Ken Green (soccer player)

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Ken Green
Personnel
Surname Kenneth Green
birthday April 27, 1924
place of birth West Ham ,  England
date of death June 2001
Place of death Sutton Coldfield ,  England
position Defender
Juniors
Years station
until 1943 Millwall FC
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1943-1959 Birmingham City 401 (3)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1954 England B 2 (0)
1 Only league games are given.

Kenneth "Ken" Green (born April 27, 1924 in West Ham , † June 2001 in Sutton Coldfield ) was an English football player . As a defender he was active for Birmingham City for many years after the Second World War and reached the FA Cup final with the club in 1956 . At the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland , he was in the squad of the English national team , but was not used in any game.

Athletic career

Green first played football in his youth at home Millwall FC and was still registered as an amateur there, while he served in Droitwich in 1943 . At that time, Birmingham City General Manager W.A. Camkin invited him to a trial training session. Since this went well, the "Blues" Green signed in November 1943 - according to legend in the changing room of the Villa Park (home ground of local rivals Aston Villa ). However, as the army immediately stationed him in India, his football career had to wait. When the English league operation after the end of the fighting played its second season in 1947/48, Green also came into play for the first time. After he had proven himself in the reserve team, he made his debut on September 13, 1947 in a second division game against FC Brentford (2-1). He quickly won a regular place and at the end of his first season he won the second division championship and the associated promotion to the top English division.

Green mostly played right back for the first five years and then moved to the left when the up-and-coming Jeff Hall challenged him. During this time Dennis Jennings , Jack Badham and Hall were his partners in defense. He had a special relationship with Captain Len Boyd , with whom he had already played as a student for London and Essex national teams (after a marriage between members of both families they even became relatives). Characteristic for Green's style of play was the high level of willingness to fight and a duel strength, which earned him the nickname "Slasher". Although he only acted in the second division from 1950 after two years of first class, he was still one of England's best defenders. This was particularly evident in 1954, when he first played two international matches for England's B national team in May and was part of the A team's squad for the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland the following month . Here he was just as little used as in the further course of his active career.

The next successes with Birmingham City in 1955 were the return to the First Division and a year later the final in the FA Cup against Manchester City , which was followed by a 1: 3 defeat. After four first division seasons and a total of twelve years for the "Blues", Green ended his active career in the summer of 1959. In total, he had completed 443 competitive games in the first team of Birmingham City. After the end of his career, he was rarely found in football at alumni meetings and similar occasions. Instead, he ran a newspaper shop in Handsworth for many years . He lived with his wife Hazel in Sutton Coldfield , where he also died in June 2001 at the age of 77 of complications from a brain tumor.

literature

  • Matthews, Tony: Birmingham City - The Complete Record . DB Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-85983-853-2 , pp. 135 f .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "England - International Results B-Team - Details" (RSSSF)
  2. ↑ Birmingham City - The Complete Record (2010), 472
personal data
SURNAME Green, Ken
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Green, Kenneth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH West Ham
DATE OF DEATH June 2001
Place of death Sutton Coldfield