Dennis Wilshaw

Dennis Wilshaw
Personnel
Surname	Dennis James Wilshaw
birthday	March 11, 1926
place of birth	Stoke-on-Trent ,  England
date of death	May 10, 2004
Place of death	Stoke-on-Trent ,  England
position	striker
Juniors
Years	station
	Packmoor Boys Club
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1943-1957	Wolverhampton Wanderers	211 (106)
1946-1948	→  FC Walsall  (loan)	74 0(27)
1957-1961	Stoke City	94 0(40)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1953-1956	England	12 0(10)
1949-1954	England B	2 00(2)
1 Only league games are given.

Dennis James Wilshaw (born March 11, 1926 in Stoke-on-Trent , † May 10, 2004 ibid) was an English football player . The striker won the English championship with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1954 and was the first England international to score four goals in a prestigious international against Scotland .

Athletic career

Dennis Wilshaw first encountered football at his school in Hanley , and while playing in the North Staffordshire League for the Packmoor Boys Club, the Wolverhampton Wanderers spotted him as he scored ten goals to a 16-0 win contributed. Wilshaw received an official amateur player status with the "Wolves" in September 1943 and celebrated his debut in the first team just a few days later in the provisional war league ("Wartime League"). In parallel to his teacher training, he signed a professional contract in March 1944.

Before the Football League resumed its operations in the 1946/47 season and went into the first post-war season, coach Ted Vizard decided to loan Wilshaw to FC Walsall in order to gain competitive experience, as there was no shortage of offensive players at the time . Instead of going for goals in the English top division, Wilshaw initially hired himself in the third division Third Division South . He played there primarily on the left and formed a good strike duo with Doug Lishman . A good two years later, Wilshaw returned and should be in Wolverhampton from September 1948 ostensibly only a substitute for the center forward Jesse Pye , especially since Wilshaw was attending Loughborough University at the same time . And so he only made his debut in an official professional league game on March 12, 1949; However, this was all the more spectacular when he immediately scored all three goals for the 3-0 win against Newcastle United on the left wing position . As Pye's representative, he remained on the road to success in the next two games and scored two hits each. At the end of the 1948/49 season , Wilshaw posted eleven games and ten goals, which earned him an appointment to the England B national team in May 1949, which he answered with two goals against Finland. However , he did not contribute to winning the FA Cup in 1949, as he had not been considered during the entire round.

The final sporting breakthrough came Wilshaw only in the 1952/53 season , when a new formation began to crystallize in the central offensive. Instead of the 1952 migrated Pye now Wilshaw formed the new double top with the center forward Roy Swinbourne . With the help of his rapid acceleration, a hard shot with the left foot and the strength of his header, he not only scored 17 goals in 29 league games, but also attracted international attention when he played in friendly matches against top-class opponents from Spartak Moscow to Honvéd Budapest in the middle of the 1950s on the square. Wilshaw's position was mostly that of an inward striker, and there he scored the most goals of his team with 26 league hits in the 1953/54 season . This was enough to win the first English championship in the history of the "Wolves" and earned him the first international matches in the English senior team. After he had already contributed two goals to the 4-1 win against Wales on his debut on October 10, 1953 on the occasion of a qualifier for the 1954 World Cup (at the same time a game in the British Home Championship ) , after two appearances at the World Cup, he was also on 7 : 2 success against arch rivals Scotland on April 2, 1955 with four goals significantly involved.

In the season 1954/55 Wilshaw shot 20 league hits and won another runner-up with his team. Also in the national team, he was often used with nine internationals between 1955 and 1956, although he could not earn the status of a regular player and the formation changed frequently at this time. In the season 1955/56 he went through a slight sporting crisis with only six goals. With increasing competitive pressure in the person of Jimmy Murray and Bobby Mason , Wilshaw made another 20 league appearances in the 1956/57 season , before returning to his hometown of Stoke-on-Trent in December 1957 after twelve championship games at the beginning of the 1957/58 season, to play there for a transfer fee of £ 10,000 in the second-rate Second Division for Stoke City - the mastermind behind the transfer was Frank Taylor at Stoke City, a former player for Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Like almost nine years earlier with the "Wolves", he also scored three times for the "Potters" in the debut for his new club on December 9, 1957 against Swansea Town (6-2). Although Wilshaw was now at the advanced age of 31, his hit rate of almost one goal in two games was maintained and by February 1961 he had scored 49 goals in 108 competitive games. The trend at his club, which only narrowly failed to rise to the English elite league in 1959, was negative and Stoke City moved into the lower table regions of the Second Division. For Wilshaw's sudden end to his career, a broken right leg, which he suffered in an FA Cup game against Newcastle United in February 1961, finally caused .

From then on, Wilshaw pursued his civil profession, worked as a teacher and was, among other things, director of a school in Stoke. He remained loyal to football and occasionally acted as a scout in his hometown. Wilshaw died on May 10, 2004 at the age of 78.

successes

• English champion: 1954

literature

• Matthews, Tony: Wolverhampton Wanderers - The Complete Record . Breedon Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85983-632-3 , pp. 160 .
• Matthews, Tony: The Legends of Stoke City . Breedon Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85983-653-8 , pp. 204-205 .

Web links

• Obituary The Independent (English)
• Obituary BBC (English)