Johnny Hancocks

Johnny Hancocks
Personnel
Surname	John Hancocks
birthday	April 30, 1919
place of birth	Oakengates ,  England
date of death	February 19, 1994
Place of death	Oakengates ,  England
position	Right winger
Juniors
Years	station
	Wrekin Schools
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
	Oakengates Town
1938-1939	Walsall FC	30 00(9)
1946-1957	Wolverhampton Wanderers	343 (157)
1957-1959	Wellington Town
1960	Cambridge United
	Oswestry Town
	GKN Sankey
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1948-1950	England	3 00(2)
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1957-1959	Wellington Town
1 Only league games are given.

John "Johnny" Hancocks (born April 30, 1919 in Oakengates , † February 19, 1994 ibid) was an English football player . The short right winger won the FA Cup with Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1949 and the English championship five years later. One of the strengths of the three-time English national player , who worked hard to fight , was a particularly hard shot on free kicks and his scoring risk.

Athletic career

Born in Shropshire in Oakengates, Johnny Hancocks learned to play football at school, where he was mostly trained as a central defensive player and in the left inner forward position - he got his famous shot power, as he later stated, through permanent "bolt" on the garbage dump near his parents' house. At the age of 15 he first played for his hometown club Oakengates Town in the Birmingham & District League before he moved to FC Walsall in October 1938 , who was registered in the third-rate Third Division South at that time . After the 1938/39 season, which ended disappointingly in penultimate place, the outbreak of World War II caused a long interruption of official game operations. Hancocks joined the army and worked there as an instructor in physical education. He was also a guest player during wartime, for example at AFC Wrexham and Shrewsbury Town .

For 4,000 pounds, Hancocks moved in May 1946 to the neighboring Wolverhampton Wanderers in the English major division, who put together their first post-war squad before the start of the 1946/47 season . Hancocks first came to coach Ted Vizard's team while they were preparing in Sweden. With a spectacular 6-1 opening win against Arsenal on August 31, 1946, the new Wolves showed what they should do on the offensive. Like Hancocks on the right, his left counterpart Jimmy Mullen made sure that Jesse Pye and Dennis Westcott were supplied with crosses in the center of the storm and that the defensive lines were disturbed by dribbling . He scored his first goal in October 1946 when Huddersfield Town was sent home with the same result. With 40 league appearances and ten goals in the 1946/47 season, Hancocks completed most games in the entire Wolves squad and winning the first championship only narrowly failed due to the home defeat in the last game against the new champions Liverpool FC . He demonstrated his scoring risk - especially as a free kick and penalty taker - in the subsequent 1947/48 season , when he was the best club scorer together with Jesse Pye and thus played himself in the focus of the English national team. On December 2, 1948, he made his debut in the national team and scored two goals in Highbury for a 6-0 win against Switzerland . This was followed by two more missions for England in October 1949 and November 1950; The number of nationally available alternatives on the wing positions, which included "greats" like Stanley Matthews and Tom Finney , prevented the now over 30-year-old from playing any more international matches .

The first cup success recorded Hancocks in 1949 when he won the FA Cup when he prepared a header from Jesse Pye in the 3-1 final win over Leicester City . This was followed by a "shared title" in the Charity Shield when Hancocks scored the goal in a 1-1 draw against Portsmouth FC from a penalty kick. The everyday life of the league, however, brought sadness at the beginning of the 1950s, after the team had often only narrowly failed to win the first English championship and had won the runner-up in 1950. Despite a yield of 19 goals by the right winger, the Wolves fell in the 1950/51 season to 14th place, which was undercut in the following season with 16th place. With extensive restructuring in the squad, however, the trend reversal succeeded and after a third place in the 1952/53 season , Hancocks won the first English championship in the club's history the following year - behind Dennis Wilshaw (26 goals) he (like Roy Swinbourne ) shot with 24 Goals the second most hits. Although the title was not defended in the subsequent two seasons, Hancocks won the ranking of the club's top goalscorer with 26 and 18 league hits.

With the signing of West Ham United winger Harry Hooper , Hancock's era with the Wolves ended. Somewhat surprisingly, Hooper took over Hancock's position at the beginning of the 1956/57 season and pushed him into the reserve team, which in turn suddenly experienced high audience popularity due to the prominent reinforcement. He then left the club and let his career as a player-coach at Wellington Town between 1957 and 1959 end. The last stations were Cambridge United in 1960 and then Oswestry Town and GKN Sankey, before ending his career at the end of the 1960/61 season. He then worked in his hometown of Oakengates until his retirement in 1979 as an iron caster and also remained with the Wolves as a representative of the “Golden Era” until his death on February 19, 1994.

successes

• English champion: 1954
• FA Cup Winner: 1949

literature

• Matthews, Tony: Wolverhampton Wanderers - The Complete Record . Breedon Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85983-632-3 , pp. 125 .

Web links

• Short biography of www.wolves.co.uk (English)