Glossop North End’s Olympic Connection

As Stuart Pearce’s charges attempt to win a Gold Medal on the football field at the 2012 Olympic Games they will be looking to emulate their counterparts from one hundred years ago when the games were held in Stockholm.  We have been reminded frequently that in that year Adrian Birch’s team took the Gold, but what is less well known is that the side featured players who currently plied their trade at Glossop FC.

Glossop North End historian Tom Sutcliffe discovered the remarkable details of The Hillmen’s Olympic history as he researched the club’s recent 125^th anniversary.

Even four years earlier, in the 1908 London games, Harry Stapely, Glossop’s leading marksman from their Football League days, had won a gold medal, finishing the tournament’s top scorer with six goals.  Despite taking part in the Olympics, Stapely continued to turn out for the first team at Glossop and played in nine of their first ten league games, only missing a game versus Tottenham to play in the Olympic Final!

In 1912 three players with Glossop connections featured in the tournament – Ivan Sharpe, Harry Littlewort and Gordon Hoare.

Sharpe had left Glossop for Derby County shortly before the Games, although he was to return to the club later in his career.  He continued in football after retirement and was one of the commentators for the first ever BBC live coverage of an FA Cup Final in 1936.

Littlewort played in all of his country’s games in the 1912 tournament having been a regular in the Glossop side for two seasons, but it is perhaps Gordon Hoare’s achievement that is to be most celebrated.

Hoare scored two of Great Britain’s goals in the final in Stockholm, in the country’s 4-2 win over Denmark.  If you put his tournament goals alongside Stapely’s in 1908 it means that Glossop account for eight of GB’s 59 Olympic goals – more than can be claimed by a long list of teams including Manchester City, United, Liverpool, Everton & Arsenal.  Stuart Pearce will of course be hoping that changes.

Meanwhile, the Glossop North End / Olympic connection continues in 2012, albeit in a support capacity.  First team physio Stacey Arthern is a volunteer medic at the Olympic stadium, whilst press man Jonathan Haggart is based in Manchester, driving dignitaries to and from Old Trafford, where Team GB, 2012 version, make their football debut on 26 July.