Mangnall: David (Dave)

1927-1929 (Player Details)

Centre Forward

Born: Wigan: 21-09-1905

Debut: v Burnley (h): 28-09-1929

5’10” 11st 4lb (1933)

There are few footballers that can boast the goals-per-game record of Dave Mangnall, the cigarette-card star. The nomadic former miner (he was born in Wigan and died in Cornwall) was nothing short of a frontline phenomenon, firing in one hundred and forty-one goals in two hundred and eighteen League appearances in a career which took him from Yorkshire (Doncaster, Leeds and Town) to the Midlands (Birmingham) then London (West Ham, Millwall and QPR) and brought the friendship of American singer and film star Sophie Tucker, who became godmother to his son. Mangnall was neither the tallest nor heaviest player in the game (his vital statistics being 5ft 10in and 11st) but he was both quick and athletic and refused to be intimidated by bigger opponents. As well as being fearless in the air, he possessed a brilliantly deceptive body swerve which gave him room to shoot with both feet from a variety of angles. He started with Maltby New Church and Maltby Colliery. He had unsuccessful trials with Huddersfield Town and Rotherham County before joining Doncaster Rovers. He made no headway there so he returned to Maltby Colliery before Leeds United signed him in November 1927. He made a big impression for United’s lower league sides scoring ten goals in a Northern Midweek League game in which United trounced Stockport County 13-0 on 25th September 1927. Four days after his ten goal feat he was given his League debut, but after scoring six times in nine consecutive appearances he was allowed to join Huddersfield Town in December 1929. Town, who had turned Mangnall down after he came on trial as a teenager, had his services between December 1929, when he was signed from neighbours Leeds, and February 1934, when with question marks over his recovery from an injury which kept him out for most of the 1932-33 campaign, he left Leeds Road for Birmingham. He finished the 1931-32 season with thirty-three League goals. At Leeds Road he made seventy-nine League appearances and netted sixty-one goals. Mangnall’s later exploits showed those fitness fears to be unfounded, and he had similarly proved the doubters wrong earlier in his career. After an unsuccessful stint at Doncaster in 1923-24, Mangnall collected coal during the week and goals on a Saturday for his local club Maltby Main. He was handed a second chance in senior football by Leeds in 1927. Mangnall made the headlines by notching six goals in nine outings, and much to the disgust of their supporters, Leeds parted company with him when top-flight rivals Town, needing a replacement for George Brown, offered a then-hefty £3,000. He chalked up seventy-three goals in ninety games in all competitions while at Town, with his best season undoubtedly 1931-32. Mangnall can still boast three club records set during that campaign, the most goals scored in one season (forty-two), an individual five-goal haul (in a 6-0 top-flight home victory over Derby) and the best-ever scoring run of eleven consecutive matches. Games two and three were against Oldham in the cup third round, with a 1-1 draw at Boundary Park, when 30,607 crammed into a ground where the capacity is now just 13,500, being followed four days later by a Leeds Road replay when 20,609 watched Mangnall net four times in a 6-0 triumph. In all there were nine goals from the centre-forward in a cup run which also accounted for QPR and Preston and took Town to the quarter-finals, when a club-record attendance of 67,037 saw Arsenal win 1-0. Mangnall went one better in 1936-37, by which time he was playing for Millwall, who became the first club from outside the top two divisions to reach the semi-finals. As luck would have it, the ground designated for the last-four showdown with Sunderland was Leeds Road, where Mangnall, who used the services of a herbalist to beat a thigh strain, was hailed by both Millwall and Town followers in a 62,813 crowd. Almost inevitably, the man whose double had sunk Manchester City in the quarter-finals scored Millwall’s goal in a 2-1 defeat, taking his cup-run tally to ten. After achieving a remarkable scoring average with Town, he continued while at St Andrew’s where he scored a further fourteen goals in thirty-seven League appearances. He went to West Ham in March 1935, where he again was extremely prolific scoring twenty-eight times in just thirty-five League appearances and joined Millwall in the summer of 1936. He led their attack when the Lions reached the FA Cup Semi-Finals and won the Third Division South Championship the following year. He amassed thirty-two League goals in fifty-eight appearances. He moved to Queens Park Rangers in 1939. The outbreak of war resulted in him not playing for Rangers but he guested for Millwall in wartime soccer when he was the member of the Civil Defence. Mangnall might have been a favourite with the fans, as well as Hollywood star Sophie Tucker (the pair were introduced after she attended a pre-season friendly) but he fell foul of the club in a dispute over pay and gave up football to become a grocer back in Birmingham. He returned to the game two years later when he accepted an offer from QPR, scoring ninety-six goals in wartime football before becoming manager in 1944. Mangnall guided the West London club to the Third Division South title in 1947-48. After relegation in 1951-52, Mangnall left the club and never managed in the Football League again.In June 1952 he was replaced by Jack Taylor, later to become Leeds’ Manager. He became a publican in Penzance, where an illness ended a remarkable life at the age of just fifty-six, when he died on 10th April 1962.