Thomas Lawton (6 October 1919 – 6 November 1996) was an English football player and manager.
Born in Farnworth and raised in Bolton, he played amateur football at Rossendale United, before he turned professional at Burnley on his 17th birthday. He also played cricket for Burnley Cricket Club before his potential as a footballer won him a £6,500 move to Everton in January 1937. He went on to finish as the First Division's top-scorer in 1938 and 1939, helping Everton to finish as champions of the Football League in the latter campaign. League football was then suspended for seven full seasons due to the outbreak of World War II, during which time he scored 24 goals in 23 appearances for England whilst guesting for Everton and some other clubs. In November 1945, he moved to Chelsea for £14,000 and scored a club-record 26 goals in 34 league games in the 1946–47 season.
In November 1947, he made a surprise move to Third Division South club Notts County for a British record transfer fee of £20,000. He helped the club to win promotion as champions in 1949–50 before he moved on to Brentford in March 1952 for a club record £16,000. In January 1953, Brentford appointed him player-manager, though he would only remain in charge for nine months. He joined Arsenal as a player in November 1953 for £10,000, where he saw out the remainder of his playing career. Despite losing much of his best years to the war, he scored 260 goals in 433 league and cup competitions in 14 full seasons in the Football League.
He had a promising start to his managerial career by leading Kettering Town to the Southern League title in 1956–57, but then only had two more seasons as manager, getting relegated with Notts County in 1957–58 and then relegated with Kettering Town in 1963–64. During the 1970s, he struggled with debt and related legal problems, which were reported in the media as an example of a celebrated person falling from grace.
He scored 22 goals in his 23 England appearances over a ten-year international career from 1938 to 1948, including four against Portugal in May 1947. He helped England to win two British Home Championship titles outright (1946–47 and 1947–48) and to share the Championship in 1938–39. He fell out of international contention at the age of 28 due to his contempt for manager Walter Winterbottom, his decision to drop out of the First Division, and the emergence of Jackie Milburn and Nat Lofthouse. In addition to his England caps, he also represented The Football League XI and played in a special Great Britain game against Europe in 1947. He married twice and had two children and one step-child. His ashes are held in the National Football Museum, and he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003.
Early life Thomas Lawton was born on 6 October 1919 to Elizabeth Riley and Thomas Lawton Senior in Farnworth, Lancashire. His father was a railway signalman, and his mother worked as a weaver at Harrowby Mill. His father left the family 18 months after Lawton was born, and Elizabeth moved back into her parents' home in Bolton. Elizabeth's father, James Hugh "Jim" Riley, became Lawton's surrogate father. Lawton's natural footballing ability earned him a place on the Bolton Town Schools team in 1930. Lancashire Schools picked him at the age of 13. Despite scoring a hat-trick in a trial game for England Schoolboys, he never earned a full England Schoolboy cap. At the age of 14, he began playing for Hayes Athletic in the Bolton Senior League and went on to score 570 goals in three seasons.
The FA's rules meant he was unable to turn professional at a club until he was 17, and Lawton's grandfather rejected Bolton Wanderers's offer for Lawton to work as a delivery driver for two years before turning professional at the club. Lawton instead played as an amateur for Rossendale United in the Lancashire Combination, scoring a hat-trick on his debut against Bacup. He took up temporary work at a tannery and then joined Burnley as assistant groundsman after his mother rejected an offer from Sheffield Wednesday as she objected to him travelling to Sheffield daily.
Club career
Burnley Lawton played his first game for Burnley Reserves against Manchester City Reserves in September 1935. Though he struggled in this game, he became a regular Reserve team player by age 16. After a poor run of form from Cecil Smith, Lawton was selected ahead of Smith for the Second Division game against Doncaster Rovers at Turf Moor on 28 March 1936; aged 16 years and 174 days, this made him the youngest centre-forward ever to play in the Football League. Rovers centre-half Syd Bycroft, also making his league debut, marked Lawton out of the game, which ended in a 1–1 draw. Burnley had played poorly, though Lawton was praised for his "keen and fearless" performance by the Express & News newspaper. He retained his place for the following game, and scored two goals in a 3–1 victory over Swansea Town at Vetch Field. He picked up a groin strain in his third appearance, which caused him to miss two fixtures before he returned to the first team for the final four games of the 1935–36 season; he claimed three more goals to take his season tally to five goals from seven games.
Lawton continued to train his heading skills intensely in the summer of 1936 and also played cricket for Burnley Cricket Club as a batsman in the Lancashire League. He scored a six against both Learie Constantine and Amar Singh. He scored 369 runs in 15 completed innings for an average of 24.06.
He turned professional at Burnley at 17 on wages of £7 a week. His grandfather attempted to negotiate a £500 signing-on fee on his behalf but was rebuffed after the club alerted Charles Sutcliffe, Secretary of the Football League, who informed them that any attempt to circumvent the league's maximum wage was illegal. Lawton scored in his first appearance since signing the contract after just 30 seconds before going on to record a hat-trick in a 3–1 win over Tottenham Hotspur, scoring a goal with either foot and one with his head.
Everton In January 1937, First Division club Everton paid Burnley £6,500 to secure Lawton's services and also gave his grandfather a job as deputy groundsman at Goodison Park; the fee was a record for a player under 21. The move to Everton made him a teammate of Dixie Dean, his boyhood idol, who he was expected to gradually replace as first-choice centre-forward. He later recalled that on his way to Goodison Park on his first day as an Everton player, he was told by a tram conductor that "You're that young Lawton, aren't you? You'll never be as good as Dixie." Dean was finally rested on 13 February, which allowed Lawton to make his first team debut against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux; the match ended in a 6–2 defeat, though Lawton scored a penalty. He spent the rest of the season at inside-left, with Dean at centre-forward, and ended the 1936–37 campaign with four goals in 11 games. He started the 1937–38 season in the Reserves. He was installed as first choice centre-forward in September after Dean was dropped for punching club secretary Theo Kelly. On 2 October, Lawton scored the winning penalty in a 2–1 victory over Merseyside derby rivals Liverpool at Anfield. He ended the campaign with 28 goals in 39 appearances to become the division's top-scorer.
Everton had a young but highly effective team for the 1938–39 campaign, and Lawton was praised for the way he led the attack, with the Evening Standards Roland Allen describing Lawton as a "clever footballer, bringing his wing men into the game with shrewd flicks and widely flung and accurate passes" after Everton recorded a 2–1 victory over Arsenal at Highbury. The game against Arsenal was part of a run of six wins in the first six games of the campaign, during which time Lawton scored eight goals. Everton lost their lead at the top of the table to Derby County over Christmas, but returned to form and to first position by Easter. They faced a difficult final run of games, but beat Chelsea and recorded two victories over Sunderland to secure the club's fifth league title, finishing four points ahead of second-place Wolverhampton Wanderers. Lawton scored 35 goals in 38 league games to finish as the division's top-scorer for the second successive season. However, in the summer he wrote to Leicester City to request that the club buy him from Everton; it was reported that he reached out to Leicester as they were managed by Tom Bromilow, his former Burnley manager. Everton were fifth in the league and Lawton was the division's top-scorer with four goals when league football was suspended three games into the 1939–40 season due to the outbreak of World War II. Lawton later remarked that "I'm convinced that if it hadn't been for the War, we'd have won the Championship again, the average age of those players was about 24 or 25".
World War II Lawton continued to play for both Everton and England during the war. However, the FA decided not to award full caps for England appearances during the war. As a result, his 24 goals in 23 international games were not counted in statistics for the official England team. As was common for footballers during the war, he also made guest appearances for several clubs besides Everton, including Leicester City, Greenock Morton, Chester City, Aldershot, and Tranmere Rovers.Sumner, Chas (1997) On the Borderline: The Official History of Chester City F.C. 1885–1997 He was called up to the British Army in January 1940, and his status as an England international saw him recruited to the Army Physical Training Corps. He also played for the British Army team and his Area Command team. He was posted in Birkenhead, which allowed him to appear for Everton frequently.
On Christmas Day 1940, he played for Everton against Liverpool at Anfield in the morning and Tranmere Rovers at Crewe Alexandra in the afternoon. Explaining this later, he said, 'The Tranmere people came into the dressing room and asked if anyone wanted to play as they were two men short. I said, "Go on, I'll help you out." And I did.'Rippon, Anton (2005) Gas Masks for Goal Posts Sutton Publishing In 1942, he scored a hat-trick for England in a 5–4 win over Scotland at Hampden Park. Later in the year, he scored six goals for Aldershot in a 9–0 win over Luton Town. On 16 October 1943, he scored four goals in an 8–0 victory over Scotland at Maine Road.
Chelsea In July 1945, Lawton handed in a transfer request at Everton as he wanted a move to a Southern club to see more of his increasingly estranged wife. In November 1945, he was sold to Chelsea for a fee of £14,000. Chelsea continued to play regional wartime fixtures as national league football had not resumed for the 1945–46 season, and Lawton also continued his uncapped appearances for the England national team. In the summer of 1946, following his demobilisation, he coached for the FA in a summer camp in Switzerland. He scored a club record 26 goals in 34 league games in the 1946–47 season. However, he struggled to settle at Stamford Bridge. He came into conflict with manager Billy Birrell after refusing to go on a pre-season tour of Sweden in 1947, which resulted in him requesting a transfer. He favoured a move to Arsenal, but the Chelsea hierarchy ruled this out. Lawton turned down an approach by Sunderland manager Bill Murray as he held out hope that Chelsea would relent and allow him a move to Arsenal.
Notts County