Any Hornchurch Historians?

[Rob Budd]

My Grandfather the late Robert Hall known as Bob played for the club for around 10 years during the time it was Hornchurch and Upminster around the mid 1940s he was a striker who used to bang them in but was wondering if anyone know more about the team back in the day and which players were also in the squad at the time? 

[Jago]

On 31/07/2025 at 18:46, Rob Budd said:

My Grandfather the late Robert Hall known as Bob played for the club for around 10 years during the time it was Hornchurch and Upminster around the mid 1940s he was a striker who used to bang them in but was wondering if anyone know more about the team back in the day and which players were also in the squad at the time? 

 

Hi Rob

You’ll be pleased to know that some sterling research was done a few years ago, led by Fred Hawthorn and Tony Middleton (sadly now deceased), into the early days of the club.  So we have more or less full line-ups from the mid 1930s on.    These were published in the book “Hornchurch FC – The Official History, 1923-2011”.   There may still be some of these available in the Club Shop if you pop down.

Your grandfather was certainly some striker – his stats are as below.

 

After 1945/46 he seems to have gone into the reserve team.  We have far less info on the reserves, but I do have two programmes from 1946/47 where he is in the line-up as captain.  At number 9 obviously!  Note that the club shut down for 1944/45 due to lack of players

As for who he was playing with, it’s too much detail to stick on a post like this, but if you send me a PM with your email address I can send you some extracts from the book. 

Trust this helps.