Harry Woods (footballer)

Harry Woods (March 14 1894 – "?") was an English footballer.

Born in St Helens, Woods started out with his hometown club, non-league St Helens Town, before joining Norwich City (then playing in the Southern League) in 1912. World War I broke out just as Woods' career started to take off; after serving in the Tank Corps in France, he returned to England to join Second Division side South Shields in 1919. Woods' performances for them, as a prolific centre-forward, brought the attention of nearby giants Newcastle United, and he joined the Magpies in January 1922 for the (then) enormous sum of £2,600.

However, Woods failed to make the grade at Newcastle, playing only sixteen times in eighteen months, and was eventually sold to Arsenal for the much lower fee of £750 in July 1923. Woods made his debut against his old club Newcastle on August 25, 1923 and soon became a regular, if not totally prolific goalscorer for Arsenal. He finished as the club's top goalscorer in his first season (1923-24) with ten, and then managing another twelve goals in 1924-25, although by now he was being eclipsed by the newly-signed Jimmy Brain. After Herbert Chapman took over that summer, Woods found himself out of the first team, and after a fruitless 1925-26 he left the club in August 1926 for Luton Town. In all he played 75 games for Arsenal, scoring 22 goals.

Woods spent four years at Luton before returning to the North to finish his playing days at North Shields. His fate after that is unknown.

References

* cite book
author=Harris, Jeff & Hogg, Tony (ed.)
title=Arsenal Who's Who
publisher=Independent UK Sports
year=1995
id=ISBN 1-899429-03-4