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Harry Stafford: Manchester United’s First Captain Marvel
Most Manchester United fans know one of the founding fables of the club... of how Harry Stafford and his Saint Bernard dog helped save the club's forerunner, Newton Heath, and pave the way for the formation of the new club. But what became of United's saviour?
When Stafford met millionaire John Henry Davies and traded his dog for the financial backing of his beloved club, he was the man of the hour, feted wherever he went. He became the only player/director in the club’s history, was handed a role as chief scout and landed a plum job as landlord of the Imperial Hotel in central Manchester. By recruiting the likes of Harry Moger and Dick Duckworth, his influence on the club’s great Edwardian era to come was huge.
Yet by June 1909, just weeks after playing a prominent part in the club's FA Cup victory celebrations, Stafford had disappeared. The accepted tale is that Harry was later given £50 to emigrate to Australia 'for his health' and ended up owning a luxurious hotel in Canada where he died in 1940.
Only, despite a century’s worth of repetition, that isn't the real story...
In his ground-breaking biography of United's founding father, Ean Gardiner traces Harry's life from cradle to grave and discovers a world of blacklegs, brown envelopes and red herrings inhabiting a ripping yarn of bribery, bigamy, suicide, poisoned beer and a footballing elephant.
When Stafford met millionaire John Henry Davies and traded his dog for the financial backing of his beloved club, he was the man of the hour, feted wherever he went. He became the only player/director in the club’s history, was handed a role as chief scout and landed a plum job as landlord of the Imperial Hotel in central Manchester. By recruiting the likes of Harry Moger and Dick Duckworth, his influence on the club’s great Edwardian era to come was huge.
Yet by June 1909, just weeks after playing a prominent part in the club's FA Cup victory celebrations, Stafford had disappeared. The accepted tale is that Harry was later given £50 to emigrate to Australia 'for his health' and ended up owning a luxurious hotel in Canada where he died in 1940.
Only, despite a century’s worth of repetition, that isn't the real story...
In his ground-breaking biography of United's founding father, Ean Gardiner traces Harry's life from cradle to grave and discovers a world of blacklegs, brown envelopes and red herrings inhabiting a ripping yarn of bribery, bigamy, suicide, poisoned beer and a footballing elephant.
320 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 19, 2022
This is just what the world needed! A book that not only corrects nearly everything you thought you knew about Manchester United's inception, gives you vivid insight into the world of Edwardian football, AND is written with personality and humour, but also perfectly brings to life the true character of Harry Stafford, who thanks in part the myth he built around himself, turns out to be way more of a 'character' than you bargain for. There should be a Netflix series on this guy and his antics.
March 3, 2019
This is a definitive history for any Manchester United fan interested in the origins of the club.
The amount of research that the author has undertaken is astounding but this book offers more than the usual reeling off of facts and figures. He brings to life Harry Stafford’s “horse-drawn, gas-lit world”, invoking the sights, sounds, and even the smells of Edwardian England; and turns United's “saviour” from myth into man, a “swell dressing raconteur” with an appetite for alcohol, amour and attention.
The regard to detail, the wit and wordplay, and a typically Mancunian dose of gallows humour had me both crying and laughing out loud; something I never expected from the biography of a footballer.
The amount of research that the author has undertaken is astounding but this book offers more than the usual reeling off of facts and figures. He brings to life Harry Stafford’s “horse-drawn, gas-lit world”, invoking the sights, sounds, and even the smells of Edwardian England; and turns United's “saviour” from myth into man, a “swell dressing raconteur” with an appetite for alcohol, amour and attention.
The regard to detail, the wit and wordplay, and a typically Mancunian dose of gallows humour had me both crying and laughing out loud; something I never expected from the biography of a footballer.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews