Harold Hampson

This highly talented young forward had played in the same school team as Bob Hodgkiss (q.v.). Joining Southport as an 18-year-old, he played his first game for the Reserves on 26 September 1936, scoring against Morecambe, and within five weeks he got into Southport’s League side. He developed into a brilliant inside-forward—not only a grand schemer but also a splendid goal-getter. Sheffield United never regretted the £2,250 fee they paid for his transfer, and he was a big force alongside Jock Dodds in their Second Division promotion side in 1938–39. In the early part of the war, he served in France with the British Expeditionary Force and came back across the Channel from Dunkirk on a barge. He guested for Southport on a number of occasions during the war but, having taken ill while spending his army leave in Southport, which he regarded as his second home, he died of septicaemia in the Promenade Hospital. A modest and unassuming player, he was destined for international honours like his elder brother Jimmy, the Blackpool and England centre-forward, who was drowned at sea while on a fishing trip off Fleetwood in 1937. His two games in Division I at the start of 1939–40 were subsequently expunged—unfortunate as he had scored the first goal of the 1939–40 season after 5 minutes at Leeds Road.

Profile reproduced with Permission from:
The Sandgrounders: The Complete League History of Southport F. C., by Michael Braham and Geoff Wilde (Palatine Books, 1995). ISBN 978-1-874181-14-9

• Player Pictures

Relaxation prior to the Bristol Rovers Cup Tie – 9/12/1936

15th November 2020 Guest Author