Hoad Sid Image 1 Nelson 1922

Description

Eltham, Kent born right winger Sid Hoad had joined St Anne’s as an 18 year old in 1908, before moving down the coast to Second Division Blackpool in December 1909, joining them on amateur forms and making his Football League debut against Leeds City in January 1910, playing 4 times over the next few weeks. The following season he was a regular in the Blackpool team scoring 3 times in 25 appearances, and while at Blackpool, Hoad became the club’s first international player when he won two caps for the England amateur team, playing in victories over Wales and Belgium in February and March before First Division Manchester City signed him in May 1911.

After making 39 appearances for City in his first season, he found it increasingly difficult to get into their first team regularly, and when the First World War forced the suspension of peacetime football he had scored twice in 68 appearances. In September 1920 he signed for Central League club Rochdale, and when they helped to form The Third Division (North), Hoad played in their inaugural Football League match against Accrington Stanley in August 1921, before transferring to Nelson in January 1922 after 2 goals in 18 matches that season for Rochdale.

He and was a key member of the team that won the Third Division (North) Championship in 1922-23. Said to have “very smart” footwork and described as “one of the fastest wingers in the Third Division”, Hoad remained at Seedhill until the end of the 1926-27 season. Over five and a half years at Nelson he scored 13 goals in 157 appearances before joining non league Hurst in 1927 already aged nearly 37 ahead of his eventual retirement after a single season with them.