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Jeff Hall |
Birmingham City FC
17 caps, 0 goals
P 17 W 12 D 4 L 1 F x:
A x
82% successful
1955-57
disciplined: none
captaincies: none
minutes played: 1530 |
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Profile |
|
Full name |
Jeffrey James Hall |
|
Born |
7 September 1929 in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire [registered in
Glanford Brigg, December 1929]. |
|
Married |
to Dawn ? or Doreen N. Stanton
[registered in Worth Valley, September 1957] |
|
Died |
4 April 1959 in hospital, Birmingham, aged
29 years x days
[registered in Birmingham, June 1959] of Poliomyelitis.
Funeral held at Wilsden Congregational Chapel. |
|
Height/Weight |
5'
7½", 11st.
4lbs [1957]. |
|
Source |
Douglas Lammings' An
English Football Internationalist Who's Who [1990] & FindMyPast.com |
|
Biographies |
x |
| |
x.
- A Football Compendium, Peter J. Seddon (1999). |
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Club Career |
|
Club(s) |
Hall played for his village team, Wilsden
FC, before signing amateur forms with Bradford Park Avenue. Jeff was
spotted by Birmingham City FC while playing for The Royal Electrical and
Mechanical Engineers during his National Service and signed as a
professional in May 1950.
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|
Club honours |
x |
|
Individual honours |
x |
|
Distinctions |
x |
|
Source |
Douglas Lammings' An English
Football Internationalist Who's Who [1990]. |
|
England Career |
|
Player number |
xth
player to appear for England. |
|
Position(s) |
Right-back |
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First match |
No. x, aged 26 years
25 days. |
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Last match |
No. x, aged 27 years 254 days. |
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Major tournaments |
x |
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Team honours |
x |
|
Individual honours |
England
B (one appearance) |
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Distinctions |
x |
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Beyond England |
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Jeff had played for Birmingham City in a
1-1 draw with Portsmouth in late March 1959. He was back at his home with
wife Dawn when he complained of feeling unwell and was taken to hospital �
where doctors diagnosed polio. Despite being super-fit, Jeff was
unable to fight off the virus and he died on April 4.
His death sparked an extraordinary
response from the public. They were shocked that a young, healthy
professional footballer could fall victim to polio and began clamouring
for a vaccine. The rush for immunisation was given a further boost when
Dawn went on TV to talk about her sad loss. She also made a record that
was translated into several different languages and sent all over the
world. The response was amazing.
Schoolchildren were marched
class-by-class to their local clinics to take Jonas Salk�s vaccine, an
impregnated sugar lump to swallow rather than a jab in the arm which had
been the other less popular option. Emergency clinics were set up across
Britain as polio dominated the headlines and newsreels. Soon, with demand
exploding, extra vaccine supplies had to be flown in from the US. The
result was a generation vaccinated against a killer disease, saving
potentially many thousands of lives. - The
Sunday Mercury
|
England
Football Online