Career
Smith joined West Bromwich Albion as an amateur, but left to join Torquay United in 1953 without breaking into the Baggies' first team.
He made his Torquay debut in a 3–1 win away to Walsall on December 5, 1953, with the regular left-back Jimmy Drinkwater out of the side. He initially lost his place when Drinkwater returned, but after two games out of the side, regained his place, Drinkwater switching to right-back as the on-loan Harry Parfitt missed out. He began the following season as the regular left-back in the Torquay side, playing in the FA Cup 4th round tie at home to Huddersfield Town in front of a record crowd of 21,908, which Huddersfield won 1–0. He lost his place late in the season, with John Anderton taking his place and played just 14 times in the 1955–56 season.
He started the 1956–57 season out of the first team with Anderton and then regular centre-half John James playing at left-back. However, Smith soon regained his place and remained a regular for the remainder of the season as Torquay lost out on promotion to Division Two on goal average from Ipswich Town.
He played 188 league games for Torquay, scoring just once, before leaving in July 1961 to join Bristol City. He played just once for the Ashton Gate side before leaving league football to settle down in Torquay, where he became an avid pigeon racer.
Read more about this topic: Harry Smith (footballer Born 1932)
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“In time your relatives will come to accept the idea that a career is as important to you as your family. Of course, in time the polar ice cap will melt.”
—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The 19-year-old Diana ... decided to make her career that of wife. Today that can be a very, very iffy line of work.... And what sometimes happens to the women who pursue it is the best argument imaginable for teaching girls that they should always be able to take care of themselves.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)