Nightingale: Albert

1952-1956 (Player Details)

Inside Forward

Born: Thrybergh, Nr Rotherham: 10-11-1923

Debut: v Sheffield United (a): 11-10-1952

5’8” 10st 3lb (1954)

Nightingale starred in local football in the Rotherham area before he began his official career with Sheffield United in the early part of World War Two but had actually played for Rotherham United at the age of seventeen, under another name! He also guested for Grimsby Town, Doncaster Rovers and Rotherham United during the war. He was almost twenty-three when he made his debut in peacetime football. When Nightingale was transfer-listed at his own request, Leeds were in the running to sign him but he joined Huddersfield Town in March 1948. The youngest of fourteen children, he quickly established himself and, when Town signed him in March 1948, it was an exchange deal in which two home-produced players, Graham Bailey and George Hutchinson, moved to Bramall Lane. He scored fifteen goals in sixty-two League appearances at Bramall Lane. Nightingale became a legend in his short but successful Huddersfield Town career. Fans loved to see him in action at the old Leeds Road ground. Nightingale scored eighty-seven goals in three hundred and forty-six career League appearances. A hard-working inside forward, Nightingale spent three and a half years with Town as they fought desperately to retain their First Division status. He became popular for earning penalty kicks and re-enacted one of his dives when introduced to the crowd before Town's final match at Leeds Road in 1994. In one hundred and nineteen League appearances for Town he scored twenty goals. When he left Huddersfield in October 1951, Leeds were again in the race to sign him, but this time losing out to Blackburn Rovers, who succeeded with a £12,000 bid. He made his debut only two hours after signing for Rovers. He made thirty-five League appearances in their Second Division side and scored five goals. In October 1952 he was on his travels again, this time to Elland Road after the Peacocks made a £10,000 offer. Albert Nightingale was among the best inside-forwards of his day. His stamina sapping runs into opposition territory and his sense of fun on the field made him a big favourite with Elland Roaders. He marked his League debut for Leeds with a goal and became an excellent inside forward, particularly alongside John Charles. Always a regular when not injured Nightingale was more prolific as a goalscorer than at any other time in his career but still created chances for others and he could usually be found high on the list of United’s goalscorers each season but always behind the freakishly prolific John Charles, whenever he played up-front. United were always among the favourites for promotion each season but three years flew by without them achieving their full potential as the 1954-55 saw them in fourth position. For a time it looked as though they had missed the boat as they went into Easter looking well out of the running after a spell of three defeats and a draw in four consecutive games. But United came home with an unbelievable run of two victories and a defeat at Nottingham Forest, when again all seemed lost, and then six wins on the trot to gain promotion with a 4-1 victory at Boothferry Park. Nightingale scored twice in the Easter Monday 6-1 home win over Fulham and both goals in a 2-0 win in the vital penultimate game of the season. Fate was to strike United and Nightingale a cruel blow. United absolutely blew away Everton in their first game in the top flight in 1956-57, scoring the first goal of the season in the entire League and going 5-0 up by half-time. Sadly, Nightingale’s career was brought to an abrupt end when he received a bad knee injury in the second half and United finished with ten men but still won 5-1. It proved to be his final game and after retiring from football at the age of thirty-two and in a brilliant run of form. He worked as a greenkeeper after he left football. Bob Paisley, the former Liverpool Manager and stalwart player, described him as "the toughest opponent I ever came across". His nephew, Lawrence ‘Lol’ Morgan, was a full-back with Huddersfield Town, Rotherham United and Darlington from 1949 to 1964. He and others had this to say about his uncle in the Northern Echo, first published Tuesday 12th April 2005. “In with both feet as usual, our last column recorded Big Jack Charlton's thoughts on the dirtiest player he ever knew. The usual black book suspects were lined up and eliminated: not terrible Tommy Smith, pernicious Peter Storey nor even Ron Harris, indelibly, ineffably ‘Chopper’. The muckiest of all, said Jack, was Albert Nightingale, at Leeds in the 1950s when he himself was a bit bairn from the back of the shaft. A chap on a Leeds United website also reckons that Albert invented diving. "He could be tripped on the halfway line and hit the penalty area; a great player, though."While he may not be singing quite so lustily, Albert Nightingale is still very much alive, still smoking like a Huddersfield mill chimney. His nephew, by happy chance, is former Darlington player-manager Lol Morgan."Oh he was dirty, quite bad, and also won more penalties than anyone I've ever known," concedes Lol, now seventy-three. "Albert was absolutely renowned for it, but off the field he was very gentle, as soft as a brush." Nightingale - slicked black hair, black moustache, looks of a fifties film star - was born in Thrybergh, South Yorkshire, described on the village website as "a true sporting legend." Uncle and nephew were together at Sheffield United, where Albert is also remembered by Malcolm Bailey in Norton-on-Tees, himself a Blades apprentice from 1949-51. "Replaced the late, great Jimmy Hagan," Malcolm recalls. When Albert moved to Huddersfield, he recommended they sign the lad, too. After a spell with Blackburn Rovers, Albert ended up at Leeds, where he hit forty-eight goals in one hundred and thirty-five appearances between 1952 and 1957 and is said to have combined well with John Charles. Lol Morgan, who later tried to sign the thirty-nine-year-old Charles for Darlington, had reached Rotherham, training in the morning, flogging advertising for the Rotherham Advertiser in the afternoon and remembered for his ability to run as fast backwards as forwards. "We played against each other once or twice but I don't think we clashed," says Lol. "He wouldn't have hurt one of the family." Thanks also for memories to Paul Atkin in Northallerton and John Briggs in Darlington, and to all those who spotted a typing mistake in the report of Big Jack's appearance at Willington. He'll be seventy, not sixty, on May 8. Lol himself had a fifteen-year Football League career in which he made three hundred full back appearances and never once scored a goal. "I remember one of my grandchildren giving the fact a few moments consideration, then all bright eyed asking if I'd ever taken a corner," he recalls. He succeeded Eddie Carr at Feethams in 1964, initially billeted on Charles Brand, club secretary and former town clerk, who in his seventies still rode to the ground on his bike. "Throughout my career there he never once called me Lol, or even Lawrence, just Morgan. He was a nice enough chap, just old - fashioned." In 1966 he steered the Quakers to a first promotion in forty years, having inherited crowds of 3,000 and doubled them, despite admission rising to four shillings. "I'm no financial expert," he says, "but I remember reading somewhere even then that Manchester United made more from selling programmes than we did on gate receipts." The league's lowest paid manager, he was offered an extra tenner a week for winning promotion, left for Norwich City, returned to his native Rotherham after being sacked - "He's absolutely in love with the place," says Pauline, his wife - and hasn't worked in football since. "I've only been to watch Rotherham two or three times this season," he admits. "I think all this borrowing players has stopped the chances of youngsters developing." Instead he's junior golf organiser for the Sheffield Union, back on the course himself, despite a knee replacement last September. The other knee awaits expectantly. Uncle Albert, now 81, lives in Huddersfield, still gets in a game of bowls ("You can't dive in bowls") still sports a moustache and combed back hair. "He never looked tough," says Lol. "Tommy Smith and Ron Harris looked as hard as they were but Albert was just five foot eight inches and quite slightly built."Eventually he got a nasty knee injury, cruciate ligament, you know - and they wanted to experiment with a plastic ligament. It was a serious operation in those days and he wouldn't let them do it, he retired at thirty-two. "He's not as well as he was and doesn't shave as often as he should. If he did, people would still recognise Albert Nightingale. They'd probably run a mile." After retirement he lived in Huddersfield He had fond memories of Thrybergh, and remembered handing out awards in a local Pub, possibly The Fullerton Hotel. Nightingale, although he was a pensioner donated £100 to help out one of his old clubs, Huddersfield Town. He had been shocked to hear the club was having difficulties. His donation was to prompt other ex stars to donate, and in a report by Mel Booth, of The Huddersfield Daily Examiner this is what was said. "It has all taken off since the magnificent gesture by Albert Nightingale, with some players acting on their own initiative to send donations following all the publicity in the Examiner". The man famous for winning free-kicks near the halfway line and landing in the penalty area died at the age of eighty-two. He was taken ill at his daughter's home in Liverpool and passed away on Sunday 26th February 2006.