Billy Hartill

Billy Hartill
Personnel
Surname	William John Hartill
birthday	July 18, 1905
place of birth	Wolverhampton ,  England
date of death	August 12, 1980
Place of death	Walsall ,  England
position	Center Forward
Juniors
Years	station
	Wolverhampton Town
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1928-1935	Wolverhampton Wanderers	221 (162)
1935	Everton FC	5 ( 001)
1936	Liverpool FC	4 ( 000)
1936-1938	Bristol Rovers	36 ( 019)
1938-1940	FC Street
1 Only league games are given.

William John "Billy" Hartill , also known as Ted Hartill (born July 18, 1905 in Wolverhampton , † August 12, 1980 in Walsall ) was an English football player . The striker from before World War II spent seven years hunting for goals for Wolverhampton Wanderers and is still the player with the third most competitive goals in the history of the Wolves.

Athletic career

Billy Hartill, born in 1905, grew up - like his later teammate Dickie Rhodes a few streets away - in Wolverhampton, indulged in football for the first time at the age of ten and played for Wolverhampton Town for the first time.

After graduating from school, he initially sought a career in the military and served in the Royal Horse Artillery . When the center forward scored over 70 goals within two years in the soldier eleven there, it paved the way for professional sport. This began for "Artillery", as Hartill was called in view of his career and the special shot hardness, from August 1928 with the Wolverhampton Wanderers, however, first in the second team. His immediate good performance in the Central League prompted coach Frank Buckley to use Hartill for the first time on November 24, 1928 against Bradford Park Avenue (1: 4) in the professional team. After another game a week later against Grimsby Town (2-2), the newcomer found himself back in the reserve eleven until March 1929. He scored the first two goals for the "Wolves" in his fourth game against Chelsea (2-0). The 1928/29 season ended for the second division team overall on a disappointing 17th place, with Hartill signed the first professional contract shortly before the end of the season.

In the following season 1929/30 Hartill not only conquered a regular place in the storm center; In 35 league games he also scored 33 times and became a top scorer. Although this also improved the team's overall performance, the ninth place in the end meant that the longed-for promotion to the First Division was out of reach. With Hartill's help, who reached the 30-goal limit in competitive games in each of the following two years, the offensive trend intensified and after finishing fourth in 1931, the team won the 1931/32 season with a total of 115 goals Second division championship - and thus ensured the return to first class after 26 years.

Hartill played three years for the Wolves in the English elite league. He scored 33 goals in his first year in the First Division and 27 goals in the 1934/35 season - in the intervening year he only scored 13 goals in 26 missions due to injury. To the great surprise of the Wolves appendix, coach Buckley saw in Hartill in the summer of 1935 a player who had already reached his zenith, had become more prone to injury and could still be sold for a high transfer fee. With a total of 170 goals, the strong headed "Sturmführer" had become the best goalscorer in the history of Wolverhampton Wanderers. It wasn't until almost 45 years later that John Richards broke his scoring record and to this day he is the third best scorer in club history, behind Steve Bull and Richards.

The stay at the follow-up club Everton was short-lived and in January 1936 he moved to the other side of Stanley Park for Liverpool FC . With local rivals, however, he came to only four more league appearances until February 1936, before he "relegated" to the Third Division South to the Bristol Rovers and a short time later only hired himself as an amateur at FC Street. A persistent leg injury finally caused Hartill to retire from active sport in 1940. It had never been enough for an international match for England ; his only appearance in a national team was in 1935 a game of the Football League selection against a team from the Midlands .

Billy Hartill died at the age of 75 in August 1980 in the city of Walsall .

literature

• Matthews, Tony: Wolverhampton Wanderers - The Complete Record . Breedon Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85983-632-3 , pp. 127 .
• Joyce, Michael: Football League Players' Records. 1888 to 1939. 4Edge, 2004, ISBN 1-899468-67-6 , pp. 117 .

Web links

• Information on the homepage of Wolverhampton Wanderers (Engl.)
• Information on the website of Liverpool (Engl.)