Harry Hood makes his debut for Sunderland…
The silver lining in the Sunderland cloud would be the introduction of Harry Hood at centre-forward for the visit of Burnley the following Saturday, 14 November 1964, the new signing one of four Scots in their forward line as Johnny Crossan found himself the man left out after the midweek cup defeat in the West Midlands. The teams lined up as follows in front of 36,000 supporters at Roker Park.
Sunderland:
Jim Montgomery; Colin Nelson & Len Ashurst; Dave Elliott, Dickie Rooks & Jimmy McNab;
Brian Usher, George Herd, Harry Hood, John O’Hare & George Mulhall.Burnley:
Adam Blacklaw; Fred Smith & Mick Buxton; Brian O’Neil, John Talbut & Brian Miller;
Willie Morgan, Andy Lochhead, Ray Pointer, Arthur Bellamy & John Price.Football : Burnley Photocall 1964
Team group : Back row : L to R. B O’Neil, A Elder, D Walker, A Blacklaw, J Robson, Jimmy Adamson.
Centre : J Price A Bellamy, F Smith, H Thomson, B Miller, J Talbut, J Angus.Front : Andy Lochhead, Willie Morgan, Ray Pointer, Mr. H Potts – Manager, W.Irvine.
On ground : M.Buxton, S Todd
Scots were very much to the fore as Andy Lochhead gave the visitors an early lead before George Herd and George Mulhall beat international goalkeeper Adam Blacklaw to give Sunderland a 2-1 lead at the interval. A Dickie Rooks penalty stretched that lead before boyhood Rokerite Arthur Bellamy ended the scoring at 3-2. It was a winning start to his life as a full-time footballer which left an indelible impression on the young Harry.
“I was absolutely stunned when I ran out at Roker Park for my debut. Remember, in my career I would ultimately play in front of huge raucous crowds in Glasgow, but I’ve never forgotten what the noise and atmosphere was like inside Roker Park.”
There was no raucous crowd in the east end of Glasgow that same afternoon. Having failed to lure Harry to Parkhead, Celtic switched their attention to Falkirk, signing inside-forward Hugh Maxwell for £15,000 on Friday, 13 November 1964.
The move was pretty much ignored in the media, thus leading to some puzzled looks amongst the home supporters in the 15,000 crowd who rolled up the next day to find a tall redhead wearing the number 10 shorts as Celts lost 2-0 to Dundee.
The transfer date would prove to be a suitable omen for the new Bhoy. He had scored six goals for Falkirk against Clyde at Brockville in one of Harry’s early appearances for the club, however, he would manage only two in eight matches for Celtic before joining St Johnstone at the end of that season.
Strangely, life after Harry for Clyde would continue with another trip to Brockville, Dave Souter plucked recently from his former club Arbroath by Shawfield manager John Prentice and handed the number nine jersey for his debut. There would be no repeat of the 7-3 mauling of two years earlier, as the match ended goalless.
Matt Corr
An extract from Harry Hood: Twice As Good, the official biography by Matt Corr, available now from Celtic Star Books, official Celtic stores and Amazon.
Keep up to date on Twitter @HarryHoodBook
