Holley: Thomas (Tom)

1936-1949 (Player Details) (Leeds United War-time Guest Player Details)

Centre Half

Born: Wolverhampton: 15-11-1913

Debut: v Stoke City (a): 05-09-1936

6’2” 13st (1938)

Tom Holley looked a born Centre Half and gave Leeds United excellent service either side of the war. His father, George, played for Sunderland (where he won ten England caps) and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Tom was a schoolboy star in Wolverhampton but it was his father’s other club Sunderland, who took him on as a youngster in 1931. Holley never made the first team at Sunderland and moved to Barnsley in September 1932, where his father was the trainer. He soon established himself at Oakwell and played seventy-two times and scored four goals in the League and three times without scoring in the FA Cup, before joining Leeds for £3,750 in July 1936. He succeeded Bob Kane as United’s centre-half, and went on to become skipper and an outstanding clubman. He played in the first two of the three games played by United in the aborted 1939-40 Football League campaign. He played at Centre Half on 28th October when United had a 3-0 win over Bradford City in the first game of the 1939-40 Regional League North-East Division as War-time Football commenced and played in all but six games that season. That was the pattern for the rest of the War and with Gerry Henry, Aubrey Powell, Jack Daniel, Frank Butterworth, Jim Makinson and Tom Hindle he formed the backbone of the Leeds team. During the war he played one hundred and four times for United, scoring twice. He also guested with Fulham and saw active service in India. He served also as a CSM instructor in the Army. Both he and United colleague, George Ainsley, were selected by the FA for a ten-strong party to coach in Norway in the summer of 1946. Holley retired three summers later and went into journalism, leaving his centre-half spot in the capable hands of a young John Charles. He proved to be a highly knowledgeable soccer writer for both The Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds and The Sunday People, before retiring to live in Majorca. He returned to Yorkshire in 1989 and died in October 1992.