Nat Lofthouse

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Nat Lofthouse
Personnel
Surname Nathaniel Lofthouse
birthday August 27, 1925
place of birth BoltonEngland
date of death January 15, 2011
Place of death BoltonEngland
position Center Forward
Men's
Years station Games (goals) 1
1946-1960 Bolton Wanderers 452 (255)
National team
Years selection Games (goals)
1950-1958 England 33 0(30)
Stations as a trainer
Years station
1968-1970 Bolton Wanderers
1 Only league games are given.

Nathaniel "Nat" Lofthouse , OBE (born August 27, 1925 in Bolton ; † January 15, 2011 ibid) was an English football player who was active throughout his career with the Bolton Wanderers and later worked for this club in various functions.

Athletic career

Lofthouse was born in Bolton, a city in the Greater Manchester area, in 1925. He joined the Bolton Wanderers in September 1939 and came to his first game for the club in a 5-1 win over Bury in March 1941 , where he scored two goals. However, due to the Second World War , it took Lofthouse five years to make its first league appearance. In the 3: 4 defeat against Chelsea on August 31, 1946, he then scored two goals again on his debut. Lofthouse was to make a total of 33 internationals for the English national team , where he only made his debut at the age of 25 on November 22, 1950 in Highbury in a 2-2 draw against Yugoslavia , where he also scored twice.

Lofthouse scored two goals in the 3-2 win against Austria on May 25, 1952 and was nicknamed the “ Lion of Vienna ”. Subsequently, Lofthouse scored on September 24, 1952 in a game of the selection of the Football League against the Irish counterpart six hits.

In 1953 Lofthouse was named England's Footballer of the Year . On May 2 of the same year Lofthouse scored again, but lost the famous FA Cup final (the so-called " Matthews Final") with Bolton , where he had also scored in each round before. He was also the top scorer in the First Division with 30 goals and set Vivian Woodward's 45-year-old record in a 5-1 win over Finland in Helsinki on May 20, 1956 with his 29th international goal . With his last goal to 5-0 against the Soviet Union on October 22, 1958, he overtook him and was together with Tom Finney , who had already outbid Woodward and Lofthouse 'mark two weeks earlier, record scorer with 30 goals. Both were overtaken by Bobby Charlton in 1963 . Five years after the Matthews final, Lofthouse led the Bolton Wanderers as team captain to their final victory over Manchester United on May 3, 1958 , scoring two more goals, his second goal being controversial as he defeated the opposing goalkeeper Harry Gregg with the Ball pushed into goal. Lofthouse admitted the foul after the match, but the referee rated the hit as legal.

On November 26 of the same year, Lofthouse played his last international match against Wales at the age of 33 and officially resigned in January 1960 due to an ankle injury. His last club game played Lofthouse on December 17, 1960, where he sustained a serious knee injury against Birmingham City .

Statue in front of the Bolton Wanderers stadium

After his active career, Lofthouse first worked in the extended coaching staff in Burnden Park from July 1961 and then became cotrainer in Bolton in 1967 . In 1968 he only took over the coaching role temporarily and then became the permanent solution on December 18 of the same year until 1970. Before he started as a talent scout for his club, he worked in administration. In 1978 Lofthouse became involved on the board of the association before he again acted as interim trainer for a short time in 1985, at the age of 60. In 1986 Lofthouse became President of the Bolton Wanderers.

Lofthouse received many honors after retiring as a footballer. On December 2, 1989 he was made an honorary citizen of Bolton and it followed on January 1, 1994 the Order of the British Empire as OBE . Three years later, his club decided to name the east stand after him. In 2002, Lofthouse was one of the first football players to be inducted into the English Hall of Fame .

Recently, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, a celebration was held at the Reebok Stadium . Gordon Taylor , president of the Professional Footballers' Association , also supported an initiative aimed at knighting Lofthouse . He died on January 15, 2011 at the age of 85 in a nursing home in his hometown.

successes

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bwfc.co.uk