If you know your history pt1

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Everton will give you Dixie Dean, Newcastle Jackie Milburn.  You’ve got Jimmy Greaves, Rodger Hunt, Geoff Hurst and I guess, more recently, the likes of Lineker, Fowler and Shearer.  These are strikers whose abilities have faded into the mists of time and become mere myth and legend.  The men who become the stopping off points for all that follow.

Of course, little old plasticky, nouveau riche Wigan don’t have enough history to have anyone like that, we’ve never achieved anything so of course we don’t have anyone to hark back on and get all misty eyed about.  If we did it would probably be someone rubbish like Stuart Barlow or Nathan Ellington, right?

Wrong.

‘Gerroff Hilditch’, ‘bloody rubbish Powell’, ‘you couldn’t hit a barn door Daley’.  These were the sounds of my youth.  Every striker who pulled on a Latics shirt suffered and why?  Well, most of them were pretty rubbish, but also because none stood up in comparison with what preceded them.  No not Bobby Campbell, what covered them all was that they were…

“not a patch on Harry Lyon”.

Lyon’s status as a Latics legend is (obviously) commemorated in the name of this site, but his myth is wrapped up in so much more.  His Dixie Dean-esque scoring record, his having played in every position for the club and most of all, (an essential part of any football myth) the feat that no one else could have achieved.

For Lyon it was 17th November 1965, it was the FA Cup and Doncaster Rovers were the visitors to Springfield Park.  Stretchered off in the first half, with a (suspected) broken ankle he returned with heavy bandaging and suitably medicated to score a hat-trick and see off the league visitors.

The kind people over at mirrorfootball.co.uk are kindly allowing us to celebrate this moment by sharing this photo from their archives.  It was taken as Harry was carried from the field by jubilant supporters revelling in yet another moment of giant killing from Wigan’s non-league masters.

mirrorfootball.co.uk brings you the latest football news, live match reports, extensive picture galleries, and a football archive of photos and newspaper pages spanning over 100 years.

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