The word ‘legend’ should be reserved only for a few exceptional players.
In this feature, I look back at the career of Harry Grisedale of Prescot Cables - a player who truly deserves the title.
On Saturday 18th November 1961, Prescot Cables traveled to Morecambe for a Lancashire Combination fixture. In the 3rd minute, Cables’ goalkeeper Jimmy Wood, suffered a damaged ankle, which resulted in him being carried off. In those days before substitutes were allowed, Cables needed an outfield player to don the keeper’s jersey and gloves. Left-back, Harry Grisedale, stepped in and, thus, completed a remarkable, and probably unique achievement, of appearing in every position on the field for Prescot Cables!
Harry Grisedale represented Prescot Cables for seventeen years and made more than 750 appearances. There is no doubt that he is a Prescot legend and can justifiably be considered one of the Greatest of All Time!
In an article featured in the pages of the Cables matchday programme several years ago, local historian Glyn Williams provided some detail on Grisedale’s early life.
Harry Grisedale was born on 14 December 1929, the sixth of eight children born to Stanley Grisedale and his wife Margaret Cowell. Harry was brought up in the family house at Lathum Close, Whiston. His father, Stanley, was the proprietor of Grisedale’s fish and chip shop at 14 Warrington Road, Prescot. Situated to the left of the Hare & Hounds (Tommy Hall’s) public house, and now occupied by Co-operative Funeralcare.
Harry’s early football was played at Whiston Youth Club and at Prescot Celtic, where his eldest brother, also called Stanley, was a trainer. After National Service in the RAF, 20-year-old Grisedale joined Prescot Cables in 1949 and, after a 10-goal spell as a left-winger in the reserves, he made his first-team debut at Clitheroe on Saturday 12th March 1950, scoring the first goal in a 5-1 Cables victory. Writing in the Prescot and Huyton Reporter, ‘Bon’, the long-standing and respected reporter, Bert Taylor remarked that the young inside-forward ‘fitted his new role as if tailor made for him’.
In November 1950, a long term injury to Bill White resulted in Grisedale being selected at full back, where he was considered a success. However, early in 1951 he suffered an injury which kept him out for some weeks and, when he returned, he resumed his berth at inside left. That same year, Harry signed professional forms with Cables.
At the start of the 1951-52 season, Grisedale was back at full back, and scored a hat trick from that position against New Brighton on August Bank Holiday Monday. He was also assigned to penalties and missed one in the FA Cup tie at St Helens Town in September 1951, and another in the infamous FA Cup tie defeat at Bangor City, shortly before a pitch invasion by disgruntled Prescot supporters. He ended the season having scored 12 goals, from the left-back berth, including a hat-trick against Horwich RMI.
Grisedale’s consistent form and regular man of the match performances soon had a host of football league scouts flocking to Hope Street to run the rule over him, and other promising players, like George Kennerdale and Jimmy Price, with Manchester City said to be especially keen, believing that Grisedale would make a first-rate outside left. We do not know whether any of these clubs made offers to Harry but, having previously recruited several players from Prescot, Aston Villa saw Hope Street as a good nursery for potential players and, in 1953, they actually offered Harry terms, but he preferred to put his family commitments first and remain at home.
In those days of capped wages and reduced close-season retainers for professional footballers, Harry could probably earn more picking up his match fee and his weekly wage from employment in Prescot. Glyn Williams’ profile of Harry noted that Grisedale’s father, Stanley, had not only suffered a disabling firearms injury in the arm, but was also blinded in the Great War, and Harry had stayed put to look after him.
In October 1953, Grisedale was singled out for special praise, as he tried to stem the tide during a 9 - 0 thrashing by Wigan Athletic in the Lancashire Combination - at the time Cables’ heaviest ever defeat.
By 1954, the local press was calling Grisedale “the best defender the club have had since the war”.
In April 1955 Grisedale was granted a benefit match, after five years service with Cables. The match raised over a £100, including a generous donation of 10 Guineas (£10 10 shillings - £10.50) from Aston Villa FC., who clearly appreciated his abilities, even though they hadn’t persuaded him to move to the Midlands.
During the 1955-56 season, Grisedale was switched from full back to outside left, and this proved to be a success. He scored 15 goals in the 1955-56 season, including a hat-trick against Clitheroe. The same season witnessed his 300th appearance, with the 400th following in April 1958.
In October 1958 Harry was selected to play for a Lancashire Combination XI in 6 - 2 defeat to a touring South African team at Springfield Park, Wigan. Two months earlier Harry had been named Prescot Cables’ captain. It wasn’t for the first time, having previously led the team during the 1954-55 season. However, just a month or so later, he voluntarily stepped down from the role, saying that the extra responsibility as captain was affecting his play and admitting that his own form had been below par.
During the 1959-60 season Cables struggled to find a consistent leader of the line and had already tried five players in the centre forward position, before they named utility man, Grisedale, in that position. He was an instant success. In September 1959, he netted six goals in a midweek Liverpool Senior Non-League Cup tie against South Liverpool, and followed it up with a hat-trick against Flint Town United in the FA Cup on the Saturday. He grabbed another goal, the following week to make it 10 in 3. He also bagged himself a hat trick in the FA Cup tie against Bangor City.
By the turn of the year Harry had already occupied six different positions for Cables. “I don’t mind where I play”, he once told a reporter, “I’ll play in goal if asked!”. How prophetic this would turn out to be!
As Neville Walker noted in his book, ‘From Slacky Brow to Hope Street’, “‘[Grisedale] made up for his lack of outstanding physique (he was 5 feet 8-and-a-half and weighed around 11 stone) with an abundance of superb anticipation, calmness, deadly tackling skill and brilliant positional sense. Throughout his long career he was prone to pop up in any position, usually as a sort of trouble-shooter to remedy deficiencies in any given area’”.
Harry finished the season as top-scorer, with 21 goals and, on Good Friday 1960, notched up his 500th appearance in a 1-0 win against Oldham Athletic Reserves. Bert Taylor later remarked, “Prescot Cables without Harry would be like a soccer ground without goalposts…. Put him in the front line – he scores. In the back he is a stone wall’”.
Along with some of the other professionals, Harry ran football summer schools for local youngsters, in 1960 and 1961.
It was said that Grisedale packed “a heftier shot than anyone else in the side” and always had a penchant for a long-distance surprise shot, but no-one was more surprised than the Bacup goalkeeper who was beaten by Harry from from fully 65 yards in August 1961.
During that game at Morecambe in November 1961, Grisedale, and his hard-pressed defensive colleagues did not concede a goal, during his 20-odd minute spell in goal. However, once the incapacitated Jimmy Wood returned to the field, Morecambe ran riot and scored seven!
Grisedale repeated his stand-in role between the sticks in the first game of the 1962-63 season, against Ashton United at Hope Street, when Jimmy Wood was forced off with an injury to his nose after only five minutes. This time, Harry did allow two long-range shots past him. 3 - 2 down at half-time, Jimmy Wood returned to the fray for the second half, but let in another four in a 3 - 7 defeat
Grisedale was granted a second benefit at the end of the 1961-62 season, when a Prescot Cables XI were due took on an All Star XI. However, just days before it was scheduled to take place, the match was called off, due to the difficulty of getting enough players for the All Star side, because of injuries and other commitments. I suspect, too, that privately there were some concerns about the potential “gate”, as support for the Cables had tailed off drastically during the season - a league game just a few weeks earlier had seen gate receipts of just £5 15s.
For season 1964-65, Cables changed their name to Prescot Town. Financial issues meant that the club would be relying mainly on amateur players and only four professional players were retained from the previous season - Ron Mercer as the new player-coach, John Connor as Captain, Alan Gill and Harry Grisedale.
In the opening minutes of the first game of the season against Leyland Motors, Grisedale suffered an ankle fracture, which kept him out of action for a few months. He was back in first team action in December, but suffered another injury, which kept him out for most of the remainder of the season. Harry did make it back in April but overall, it was a disastrous season for the club as they finished bottom of division 1 of the Lancashire Combination, winning only 4 of their 42 league games and conceding a whopping 132 goals. However, because the teams finishing at the top of the second division were reserve sides, who could not be promoted, they gained a reprieve and only Accrington, who had finished one place and four points ahead of Prescot Town were relegated.
During the season 1965-66 injuries began to take their toll on the veteran Harry and, this time, he was unable to help his team beat the drop into the second division. Harry’s final first team match came in May 1966.
Exact details of his playing record are uncertain, but he played in more than 750 matches and I estimate that he must have scored around 100 goals. It would be befitting for someone to delve into the newspaper archive and programme statistics to establish a definitive record for Harry?
At the end of the season he was granted a second benefit match, featuring a Merseyside XI against the Lancashire Combination champions South Liverpool - the match finishing 5 - 4 to the Merseyside XI.
For the 1966-67 season, Harry Grisedale took charge of Prescot Town’s second eleven and was even known to occasionally turn out to supplement his youthful side.
Glyn Williams noted that Harry worked for Tinling & Co., in the BICC foundry and, later, in the file production workshop at James Blundell and Sons Ltd. So, as well as wearing the 1 to 11 shirts for his beloved football club, he completed the triumvirate of the three most well-known employers in Prescot during his working life!
Sadly, Harry died after a short illness in April 1993, aged just 63.
In paying tribute to Harry Grisedale, Neville Walker put it most eloquently in his book:
“When one takes into account his skill, versatility, consistency, his inspiration to those around him, his total length of service and his unswerving loyalty to his to his home town team, he must surely be placed at the top of any list of all-time great Prescot players”.
[In compiling this article, I have drawn on material from Glyn Williams’ feature on Harry Grisedale, and I am happy to acknowledge it here.]
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