Harold Walden- Soldier, Footballer, Olympian, Star of Stage and Screen

28/09/2022  -  11.18

Ian Hemmens

You hear it all the time on radio phone-ins, conversations in the pub, and read it in journalistic pieces in the sporting press. “There are no characters in the game these days, none of the mavericks and one-offs we all grew up loving and still reminiscing over”.

All today’s professionals are some sort of robotic clones, super fit but solely driven by money and ego, and probably an agent with the same ideals we are told.

Let us remember the likes of Frank Worthington, Paul Gascoigne, Alan Hudson amongst others. Players that could audibly raise a buzz around the crowd when they got the ball.

Every club has its own legendary figures from the folklore of their community. I remember on the BBC, Michael Parkinson recalling from his youth the fearsome Sid ‘Skinner’ Normanton and our own club, the Bantams have had plenty of characters through the years. From England star Dickie Bond dribbling down the wing with an umbrella borrowed from an adoring female fan during a particularly heavy downpour at Valley Parade, to one Stanley Victor Collymore inevitably getting the wrong side of Chairman Geoffrey Richmond, by parking in his personal car spot day-in, day-out, despite being warned by the ‘Big man’ and turning up for a press conference swathed in bandages as a prank.

Harold Adrian Walden was born around 1888, into a military family at the height of Empire in the Indian city of Umbala. His father, Joseph, was a career soldier with the Cheshire Regiment. By the time he was three, he was back in England living with his father and two brothers and sister at the Salford Barracks. The 1901 census finds him living with his Aunt in Moss Side, Manchester as a 13-year old.

As he progressed through his teens, it appears he lied about his age and followed in his father’s steps into the Army. He played football whilst serving and after coming out, he decided to take a chance at the game by signing for the newly formed Halifax Town FC.

After hitting six goals in seven games, he and prolific strike partner Judd Wild came to the notice of big neighbours Bradford City, who had just finished what would be their greatest ever season, finishing fifth in the First Division and better still lifting the FA Cup.

He signed amateur forms in December 1911 and on the 16th December, he made his first team debut, thrust into the team to replace the legendary Frank O’Rourke against Notts County in a 2-3 defeat. In his next game, he scored two and playing alongside the up and coming Oscar Fox and the great Jimmy Speirs. He actually finished the season with a hat-trick to finish the season as the club’s top-scorer with 11 goals from only 17 games.

Harold Walden in action for Bradford City. Source: www.thearsenalhistory.com

On away trips he took over from Willie Gildea and Frank Thompson as the team clown and entertainer, with a slapstick act and a ukulele that was a foretaste of things to come.

His explosive start also brought him to the attention of the selectors of the Great Britain team looking for the best amateurs to represent Great Britain in the forthcoming Olympics of 1912, to be held in Helsinki.

Harold took the competition by storm, after the team received a bye in the first round. He hit an astonishing six goals in a 7-0 victory over Hungary, followed by another two in the semi-final against Finland. This brought the Great Britain team to the final match for the Gold Medal against biggest rivals Denmark. Harold opened the scoring after 10 minutes and the team went on to win 4-2 to be proclaimed Olympic Champions!!!. Harold had contributed an astonishing nine goals in only three games.

Harold Walden at the 1912 Olympics. Source: www.olympedia.com

This was to be the high point of his football career. In the years that followed, he was never really a regular in the City side again due to the presence of Frank O’Rourke and the emergence of Jimmy McIlvenny. In that fateful year of 1914, as war clouds gathered and finally erupted, City’s two former soldiers Dickie Bond and Harold Walden were at the front of the recruiting drives taking place which would form the Bradford Pals. With their military experience, they were amongst the first to be called up for action. Harold went to war and eventually made it to the rank of Captain.

When the end of hostilities came, many came back to a different world. They were the fortunate ones as Harold could see, with many of his City team-mates and pals not coming back having made the ultimate sacrifice. At 31 years of age, his place in the City team was taken by the prolific McIlvenny and ex-England international Billy Hibbert, so he made the move south and signed for Arsenal. He made back-to-back appearances against Oldham Athletic scoring once in his two games but he decided to call it a day and retire.

During his City days, with his reputation as an entertainer and all-round prankster, when the team went to the theatre and the star asked for one of the players to come on stage and perform, Harold was the obvious choice and he was bitten by the bug. Towards the end of his career he had been performing in front of audiences in theatres as a slapstick comedian and a vaudeville showman. He had his act with the ukulele and would also dress in his City kit to perform bawdy and risqué songs whilst juggling a football. The decision was a simple one and he entered the world of music hall and theatre as a variety act.

He caught the eye also of the fledgling film industry and appeared in one of the earliest films about football taking the starring role in ‘The Winning Goal’. Amongst his other credits in a minor film career, he played himself in the film ‘Cup-Tie Wedding’ in 1948. This man of many talents also made a couple of 78rpm recordings (old records to you young uns!!).

His career as a variety artist and all-round entertainer saw him work the circuit all over but mainly the north of England and luckily, clips still survive and if you computer savvy people go onto You Tube and type in Harold Walden, you will see him in all his glory dressed in what looks like a Halifax kit doing his thing!!

To our modern eye it all looks tame and very odd but it’s from a more innocent time and the piece is very much ‘of its time’.

With his trade mark ‘kiss curl’ a full 30 years before Bill Haley and the Comets hit these shores with rock ‘n roll, he played the part of the lonely crooner who misses out on the girl at first but always gets her in the end.

He managed to make a decent living and was popular on the circuit but with film becoming more popular and more sophisticated, the old time Edwardian style music hall started to show its age. Along with the outbreak of war again in 1939, Harold started to struggle and ran into financial troubles. 

Harold Walden in his Music Hall act. Source: www.georgeformby.co.uk

He managed to eke out a living on the circuit with another generation worn down by war and looking for any sort of entertainment that could bring a smile to people’s faces.

He was still working the halls when on his way to a booking he had a fatal heart attack at Leeds Railway Station in 1955. He was 68 years old.

His passing was like a passing of another age, of more innocent and cheeky fun. He was a character in every sense of the word, a man who had soldiered in India and Ireland and of course on the horrific Western Front in World War One.

He then turned his natural talents to become a more than decent top level footballer in a team that was at that time amongst the strongest in the land and to boot, became an Olympic Gold Medallist and top scorer in the tournament.

When that chapter was over, he managed to re-invent himself yet again as a performer not only on the music hall stage but also in the film industry and the recording studio!!!

All clubs have had their larger than life characters, famous in local and often national folklore for all sorts of different reasons but I think you’ll agree that Harold deserves his place up there with the best of them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, for one night only, I give you, Soldier, Footballer, Olympian, Music Hall Star, Recording Artist & Film Star!!! The one and only ………..Mr Harold Walden.

Biography

Ian is a third generation Bradford City fan, working in the Print Industry. He has written for various fanzines and online sites on a variety of sporting issues, mainly of a historical nature. Ian enjoys reading, music, cinema and of course following Bradford City. The 2022-23 season will be his 55th season as a season ticket holder. Ian’s twitter handle is @IHemmens