Auction result for SAFC hero
RARE SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF SUNDERLAND AFC FOOTBALLER SELLS FOR £360
A rare signed picture of tragic Sunderland AFC footballer Harry Low, one of the stars of the Black Cats’ 1912-1913 Football League title-winning team, sold for £360 at an auction – three times the £120 it had been expected to fetch.
Besides helping Sunderland win the league title in 1912-1913, Mr Low also played in all nine of the club’s FA Cup ties that season – including three against arch-rivals Newcastle United – including the FA Cup final against Aston Villa on April 19,1913, which they narrowly lost 1-0, cruelly denying the Black Cats an historic double.
Low also found love and happiness in the North East. He met,fell in love with and married, in Durham in 1910, Jane “Jennie” Jackson.
Their son, Henry Robert Low, was born in Sunderland and they lived in the city’s Primrose Crescent.
However, tragically, in 1920, just seven years after becoming a Sunderland hero, Low was dead,at the age of 38.
He caught a chill at a football match and died of pneumonia on September 26, 1920.
After he quit football he became a barman and his address at the time of his death was the Fort Hotel, in Roker Avenue, where he may have worked.
In his will,he left £719 15 shillings and 44p – £719.79 in modern money.
Before the sale, at Graham Budd Auctions in London, the signed picture had been expected to fetch between £80 and £120.
The picture is signed twice “sincerely yours” and on the back “with sincere regards from Harry Low”.
A signed picture of Low’s 1912-1913 Sunderland teammate Charlie Thomson sold for £170 at the same auction.