Bill Shorthouse

Bill Shorthouse
Personnel
Surname	William Henry Shorthouse
birthday	May 27, 1922
place of birth	Bilston ,  England
date of death	September 6, 2008
Place of death	Wolverhampton ,  England
position	Defense
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1941-1957	Wolverhampton Wanderers	344 (1)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1970	Birmingham City
1 Only league games are given.

William Henry "Bill" Shorthouse (born May 27, 1922 in Bilston , † September 6, 2008 in Wolverhampton ) was an English football player . Known as the "Baron", the long-time defender played his entire active career for the Wolverhampton Wanderers and won the FA Cup with the Wolves in 1949 and the English Championship five years later .

Athletic career

The Bilston - southeast of Wolverhampton in the county of Staffordshire located - born Bill Shorthouse visited the nearby Bradley St. Martin's School before becoming a soldier in the Second World War drew. There he served with the Royal Engineers and took part in the Allied invasion of Normandy in 1944, where he was wounded in the arm. After the fighting ended, he returned to the Wolverhampton Wanderers, for whom he had played on an amateur basis since 1941.

Shorthouse initially acted as a full- back on the left, but only celebrated his sporting breakthrough after moving to the central defensive position (as "center-half"). The first league game he completed on August 23, 1947 at the start of the 1947/48 season , which ended with a 3-4 defeat at Manchester City . Almost two years later he won his title when he and his team won the FA Cup final at Wembley against Leicester City 3-1. Shorthouse had meanwhile become a leading player and he was part of a defensive series that had been feared at least since 1948 under the direction of Stan Cullis due to their physical robustness in opposing attack formations. The non-smoker and drinker, known as the “ Baron ” due to his “sublime” playing style , won the runner-up in 1950 tied behind Portsmouth FC and was occasionally used on both outer lanes.

In the mid-1950s, Shorthouse was with the "Wolves" at the provisional high point of creativity and proof of this was after a third place in the season 1952/53 winning the first English championship in the club's history a year later . There were also friendly games (so-called " floodlight games ") against renowned opponents from mainland Europe. These included Dynamo Moscow and above all Honvéd Budapest , which provided a large part of the " Golden Elf " that had humiliated the English national team with two clear wins (6: 3 and 7: 1) a short time before. In the 3-2 prestige win against Honvéd, Shorthouse fell to the task of guarding the fast winger László Budai as a left-back ; he solved this task by showing his strengths in duels and endurance.

Since Billy Wright gave up his role as an outside runner and claimed the central defensive position himself, Shorthouse dodged permanently to the left flank. In this new association, the Wolves took third place in the 1955/56 season and after nine more games at the beginning of the 1956/57 season , the man in his mid- thirties fell victim to the generation change after an injury - the 13 years younger Gerry Harris conquered in the meantime Shorthouses regular place. After a total of 376 competitive games, Shorthouse ended his career at the end of the season. His only goal he had scored on November 12, 1955 for a 2-0 win over Charlton Athletic . The fact that, as a long-time defensive supporter in one of the best English teams of the 1950s, he did not make an international match for England was considered puzzling by many contemporaries and quite a few experts found him to be on par with the players preferred to him. He was remembered by the followers of the Wolves mainly for his robustness and reliability; he was valued because of his willingness to subordinate himself to more technically skilled players.

After the active career

Shorthouse then worked in the coaching staff of the "Wolves" and later under his former coach Stan Cullis for Birmingham City . Together with Don Dorman , he looked after the professional team in Birmingham on an interim basis between March and May 1970, after Cullis had previously left the club. Between 1970 and 1971 he was active for the English national youth team and won the FA Youth Cup in 1980 with the young players from Aston Villa .

In 1988 he was involved in the establishment of an ex-player association of Wolves ("Wolverhampton Wanderers Former Players Association") initiated by Billy Wright and was an active member for a long time. The Shorthouse , who last suffered from dementia , died at the age of 86 in a nursing home in Penn Field, a borough of Wolverhampton.

successes

• English champion : 1954
• English cup winner : 1949

literature

• Matthews, Tony: Wolverhampton Wanderers - The Complete Record . Breedon Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85983-632-3 , pp. 152-153 .

Web links

• Information on the homepage of Wolverhampton Wanderers (Engl.)
• Obituary The Independent (Engl.)