Fitzgerald Alf Image 1 Queen’s Park Rangers 1937

Description

Conisbrough, Yorkshire born inside left Alf Fitzgerald began his football career with Denaby United, from where he was signed by Third Division (South) club Reading in August 1934, making his Football League debut at Charlton Athletic that December, playing at left half throughout his two seasons at Elm Park, when, a fringe player, he scored once in 7 appearances. He joined Queen’s Park Rangers in May 1936, coming into the team at inside left the following November, and he scored a hat-trick in his fourth match in an FA Cup first round win over Brighton & Hove Albion at the end of the same month, with a further treble in a 6-0 win over Cardiff City in February 1937 in a total of 21 goals, leaving him Rangers’ top goalscorer for the campaign.

He repeated the feat in 1937-38, again with 21 goals including an FA Cup hat-trick in a win over Bristol Rovers, as Queen’s Park Rangers finished third in the division, missing out on promotion. After a further season, his career was severely interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War which forced the abandonment of peacetime football in September 1939, by when he had scored an impressive 52 goals in 106 appearances.

During the War he guested for Aldershot, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur (once, in a 7-1 victory over Fulham in May 1942), Watford and West Ham United, signing for Aldershot after the conflict had ended in November 1945, where he scored 3 goals in 8 appearances at inside left during their run to the fourth round of the FA Cup in January 1946, where they were eliminated by Brighton & Hove Albion. He then missed only 4 matches during The Shots’ first peacetime season, playing mainly at right half, and then at left half in 1947-48, but lost his regular place in December 1947 and played just 3 more matches in the spring of 1948 before leaving The Recreation Ground after 4 goals in 72 appearances, joining non league Chingford Town in the summer of 1948, and playing for Tonbridge from 1949, his final recorded club before his eventual retirement.