Martin George Image 1 Luton Town 1935

Description

Born in Glasgow, inside forward George Martin started his career with Hamilton Academical in 1920 having joined them from junior club Cadzow St Anne’s. He had a loan spell with Bathgate in 1921 before joining Bo’Ness, from where he moved south to join Hull City in 1922. He made his Football League debut for Hull against Rotherham County that October scoring in a 2-3 defeat, and soon became a first team regular and steady goalscorer,  He scored 58 goals in 218 appearances over the next 6 seasons before he was signed by Everton in March 1928 season and made ten appearances scoring 3 times in their ultimately successful title run in to earn his only major honour in the game, the League Championship that May. Martin’s time at Goodison Park was mixed however as he could not prevent the club’s relegation in 1930 despite scoring 16 goals that season and played only 15 games in their immediate promotion as Second Division Champions in 1931 before finally making just two appearances in Everton’s 1932 title winning side, which was not sufficient to earn a medal. Martin left Everton for Middlesbrough in the summer of 1933 staying only one season at Ayresome Park and making only 6 appearances, and then joined Luton Town in 1933 playing four seasons and scoring 29 goals in 105 appearances before he finished his playing career moving into coaching and management.

Martin became a coach at Luton Town, and was appointed manager in August 1939 but World War Two saw his initial foray into management suspended after just 3 games. After guiding Luton through their first post-war season, he was appointed as Newcastle United’s first manager since the end of World War Two in July 1947. One of his decisions at the club was surprisingly to sell prolific goalscorer and fans’ favourite Len Shackleton to Sunderland for £13,000. This concerned some supporters and Martin was at first criticised for making this move. However the protests were short-lived, the club winning promotion back to the First Division as Second Division runners up in his first season without Shackleton and other popular players were introduced. These included the club’s current second highest all-time goal-scorer, “Wor” Jackie Milburn. He resigned from Newcastle in December 1950 after establishing them as a top six side in the First Division and took over at struggling Aston Villa but didn’t improve them beyond mid-table respeca. He later returned to Luton for a short-lived spell in 1965; he left a year later.

NB the other player in the photograph is Wilf Crompton.