex-player, who was just 30 years old, took over from head coach Dug Livingstone . The club management provided the veteran Frank Osborne and Frank Penn with experienced “warhorses” from the club at Jezzard's side, who led the young and hungry team in 1959 to promotion to the First Division . It succeeded Jezzard that many of his charges simply "Beddy" called, an above-average camaraderie in a team with Johnny Haynes, the former international striker Roy Bentley and Jim Langley , Jimmy Hill , Tosh Chamberlain , Graham Leggat and the eventual champions George Cohen to bundle up.

Jezzard kept Fulham FC in England's elite class for five years and since this was mostly achieved with a small financial budget, every year of relegation was considered a great success. The beginning of the end was the sale of Alan Mullery "behind Jezzard's back" in March 1964 . Mullery had played successfully for the "Cottagers" since 1958, was one of the top performers of the new team and, after successful negotiations under the leadership of Fulham's club chairman Tommy Trinder with Tottenham Hotspur, announced his imminent change to stunned teammates in the middle of a league game against Liverpool FC . When his mentor Frank Osborne retired in October 1964, Jezzard followed him just a few weeks later with his resignation.

Just 37 years old, Jezzard finally said goodbye to the football business, but remained connected to his former teammates and was seen more often as a spectator at Craven Cottage . He worked for the family business as an innkeeper in Hammersmith for many years and died in May 2005.

literature

• Dennis Turner: Fulham - The Complete Record . Breedon Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-85983-566-1 , pp. 175-176, 225 .

Web links

• Obituary for Bedford Jezzard in the Guardian
• Statistics in the "Post War English & Scottish Football League A - Z Player's Database"
• Bedford Jezzard as an English national football player