Friday 23 June 2017

THE MEDHURSTS

Harry Medhurst was born in February 1916 and he played football for his local club Woking and then West Ham, Chelsea and Brighton where he spent one season, his last as a player. At Chelsea he made his mark as a goalkeeper, keeping 32 clean sheets in 157 appearances. He went back to Chelsea after he retired from playing and became an assistant "trainer". Eventually this transformed into a physiotherapist, retiring in 1975 and he ied in April 1984. He also played Minor County cricket for Cambridgeshire in the 1950s.
His son, Norman, followed his father to "work" and became an assistant at Chelsea, where he worked for 25 years, leaving in 1988, He quietly finished his career off at Torquay and Plymouth when he migrated west in his "retirement". During his time he became the England physio and he and worked from the mid 1970s would have been on the bench during to the 1990 World Cup when he worked with the likes of Bobby Robson and Paul Gacoigne.

Peter Osgood recounts a story when he broke a leg against Blackpool at Stamford bridge. Norman raced onto the pitch to treat the wounded centre forward. He knelt down beside osgood and cradled his leg. Norman asked Peter if his leg hurt and Osgood replied, "No, Norman, but you have got the wrong leg!"

When Norman eventually looked down on the right leg, he rolled the sock down, saw a bone protruding through his sock, went white and Ossie thought they would need two stretchers to get them both off the pitch.

Norman died on June 19th.

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