Eric Book's Passing - 51 Years Ago Today

Manchester City have had some great strikers all throughout their history, and some not so great strikers. Today we have Sergio Aguero and, in the future under Pep, who knows who might come in alongside him. Kelechi Iheanacho is a name I think most City fans would like to see on the pitch more than he has been under Pellegrini, but there is no certainty that he will get more time under Guardiola.

Recent times we have had Carlos Tevez, who despite his altercation with Mancini, still helped us to our first League title. Balotelli was a character but other than his goals against United and the assist in Agueros goal against QPR really wasn't what you would call prolific.
Recently I wrote a piece about Shaun Goater. Certainly him and Paul Dickov were the type of strikers City needed at that time, and led us back from the brink. If you go back a little further to the 1990's we had Uwe Rosler with David White and Niall Quinn before that.

Under Mercer and Allison we had Francis Lee and Neil Young and even before those two were lifting silverware for City we had Joe Hayes. Twelve seasons at City with 152 goals in 364 appearances, including the winning goal in our 3-1 1956 FA Cup win against Birmingham.
But, before Lee and Young were dominating for City, and less than a decade after the 1956 FA Cup Final, City said goodbye to another.

It was on this day in 1965 Manchester woke to the news of Eric Brook's passing. This guy played for us from aged 20, in a debut game against Grimsby right up until Hitler threw his toys out of the pram and all over Europe. Despite this, he would end up playing 493 games for us scoring a total of 177 goals. 158 of these were in the League which placed Mr. Brook top of our all-time League scorer charts....well joint top with a certain Tommy Johnson. He joined us from Barnsley, along with his good friend, Fred Tilson and was instantly taken to City hearts, and played in both of City's Cup Finals of that time as well as being an ever present in the title winning season of 1936/37.

When war broke out, the now 32 year old played in morale boosting international games until a vehicle accident cut short his playing days. Informed he had a skull fracture, but playing a game for City between the accident and the medical diagnosis, he hung up his boots before becoming a coach driver, then a pub landlord. He passed away aged 57 at his home, in Manchester, fifty one years ago today.