[Tottenham Hotspur Match Day Program Obituary 9th April 2012]
OBITUARY - ALBERT HALL
We were sorry to learn of the passing of Albert Hall, an inside forward who was on our books either side of the last war. Remembered as a cheeky but popular character, he came to us from South Wales and rapidly progressed through the ranks to play in the first team at the age of 17, the first player to do so. He held the record as our youngest Football League player from 1936 until 1950.
Albert’s service for King and Country included a two and a half year spell as a Japanese prisoner of war, a harrowing experience from which he recovered sufficiently to resume a footballing career after the cessation of hostilities.
Born at Cadoxton, Barry on September 3, 1918, Albert Edward Benjamin Hall was a product of our Welsh nursery set up which produced several graduates to the first team squad during the twenties and thirties. Capped by Wales as a schoolboy, he first played at White Hart Lane in April, 1934 when a South Wales Junior XI faced their Tottenham counterparts. He scored for the Welsh side in a 1-7 reverse. Signed as an amateur on May 10, 1934, he spent the 1934-35 campaign with the Tottenham Juniors team.
Upgraded to professional status on October 23, 1935, Albert opened his goalscoring account for our London Combination team within three weeks and before the season was out had netted five times in 20 games for our second string. His Football League debut came at Norwich City on April 18, 1936. Aged 17 years, 228 days he was some five months younger than Arthur Grimsdell who had held the record since 1912.
At five feet inches tall and weighing ten stone 13 pounds, his tricky ploys at inside left were utilised in our reserve and ‘A’ teams. Leading goalscorer in the Combination team of 1937-38 with 21 goals in 31 games, was rewarded with a regular berth in our Second Division side the following season. That in turn brought his first senior goal, on his 13th appearance, against Sheffield Wednesday in September, 1938. By the end of the campaign he had scored ten goals in 26 senior games.
Albert featured in our wartime team before joining the Royal Artillery in January, 1940 as a gunner. His talents were utilised by both Norwich City and Chelmsford City as a guest player before his posting to India. He then went to Singapore and in February, 1942 was captured during the invasion of Malaya. He worked on the Thai railway for about a year before being put on transports to Japan. The ship he was on, the Raku Maru, was torpedoed by an American submarine in September, 1944. After 18 hours in the water he was rescued by the same submarine and taken to Australia where he recuperated. His exploits were included in the book “Return from the River Kwai.”
On his return to England Albert guested for Luton Town, Millwall and Port Vale prior to reappearing in our wartime team in March, 1945. He staked a regular place in 1945-46 but spent much of the following season back in the Combination side. One of his eight senior outings of 1946-47 was the ‘classic’ match at Newcastle in January, watched by a capacity 62,876 crowd.
By the time Albert left Tottenham for Plymouth Argyle on June 28, 1947 he had scored ten goals in 40 Football League matches, once in four FA Cup games and eight in 32 wartime fixtures. At reserve team level he notched 29 goals in 75 outings.
Former Spurs boss Jack Tresadern paid a reputed £1,000 fee to take Albert to Plymouth, then also in Division Two. He made nine appearances for the Home Park club before joining Chelmsford City on May 18, 1948. Another former Spurs colleague, Arthur Rowe, was his boss at the Essex club. He added three goals in nine Southern League appearances during 1948-49 to his single outing as a guest player for them in June, 1940.
Albert lived at Edmonton during his playing days and later worked at Enfield rolling mills and on the railways. In recent years he resided at Shrewsbury where he passed away peacefully on February 3, 1998, following a long illness.
