Jeff Hall (footballer)
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Jeffrey James Hall | ||
| Date of birth | 7 September 1929 | ||
| Place of birth | Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England | ||
| Date of death | 4 April 1959 (aged 29) | ||
| Place of death | Birmingham, Warwickshire, England | ||
| Playing position | Right back | ||
| Youth career | |||
| Bradford Park Avenue | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| REME | |||
| 1950–1959 | Birmingham City | 227 | (1) |
| National team | |||
| 1955 | England B | 1 | (0) |
| 1955–1957 | England | 17 | (0) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. | |||
Jeffrey James Hall (7 September 1929 – 4 April 1959) was an English footballer who played as a right back for Birmingham City and England.
It was the death of Hall – a young, fit, international footballer – from polio which helped to kick-start widespread public acceptance in Britain of the need for vaccination. Though the disease was generally feared and the Salk vaccine was available, takeup had been slow. In the weeks following Hall's death, and after his widow, Dawn, spoke on television about her loss, demand for immunisation rocketed. Emergency vaccination clinics had to be set up and supplies of the vaccine flown in from the United States to cope with the demand.
Hall was born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, and brought up in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire. He had an older sister, Joan. After leaving school in 1945 he played for various junior clubs in the area before joining his local Football League club, Bradford Park Avenue, then in the Second Division, where he remained an amateur and never made a first-team appearance. It was while playing at right half for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during his National Service that he was spotted by Birmingham City chief scout Walter Taylor, whose other successes included Gil Merrick, Trevor Smith and Ken Green. Hall signed on professional forms in May 1950.
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