Richmond Joe Image 1 Leeds United 1924

Description

Leasingthorne, County Durham born centre forward Joe Richmond was a Durham Schools representative player, he played for Sittingbourne in 1914 before serving with the Royal Flying Corps as a flight-sergeant in World War One, winning the French Medal Militaire. In March 1922 he signed for Shildon Athletic from where he joined Second Division Leeds United in December 1922 already aged 25, making his Football League debut at Wolverhampton Wanderers the same month. Although he was fairly inexperienced, Richmond led the Leeds 1923-24 Second Division Championship winning side with panache and vigour, scoring f15 goals in 35 League games.

In the top flight he struggled to reproduce his form and gave way to Jack Thom for a short while but both were pushed aside as the new goalscoring sensation, Tom Jennings, forced his way into the team. He moved to Second Division Barnsley in February 1926 after 19 goals in 60 appearances, and in a brief spell for The Tykes he scored 5 times in 13 appearances, but in July that year he joined Norwich City. He made his debut as a centre forward in a 1-6 defeat at Millwall on 26th August 1926 and it did not take long before he was regularly finding the net, hitting a hat-trick in a 4-0 demolition of Watford on 18th April 1927. He was an ever present for The Canaries in 1928-29 by when he had made a successful transition to left-back to partner Joe Hannah before retiring in 1930. after 9 goals in 130 appearances for Norwich. After World War Two he coached Letchworth Town.