Eric Brook

Eric Brook
Personnel
Surname	Eric Frederick Brook
birthday	November 27, 1907
place of birth	Mexborough ,  England
date of death	March 29, 1965
Place of death	Wythenshawe ,  England
position	Left winger
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1925-1928	Barnsley FC	78 0(18)
1928-1939	Manchester City	450 (158)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1929-1937	England	18 0(10)
1 Only league games are given.

Eric Frederick Brook (born November 27, 1907 in Mexborough , † March 29, 1965 in Wythenshawe ) was an English football player . He was Manchester City's record scorer with 178 goals .

Career

Born in Mexborough in 1907 , Brook began his career as a professional footballer at the nearby second division club Barnsley FC , where he played on the offensive on the left winger position . Together with his teammate Fred Tilson , he moved in 1928 for a transfer of a total of 6,000 British pounds in the first-class First Division at Manchester City, where they both made their debut against Grimsby Town on March 17 at the same time .

Just a year later, on October 19, 1929, Brooks' first international match for the England team against Northern Ireland followed . In total, he should come to 18 missions for England, where he scored ten goals. The highlight is his participation in the game against the then reigning world champion from Italy in the legendary " Battle of Highbury ", in which he initially missed a penalty , but later contributed two goals to the 3-2 win. The great competition in the person of Cliff Bastin from Arsenal FC on the left wing position ultimately prevented Brook from getting a significantly larger number of internationals.

In the mid-1930s, Brook was able to reach two FA Cup finals in a row with Manchester City and won the cup on the second attempt in 1933/34 . In addition, he was in 1936/37 as a regular under Wilf Wild English champion . In over eleven years, he scored 178 goals in 494 competitive games and, in addition to his status as a record scorer, has made the sixth most appearances in the history of the Manchester City club.

Although he mostly acted on the left wing position during his career, Brook was a universal footballer on the field. According to his teammate Frank Swift , Brook wanted to replace him as goalkeeper when he injured himself during a game and spontaneously put on the goalkeeper jersey - which was much too big for him.

His career ended in 1940 while traveling to an international comparison between England and Scotland in a so-called "Wartime international" (which was played instead of a regular international match during World War II ). Brook was in a car accident and suffered a fractured skull. Since headers in particular were no longer possible afterwards, he ended his career.

In his native Mexborough he eventually became a bus driver and later in life worked as an innkeeper and crane operator. Brook died in 1965 at home in Wythenshawe.

In retrospect, Brook is considered one of the best English players of his time. Manchester City later honored him by being inducted into the club's own Hall of Fame.

successes

• English champion : 1936/37
• FA Cup winner : 1933/34

literature

• Michael Joyce: Football League Players' Records 1888 to 1939, page 37, ISBN 1-899468-63-3 .
• David Clayton, Everything Under the Blue Moon (Mainstream Publishing, 2002)
• Gary James, Manchester: The Greatest City (Polar Publishing, 2002)

Web links

• Eric Brook in the database of weltfussball.de

References and footnotes

1. ↑ Some sources put the total number of games at 453; the three missions of the Football League season 1939/40, which was subsequently suspended because of the Second World War, were subsequently canceled from the official statistics.