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Harry Bradshaw

Birthdate: 24 August 1873 Birthplace: Liverpool, England Date of death: 25 December 1899 Other clubs: Liverpool Nomads (1889-91), Everton (1891-92), Northwich Victoria (1892-93), Tottenham Hotspur (1898-99), Thames Ironworks (1899) Bought from: Northwich Victoria Signed for LFC: 13.10.1893 International debut: 20.02.1897 vs. Ireland International caps: 1/0

Liverpool debut: 28.10.1893 Last appearance: 02.04.1898 Debut goal: 04.11.1893 Last goal: 19.03.1898 Contract expiry: May 1898 Win ratio: 44.93% W:62 D:30 L:46 Games/goals ratio: 2.71 Honours: Second Division 1893/94, 1895/96 LFC league games/goals: 118 / 43 Total LFC games/goals: 138 / 51

Player profile

The first Liverpool player to achieve international honours when he played outside-left as England beat Ireland 6-0 on 20 February 1897. Thomas Henry or just "Harry" as he was called, was Liverpool's centre-forward and the biggest star that the club had ever boasted. He started out with Liverpool Nomads in 1889, before featuring in Everton's reserves in the Lancashire Combination for one season. He stayed one year at Northwich Victoria where he played 22 games and scored eight goals in the Second Division. Bradshaw scored seven goals from 14 appearances to help Liverpool to the Second Division Championship in their debut season in the Football League in 1893/94. In the difficult season which followed, with the club being immediately relegated, he was the club's only 'ever-present' in the League and found the net 17 times. Although he would immediately pick up another second division winners' medal in 1895/96, Bradshaw's total of League goals was a lot less, 11. But as he had switched to the wing by then, this was understandable. His versatility in being able to play on the left and right wing or as a centre-forward was a useful asset but he was criticised for dallying on the ball with the "usual results". The pros, though, far outweighed the cons and soon after his England debut Lloyds Weekly Newspaper claimed that Bradshaw "undoubtedly ranks as one of the finest rising forwards in the country at the present time." Bradshaw joined Tottenham before the 1898/99 season and featured mainly as an outside-left playing an exhausting total of 52 matches and scoring 13 goals in his only season at Spurs.

Bradshaw moved to Thames Ironworks (later West Ham) in the summer of 1899 and was made club captain. He played his last game of football on 9 December 1899 in which he scored a goal in a 2-1 loss against Millwall. He got kicked in the leg and was ordered to rest for three weeks. On Christmas morning Harry watched Spurs play Portsmouth. At 2:15 pm he went home to his residence at 5 Shelbourne Road, Tottenham where a short while later he vomited excessively and complained of violent pains in the head and chest. Before a doctor could attend to him 26-year-old Harry had a fit and died!

Elizabeth Bradshaw, Harry's widow, stated that during a football match four years ago he was kicked on the head, and on the following Saturday, was again kicked in the same place. From that time forward he suffered from pains in the head and discharges from the ears. Harry had to put his hands to his ears to ease the suffering from heading the ball. The post mortem showed Harry's death to be due to a ruptured blood vessel in the brain. On 2 April 1900 Tottenham and Thames Ironworks played a charity match to raise money for Harry's family; his widow and two young children.

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Related Quotes

"The record of 1899-1900, however, would not be complete without some reference to poor Tom Bradshaw, who came from Spurs with Joyce. How well I remember that match with Queens Park Rangers during the Christmas holidays, when Joyce brought over the sad message to the Memorial Grounds that our comrade had passed away. Poor Tom was one of the cleverest wing forwards I have ever known and he was immensely popular with everybody."

Former Liverpool forward Thomas Bradshaw remembered by Syd King in 'Book Of Football' published 1906. Bradshaw died age 26, while on Thames Ironworks' (West Ham) books