Wilf Hall

Wilf Hall
Personnel
Surname	Wilfred Hall
birthday	October 14, 1934
place of birth	Haydock ,  England
date of death	August 6, 2007
Place of death	Macclesfield ,  England
position	goalkeeper
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
until 1953	Earlestown FC
1953-1960	Stoke City	45 (0)
1960-1963	Ipswich Town	16 (0)
1963-1972	Macclesfield Town
1 Only league games are given.

Wilfred "Wilf" Hall (born October 14, 1934 in Haydock , † August 6, 2007 in Macclesfield ) was an English football goalkeeper . After starting his career as a second goalkeeper for Stoke City in the 1950s, he moved to Ipswich Town in 1960 . There he was part of the team that won the English championship in 1962 , but even there he did not get beyond the role of the substitute. He later held various functions for Macclesfield Town outside of professional football for over 40 years .

Athletic career

Hall's sports career began unexpectedly when he was doing temporary work at a small football club at a young age and spontaneously stepped in as a goalkeeper. The biggest club in his hometown Haydock C&B was quickly after him and soon he was off to the semi-professional club FC Earlestown , which played in the Lancashire Combination . There he was discovered by talent scouts from Stoke City and in October 1953 the "Potters" equipped him with a professional contract. At the club, which had recently been relegated to the second division, Hall mostly did not get beyond the role of substitute behind Bill Robertson and only in the 1957/58 season he was used for a longer period. He was also involved in the 1954/55 season in the FA Cup in the "third round battle" against FC Bury , which Stoke won only after four replays. For a sum of over 4,000 pounds Hall then moved in June 1960 to second division competitor Ipswich Town , who was looked after by the later world champion coach Alf Ramsey . Stoke City is said to have used the transfer fee mainly to bring Stanley Matthews back from Blackpool .

In his first year Hall rose to the top division with Ipswich and, surprisingly, Ipswich Town then won the English championship as a first division promoted in the 1961/62 season . However, Hall was only "number 2", now behind the regular goalkeeper Roy Bailey . Only in five of the 42 league games was Hall in the championship season for Ipswich between the posts, of which only one could be won (4-1 at Sheffield Wednesday ) and in no case did he keep a "clean slate". His contribution was too little to receive an official championship medal. After just 19 competitive appearances in three years, Hall left Ipswich in 1963.

Outside of professional football, Hall found happiness at Macclesfield Town . There he spent the last nine years of his active career, first as "number 1" and later as a substitute behind John Cooke . He then remained associated with Macclesfield and overall he served the club for more than 40 years. He was responsible in almost all functions, including as coach of the reserve team, groundskeeper, functionary, porter and program seller. At the beginning of August 2007 he died of complications from cancer.

Web links

• Statistical data from the Post War English & Scottish Football League AZ Player's Database
• Wilf Hall in the barryhugmansfootballers.com database. Retrieved August 16, 2020.

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Macclesfield legend dies aged 72" (Macclesfield Express)
2. ^ "Wilf stepped from side-street to soccer stardom" (St Helens Star)
3. ↑ Martin Brooks: Ipswich Town Champions 1961/62 . The History Press, Stroud 2011, ISBN 978-0-7524-5890-8 , pp. 143 .