Eighty years ago this week Harry Morris scored all the goals in a 3-2 home win over Luton Town.
This was not an unusual event for the burly centre-forward, as it was the 16th time he had netted a hat-trick in a Swindon shirt. However, the last of his three goals that day equalled a record that only Harold Fleming had achieved – 200 for the club.
And within a few weeks Harry passed Fleming’s tally of 204 on his way to one of seven records he set in seven years that he spent with Town. None has yet been broken and only one equalled.
A shrewd signing by secretary-manager Sam Allen in June 1926, for £110 from Swansea, Morris was only 5ft 9in but was a powerhouse at almost 13 stones.
Born into a Jewish community in Spitalfields in east London, Morris began learning his trade on the fields of Hackney Marshes. It was there, while playing for the Vicar of Wakefield FC, that he was spotted by Fulham and signed for them in May 1920. The following summer he switched to Brentford and then to Millwall in February 1923.
His Town career had a perfect start with a hat-trick on his debut in a thumping 5-1 win over Southend and he registered another just two days later in a 4-2 victory over Exeter. At the end of October, when he netted in a 1-3 defeat at Plymouth, Morris began a sequence of 11 League games during which he found the net at least once.
Town benefited with eight wins from eight in November and December, as the front man grabbed a four and a five in a 16-goal haul. His tally for that first season ended on a remarkable 48 goals from 43 games, but a leaky defence saw Swindon finish only fifth.
His five-goal spree against Queens Park Rangers remains a high for a Town player in a Football League fixture, although this was equalled in November 1965 by Keith East. In April 1930 Morris repeated the feat, this time away, when he plundered all the goals in a 5-1 win at Norwich.
Harry’s final campaign at the County Ground was his least successful. But his 13 goals were still enough to give him the tag of top goalscorer – his seventh in succession – to finish on a total of 229 in 279 games.
By now 35, Harry was given a free transfer at the end of 1932/33 and joined Clapton Orient before a brief spell with Cheltenham Town.
Following the death of their eight-year-old daughter Estelle from polio in 1937, Harry and his wife Edith migrated to Sweden, a neutral safe haven for Jews during the war.
He coached in Gothenburg while working for the British Consulate in Stockholm.
When Town were without a manager in 1955, Harry applied for a coaching job at the club, but his application was turned down. He died in California aged 88 in December 1985. - by Paul Plowman
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