TOON’S TRAGIC TEARAWAY
He was shot at in Belfast, accused of being drunk on the pitch and once kicked a ref into the bath. Hughie Gallacher was…
STAND on the railway bridge at Eastern Avenue in Gateshead, just a few yards above the now overgrown embankment where Hughie Gallacher took his final steps, and you can see St James’ Park dominating the city skyline three miles north.
Here, shortly after midday on a scorching June 11 in 1957, the captain of Newcastle United’s last Championship-winning team — the most prolific goalscorer in the club’s history — took his own life under the wheels of the York to Newcastle express. Gallacher was 54 and survived by four sons.
There is no headstone, statue or plaque anywhere in the land commemorating the life of Gallacher, the 5ft 5in centre forward who smashed 487 career goals for Scotland, Newcastle and Chelsea, among others.
The sight of St James’, then, feels shrine-like, the home of the club for whom he scored 143 times in 174 games, a ratio better than those of Alan Shearer and Jackie Milburn.
Gallacher’s memory endures, rather, because of his goalscoring records and through folklore.
Less than a mile from the railway bridge, Gallacher’s son, Hughie Jnr, stands at his front window. The view across Team Valley is breathtaking. Beauty or otherwise, however, is in the eye of the beholder.
‘You see through those trees,’ instructs the 82-year-old. ‘That’s the bridge. I see that every day.’
A visit to Newcastle Central Library reveals the Evening
Chronicle late-night final edition which carries the headline ‘Hugh Gallacher dies on eve of court case. Spotters see famous footballer dive in front of train.’
Gallacher had been charged with the assault of his youngest son, Matthew, then 14, and was due before Gateshead Magistrates the following day. Hughie Jnr was 21 years old.
He draws breath before reliving the evening that May which led to his father’s suicide.
‘I was at a pal’s house when there was a knock on the door. There had been a row and Mattie had a cut on his forehead, nothing really. But someone called the police,’ he says. ‘I went back to the house and had words with Dad. Mattie was growing up and was getting a wee bit bumptious, which kids do. Dad must have just flipped, picked up an ashtray from the coffee table.’ Hughie trails off. He blows his cheeks. ‘He had never touched Mattie before. He took him everywhere, he loved him to pieces. But I was angry.
‘In retrospect, Mattie wasn’t hurt, if I’d recognised that and stayed with my old man and the police hadn’t been called, things might have been different. So I have a few regrets. They haunt you now and again.’
The newspaper cuttings of Gallacher’s inquest reveal that his final journey began by posting a letter to the Gateshead coroner in which he apologised for the trouble caused and stated that, even if he lived to 100, he would never forgive himself for striking his son.
Hughie Jnr takes himself back to that afternoon 61 years ago.
‘I was driving when a lady flagged me down and said I was wanted at Swinburne Street police station. I went in and was told what had happened.
‘Dad was dead. I was offered a cup of tea by a policewoman. I refused. I would have been sick. That’s all I remember. I don’t recall getting home.’
Home for the Gallachers was The Avenue in Sheriff Hill,
Gateshead. The modest, semidetached red-brick still stands. One day last year, Hughie returned. ‘It brought back memories, my dad cutting the grass. It stirs it up a bit,’ he says.
Gallacher’s wife, Hannah, died aged only 43 in 1950 from heart disease. Their son rejects the suggestion his dad went off the rails.
‘He was a bit of a boy and everyone knew it, a bad-tempered little soul at times. But he was kindhearted. He liked a wee drink and I didn’t like it that he never had to buy one, that was a problem.
‘But to say he was wrecked after my mother died is wrong, he was a good dad to us.’
Orphaned, it was Hughie who raised Matthew, who now lives in South Africa. Their middle brother, Tommy, has passed away.
But Gallacher also had two sons from his first marriage when he was 17, one of whom died before his first birthday, and the other, the late Jackie, went on to play for Celtic. Jackie’s children visited Tyneside earlier this year. Hughie beams as he takes up the story.
‘They went down the Quayside for a few drinks,’ he says.
‘They got talking to some Geordies and explained why they were here, “Our granddad was Hughie Gallacher”. Well, it caused a bit of a stir.’
Hughie had a similar experience recently when he told a Newcastle fan his dad was ‘Wee Hughie’.
‘He nearly had his arms wrapped around my shoulders!’ he laughs. ‘That is why I’m proud. To have you knocking at our door, that means something. My dad retired in 1939. Legend is an over-used word, not for Hughie Gallacher it isn’t.’ BORN in Belshill near Glasgow on February 2, 1903, Hugh Kilpatrick Gallacher was working down the Hattonrigg Pit aged 15. He was recovering from a near-fatal bout of pneumonia three years later when Airdrie signed him up, in an undertaker’s office, of all places.
But Gallacher soon breathed new life into the club and is credited with the first overhead kick ever scored while leading them to three successive secondplaced finishes behind Rangers.
Not that everyone appreciated his scoring exploits. During a game in Belfast for a Scottish League XI in 1925 he netted five, ignoring a warning from Irish partisans that he would be shot.
That night, as he ventured into town for a beer, a bullet whistled past his head.
‘If ever a record was set for the 100 yards, I did it then,’ he said. ‘But I might have to extend my stay. It seems I still haven’t managed to teach the Irish how to shoot straight.’
Later that year he signed for Newcastle for a British record £7,000, causing uproar in Scotland. Retired journalist David Leggat tells Sportsmail: ‘Even in the late Eighties you’d cover a game at Airdrie and the old fellas in the press box would say, “We’ve never been the same since we sold Gallacher!”.’ He scored twice on his Newcastle debut in a 3-3 draw with Everton but soon was a target for centre halves.
Paul Joannou, Newcastle’s club historian, says: ‘They kicked and punched Hughie and he was often sent off for retaliation. He barged into the officials’ room after one dismissal and couldn’t resist the sight of the referee bending over the bath, so he kicked him straight in! Banned for two months.’
Gallacher was skipper come 1926-27 and scored 36 league goals, still a club record, as the Magpies were crowned champions.
‘Arguably the greatest centre forward we’ve seen,’ says Joannou. ‘He was a dynamo, a menace with every trick in the book. But he was a bit of a rascal.’ Gallacher’s first court appearance came after a scrap with his future brother-inlaw, who had discovered he was still married.
He caused an international storm when he was accused of being drunk on the pitch during a tour of Hungary and was in bother again when he escaped from a hotel window to sample the Paris nightlife having scored both goals for Scotland in a 2-0 win over France. It was all too much for Newcastle and, to the dismay of Tyneside, he was sold to Chelsea for £10,000 in 1930.
He embraced the English capital’s social scene, living in Kensington and marrying Hannah on the morning of a game.
‘He was a celebrity in all the pubs and clubs, a Twenties dandy, always immaculately turned out like a gangster,’ says Joannou.
A fight with a group of Fulham fans in a cafe in Walham Green saw him arrested and splashed across front pages, leading to his exit from Chelsea despite being top scorer for four seasons.
There were goal-laden spells at Derby, Notts County, Grimsby and, finally, back in the North East at Gateshead.
After his final transfer in 1938, he declared: ‘My heart has been here ever since I left Newcastle. I intend to spend the rest of my life with my adopted folk in Gateshead.’ detailed his relationship with Gallacher on the anniversary of his death some years later.
The reader was two years old when Gallacher led Newcastle to the title and had been brought up on tales of his legend.
Come the early Fifties, they were working opposite each other on the production line at Huwood Mining Machinery on Team Valley Trading Estate.
The electoral roll shows only three James Fitzpatricks currently living in Gateshead. We try the intercom of one address. An elderly gentleman answers.
‘Aye, I knew Hughie,’ his worldly voice returns. Jimmy, now 94, is sitting in his armchair leafing through a book about his old pal.
It is a surreal feeling having found and now being in the company of a man who worked with, drank with and confided with this mythical superstar.
‘We were partners on a conveyor belt,’ begins Jimmy. ‘You couldn’t wish for a better fella.
‘At the start of the day he’d take a coin out of his top pocket, always smartly dressed, and would say, “Right, Jimmy, which end?” as if it was the toss for kick-off.
‘He played outside the factory with the lads. The ball would come to him and he’d start juggling it. Up one side, down the other. He could make the ball talk.
‘We became great friends, although he was always recognised in the pubs and I was shoved to one side!
‘If there was ever any bother, the drunkard would say, “Hughie Gallacher couldn’t punch his own shadow”. I’d tell them, “No, but he couldn’t half kick you!”.’
The pair were walking towards The Prince Alfred pub in Gateshead one winter’s evening when they passed a homeless man.
‘Hughie came in and I said, “Where’s your coat?”. It was brand new, cost the earth. “Ah, he needed it more than me,” he said. That was Hughie, he had a big heart.’
Soon, though, we are talking about June 11, 1957.
‘I remember someone saying to me, “Have you heard the news? Your old friend”. Never in the world. They lined the streets for his funeral. It was a privilege for me being his friend. I wouldn’t have forgotten him even if he wasn’t “Hughie Gallacher”. He was that kind of bloke, popular, talented, almost bloody perfect.’
Yet flawed in so many ways, it all adds to the legend of the wee man who stood taller than them all.
Newcastle’s most prolific striker took his own life under a train