THE KILLING OF TOMMY BALL
Tommy Ball popped down to the pub on the night of Sunday November 11, 1923. The Aston Villa player was celebrating Armistice Day, and a 1-0 win over Notts County. He drank three-and-a-half pints of ale with his wife, Bella, and spoke to the landlord until a little past closing time at 9.30pm. Then Tommy and Bella went home, arriving just after 10pm. Bella began to make their supper, and Tommy went outside to look for his dog. A few minutes later, Bella heard shouting, then a gunshot. She ran outside and discovered her husband reeling towards her, covered in blood. “Oh, Bella!” he yelled. “He has shot me!” Tommy collapsed onto the steps and died. One of football’s brightest stars had been murdered. Ball was 23 years old when he was killed. A tenacious half-back, or midfielder, he was a pivotal figure in a rising Aston Villa side and a big fans’ favourite. With his original hairstyle, Ball was the Jack Grealish of the ’20s. “He was one of the strongest half-backs in the country and. “He was rugged, determined but a sportsman through and through. A pluckier player never stepped on the field.” Thomas Edgar Ball was born in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, on February 11, 1900, near the end of the Victorian era. He was the youngest of eight children. The son of a miner, Ball followed his father into the coal pits at the age of 13 and, like a lot of kids in the Durham colliery towns, was football mad. He picked up his first medal when he was a 10-year-old schoolboy, then featured for Wardley Villa boys’ club before graduating to play for Felling Colliery in the highly rated Northern Alliance league. Top teams regularly trawled the northern coalfields for talent, and Ball was scouted by Newcastle, Sunderland, Liverpool and Barnsley before joining Villa in January 1920, aged 19. During an early training session, Villa legend Jack Devey – who led the club to five league titles and two FA Cup victories – pointed at Ball and said, “There is a young man with a great future.” That future would be cut tragically short. Ball was a utility player for Villa in his first couple of seasons, playing across the back and midfield. Then, after superb but uncompromising skipper Frank Barson slapped in a transfer request and forced a move to Manchester United, Ball became Villa’s permanent centre-half and the fulcrum of the team.
