The Notable - Jackie Balmer - The Reds Captain

Those amongst us who were taught by Miss Taylor, may well remember her mentioning that she taught young Balmer when he was a pupil at the Collegiate.  He may not have been in "the Prep", mind you, she didn't go into details; she just continued by concentrating on academic subjects.  However, it was a living link to the early years of a man that we watched (from afar) at the weekends.  The following excerpt, from the Liverpool Echo, goes into details of a career that will always be an example of what has been accomplished by an Old Boy of our illustrious School.

Balmer was the Salah of his day

And the Reds' post-war legend still leads hat-trick stakes

So! FERNANDO Torres plundered back-to-back hat-tricks? Big deal! Jackie Balmer had only just started when he completed his second successive hat-trick on November 16, 1946.

In a remarkable goalscoring sequence, the Liverpool striker celebrated a treble in a 3-0 victory over Portsmouth at Anfield, scored all four in a 4-1 defeat of Derby at the Baseball Ground, then rapped another hat-trick at Anfield, this time against Arsenal, all without another Liverpool player interrupting his incredible spell.

"Balmer’s great scoring feat is the talk of the foot- ball world," reported Stork in the following Monday’s Echo.

“One of the first things asked in the Stoke board- room after they had played Everton on Saturday was, How many goals has Balmer scored'? "Well it is a truly magnificent performance by the former Collegiate schoolboy. He must have put up a record, for I cannot recall any other player ever having knocked up three hat-tricks in succession. Not even the record breaking Dean or Lawton can boast such a thing."

Balmer actually scored in seven successive matches during that title-winning season, finishing joint top scorer with Albert Stubbins, but bizarrely he never enjoyed the affection of the Anfield crowd. That was largely down to his background. All Jack Balmer’s family were Evertonians, Bill Balmer - Jack’s uncle - had played 11 seasons in Everton’s first team. Bob Balmer — another of Jack’s uncles — partnered his brother Bill in the 1907 FA Cup final against Sheffield Wednesday — and Jack had started his goal-scoring career at Goodison Park.

Team-mate at the time, Bob Paisley actually declared: "l don’t honestly think l’ve ever known a player so harshly treated by Liverpool supporters as he was." Paisley added: "He was anything but the old fashioned centre forward who could burst through, brushing aside the challenge of big, beefy defenders. "He relied on his wonderful ball skills but was always ready to take a shot at goal.  "He also suffered from a premature loss of his hair and, with his Alistair Sim-style moustache, looked a lot older than he was for much of his career

"Like any good striker Jack had real pace and was asked to take over as club captain after his 24 goals in 1946-47 helped us win the First Division championship. "He was phenomenal for much of that season and it was no surprise to anyone when the board elected him captain for the following season. "But we never recaptured our championship form and slowly but surely the fans began to turn against Jack. "But he managed to smile his way through, although it hurt him deeply. There was a group of supporters who could never forgive him because he didn’t get stuck into the tackle.

As captain it was even harder for him to take and while the fans didn’t appreciate his attributes there was no-one at the club who didn’t support his continued selection for much of the later stages of his career "He had marvellous ball control and was an ideal partner for Albert Stubbins. He accepted the criticism but refused to change his style insisting: ‘They were entitled to their opinion. Maybe I didn’t go in for the crunch tackle but that kind of thing wasn’t my idea of football. I was never a coward at the game, but I got a shudder when I saw the boot going in.’ "

Opposition defences got a shudder when they saw Jack Balmer bearing down on goal, never more so than during that remarkable spell in 1946.

It has been reported that :-

"The fastest goal scored by a Liverpool player was in Feb 1930 - Jack Balmer (a COB) scored after 10 seconds against Everton - at Goodison Park"

We'd love to believe this, but surely "Our Jackie" would have been rathe young at that time.  Possibly, some COB Sport Historian may have some information in this respect.