Stephenson: Joseph Eric (Eric)

1933-1944 (Player Details) (Leeds United War-time Guest Player Details)

Inside Left

Born: Bexleyheath, Kent: 09-1914

Debut v Portsmouth (h): 02-03-1935

5’6 1/2” 10st 2lb (1938)

Stephenson was an outstanding prospect at Tom Hood School in Leytonstone before moving to Leeds with his parents. He played with local clubs Outwood Stormcocks and Harrogate but trained at Elland Road. He initially signed amateur forms, before turning professional in September 1934 at the age of twenty. It wasn’t long before he made his first team debut and took over Billy Furness’ Inside Left role and this saw the English International moved to Norwich City at the end of the 1936-37 season. Stephenson forged a strong partnership with Gordon Hodgson as they and David Cochrane became United’s danger men. He rose so rapidly through the ranks and became such an established star that he won two England caps, the first at Inside Left against Scotland on 9th April 1938, which Scotland won 1-0 at Wembley and the second again at Inside Left against Northern Ireland 16th November 1938, in a 7-0 slaughter in which Willie Hall of Tottenham Hotspur scored five. However, the Second World War curtailed his International and League career. He played in all three games of the aborted 1939-40 Football League season and when the Football League games had been suspended he had played in one hundred and eleven League games in which he had scored twenty-one goals of which one had come from the penalty spot and had also scored once in four F.A. Cup ties. He played for Leeds for a couple of seasons during the wartime seasons, scoring seven times in thirty-two League appearances and playing a further seven times in the War-time Cup without scoring. He was at Inside Left in the 1939-40 Regional League North-East Division playing his first Wartime game in a 0-0 draw with Huddersfield Town at Elland Road on 2nd December 1939. He played a further four games in that campaign, scoring from the spot in his third game in a 3-2 win over Darlington on 9th March 1940 and also played three of the four War Cup games that season. He was a regular at Inside Left in the 1940-41 North Regional League playing the first fourteen games before finishing up with five goals and only missed seven of the thirty match season and played all four War Cup games. He only played four of the games in the 1941-42 Football League Northern Section (First Championship) and played his final game for Leeds on 1st November 1941 in a 2-2 draw with Chesterfield at Elland Road. He went on to become a Major in the Ghurka Rifles in Burma, where he died on active service on 8th September 1944. He was the only serving Leeds United player to have been killed in the Second World War. It was a great loss to Leeds and English football as he promised to be one of the big stars of the English game. During 1946-47, Leeds played Celtic in a benefit game for Stephenson’s widow and a memorial stained glass window now sits in a Leeds church. During the 1930s he had been a lieutenant in the 30th Leeds Company of the Boys’ Brigade.