
Hargreaves: John (Jackie)
1934-1945
(Player Details)
(Leeds United War-time Guest Player Details)
Outside Left
Born: Rotherham: 01-05-1915
Debut: v Sheffield Wednesday (a): 26-02-1936
5’9” 10st 2lb (1938)
Hargreaves signed for Leeds in August 1934, after impressing in Sheffield junior
football. He competed with Arthur Buckley for the Leeds left-wing place in the years leading
up to the Second World War. He won a Central League medal when the Leeds Reserves won that
League in 1936-37. Jack played often for Leeds during the War years making forty-one
appearances and scoring sixteen goals in that time and notched another two goals in seven
War-time Cup games. He made his War-time debut at Inside Left on 18th November 1939 in a 2-1
home victory over Hartlepools United. He played at Outside Left in all other games that
season and scored twice in four Cup appearances and made six appearances in the Regional
League North-East Division of the 1939-40 season after appearing in one of the three games
in the aborted Football League programme. He scored seven goals in fourteen North Regional
League games and also made three War Cup appearances in the 1940-41 season in which all his
games were at Outside Left. The 1941-42 season saw Hargreaves a little more versatile, as he
started the Football League Northern Section (First Championship) with six consecutive games
at Outside Left, but there were five games at Inside Left and two at Outside Right in his
thirteen games which produced eight goals. In the Second Championship campaign he played
four games at Outside Left and two more at Outside Right, but he failed to score in any of
the six games. 1942-43 saw Hargreaves only play one game in the Football League Northern
Section (First Championship) as he scored in a 2-2 draw at Doncaster Rovers on 17th December
1942. His final War-time game came in the 1944-45 Football League Northern Section (Second
Championship) in a 1-1 draw at Sheffield Wednesday on 17th March 1945. However, as a Corporal
in the RAF, he was sent by them to work in an aircraft factory just outside of Bristol and he
made almost all of his later appearances for the local team, Bristol City. It came as no
surprise when he joined them in August 1945 and scored seven goals in his twenty-six
peace-time appearances for them. He moved to Reading in April 1947 where he scored once in
fifteen appearances before finishing his career with Non-League Yeovil Town, where he was
part of that famous team of renowned Giant-Killers who surprisingly beat Sunderland in the FA
Cup in 1949. He died in Bristol in 22nd December 1978.