Welcome to the tenth in a series of articles designed for international matches – a look back at former Hammers players who wore the Three Lions of England.
Today, as England prepare to face Colombia in the last 16 of the 2018 World Cup in Russia, we look back at a former Hammers and England defender – Jack Tresadern. Jack was born in Leytonstone on 26th September 1892 – his father was a market porter. Jack captained his school team and also appeared in West Ham’s English & Corinthian Shield XI under Harry Earle, the father of famous Hammer Stan Earle. Jack was a clerk in a silk manufacturing factory by the age of 19, by which time he and his parents lived at 92 Park Road in West Ham. He was also a cashier for a ship repairers firm. He began his junior career playing as a forward with Wanstead before signing amateur forms with Southend of the Southern League. He soon moved to Barking Town in the South Essex League, where he was moved to left-half; he also represented Essex. He had helped Barking win the London Senior Cup and South Essex League in 1911/12, scoring one of the goals by which Barking defeated Brentford 3-2 in the 1912 London Challenge Cup. Tresadern joined West Ham United as an amateur in July 1913, turning professional for Syd King’s Hammers the following season.
Tresadern began life at Upton Park as understudy to Tommy Randall in the left-half position. He made his debut for the Hammers at the age of 21 in a 6-0 defeat at Watford on 1st April 1914 and made his first appearance at Upton Park 13 days later, helping the Irons to a 3-2 win over rivals Millwall in front of 15,000. Jack made four appearances in 1913/14 as West Ham finished sixth in the Southern League First Division.
Jack was a member of the Royal Garrison Artillery during the First World War, along with future team-mate George Kay, and married Thelma in West Ham in March 1917. Jack’s intelligence and leadership qualities impressed his superiors and he was quickly promoted to the rank of lieutenant. He made nine wartime appearances for West Ham in the London Combination League, scoring his first goal for the club in a 4-0 home win over QPR on 23rd February 1918. Two months later, Jack and Thelma celebrated the birth of their first child, also named Thelma, on 12th April 1918. Jack was part of the West Ham side elected to the Football League in 1919 and was sent off in a 2-1 Second Division home win over Rotherham on 20th September 1919. Jack and Thelma welcomed their second daughter, Muriel, on 21st November 1919. Tresadern made 39 appearances in 1919/20 as West Ham finished seventh in Division Two in their first Football League campaign.
Jack, robust but diminutive at just over 5’5, played 31 matches in 1920/21 as the Irons finished fifth. He scored his first league goal for the club on New Year’s Eve 1921, the winner in a 1-0 home triumph over Leicester. Two more goals followed in 1921/22, against Crystal Palace in a 2-0 win at the Boleyn Ground on 11th March 1922 and another in a 2-1 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday on 8th April 1922 – the Hammers finished fourth. Teammate Jimmy Ruffell said of ‘Tres’, as he was known:
“Jack had a great football brain, we called him the little atom. He seemed to see the game a few passes ahead of us. He was undoubtedly one of the cleverest the West Ham club ever had.”
Coupled with his intelligence and leadership, this natural footballing insight could draw comparisons with Bobby Moore, while Tresadern’s tenacious tackling, strong running and uncompromising, committed character was also reminiscent of Billy Bonds. Not a bad combination at all!
1922/23 was a significant season for West Ham, one of the most memorable in the first half-century of the club’s existence. The Hammers would be promoted to the First Division for the first time, finishing as runners-up in the Second Division to Notts County, and would reach the first ever FA Cup Final held at Wembley. Tresadern made 46 appearances, turning in many sterling displays and scoring two goals – the first in a 1-0 home win over Coventry on 6th January 1923 and the other in a 6-0 win at Leicester on 15th February 1923. The latter would be his sixth and last goal for the club. The Irons would lose the Cup Final 2-0 to Bolton in front of a recorded crowd of 126,047 on 28th April 1923, but could take solace in their upcoming place at football’s top table for the following season. After just two minutes of the Final, ‘Tres’ became entangled in the crowd after taking a throw-in and was unable to return to the pitch immediately. This gave Bolton’s David Jack the opportunity to shoot for goal, the shot beating legendary West Ham goalkeeper Ted Hufton to give Bolton the lead. The shot also hit a spectator who was standing pressed against the goal net, knocking him unconscious.
For Tresadern, that 1922/23 season took on greater personal significance. Two weeks before the FA Cup Final, he made his England debut playing left-half in a 2-2 draw against Scotland at Hampden Park on 14th April 1923. In doing so, he became only the third West Ham United player to represent England although he was not pleased with his performance, saying afterwards, “I was the best player Scotland had on the field”. He won his second and final cap on 21st May 1923 in a 4-2 win in Stockholm against Sweden.
Tresadern made ten appearances in 1923/24 as the Hammers finished 13th in their maiden First Division season. He played four games at the start of 1924/25, with his final match for the Irons being a 4-1 defeat at Newcastle on 17th September 1924, nine days before his 32nd birthday. After six goals in 186 appearances for West Ham United, Jack was on the move to First Division rivals Burnley on 30th October 1924 for £1,050.
Tresadern played 22 league games for Burnley before joining Northampton as player-manager in May 1925, where he played with former Hammers colleague Percy Allen. The Tresaderns welcomed their third daughter, Doreen, in 1926, with Jack retiring from playing in December 1926 after severely breaking his leg in a practice match only months earlier. He continued as manager of Northampton until 20th October 1930 when he became secretary-manager of Crystal Palace. On 19th June 1935 he left Palace to manage Tottenham, with whom he won promotion to the First Division, resigning to take over at Plymouth on 14th April 1938. The Second World War interrupted his time at Plymouth, just as the First World War had disrupted his playing career. Jack had been appointed Captain of the 33rd A.A.B.N. Royal Engineers on 21st September 1937 but he remained at Home Park until his resignation on 8th September 1947. Jack did much to keep the club afloat in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, convincing the Football League legislators that the game was still a viable proposition at Plymouth and scouring the dockyards and local leagues on many occasions to raise a side in that transitionary season of 1945/46.
Tresadern became a scout for Aston Villa in 1948 before becoming manager of Chelmsford City on 9th June 1949. He left Chelmsford on 11th November 1950, resigning to concentrate on his pedigree pig and poultry business at Ayletts in Broomfield. Before signing as a player with Burnley, Jack had also owned a poultry farm in Essex. On 15th December 1951, he became manager of Hastings United. He became manager of Tonbridge in April 1958 and remained in post until he suffered a heart attack at his home in the town on Christmas Day 1959 and died the following day at the age of 67.
England v Colombia
England face Colombia this evening in last 16 of the 2018 World Cup – it will be the sixth meeting between the two nations. The pair have met once before in the World Cup, in front of 41,275 in Lens, France, 20 years ago, on 26th June 1998, in their final Group G match of the 1998 World Cup. Baddiel & Skinner & The Lightning Seeds were number one with ‘Three Lions ‘98’, Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan topped the UK box office in City Of Angels and, the previous evening, the final episode of BBC One’s The Human Body became the first British television programme to show the final moments of a cancer patient – Herbert Mower, who died the previous year, had given permission for his death to be recorded for the series.
Glenn Hoddle’s England needed the win to ensure their passage to the second round and were on their way when Tottenham’s Darren Anderton fired beyond Independiente and Colombia goalkeeper Farid Mondragon after 20 minutes. Manchester United midfielder David Beckham’s curling free-kick beat Mondragon for England’s second nine minutes later and the Three Lions went through with a 2-0 win to face Argentina, who would knock them out on penalties in the last 16.
England: David Seaman (Arsenal), Gary Neville (Man Utd), Tony Adams (Arsenal), Sol Campbell (Tottenham), Darren Anderton (Tottenham), Paul Ince (Liverpool), David Beckham (Man Utd), Paul Scholes (Man Utd), Graeme Le Saux (Chelsea), Michael Owen (Liverpool), Alan Shearer (captain, Newcastle).
Subs: Steve McManaman (Liverpool) for Scholes; Rob Lee (Newcastle) for Anderton; David Batty (Newcastle) for Ince.
Colombia: Farid Mondragon (Independiente), Wilmer Cabrera (Millonarios), Luis Antonio Moreno (Deportes Tolima), Ever Palacios (Deportivo Cali), Jorge Bermudez (Boca Juniors), John Harold Lozano (Real Valladolid), Mauricio Serna (Boca Juniors), Carlos Valderrama (captain, Miami Fusion), Freddy Rincon (Corinthians), Antony de Avila (Barcelona), Leider Preciado (Santa Fe).
Subs: Victor Aristizabal (Sao Paulo) for Serna; Adolfo Valencia (Independiente Medellin) for Preciado; Hamilton Ricard (Middlesbrough) for de Avila.
The previous articles in the series are:
Ken Brown
Johnny ‘Budgie’ Byrne
Bobby Moore
Martin Peters
Sir Trevor Brooking
Alan Devonshire
Alvin Martin
Stuart Pearce
David James