Biography
Right sided forward and sometime half back Dennis Smith joined the Tigers at the start of the 1946/47 season, the return of league football after the cessation of World War Two. Smith hailed from Nelson in Lancashire and after training as a schoolteacher in Sheffield he worked as a Bevin Boy, a young coal miner, between 1944 and 1947 at Frickley Colliery and a local pit in Burnley. As well as working underground and playing for Hull City, Smith also spent the summers scoring runs for Nelson Cricket Club.
Smith was a regular choice in the first three months of the 1946/47 season, making his City debut in the first ever senior match played at Boothferry Park, but he drifted into the reserves as new players were added to the City ranks. He played four games in the latter months of a season extended into June by a heavy winter, two of those appearances were at half back. He rejoined the Tigers at the start of the 1947/48 season but could not progress beyond the reserves and moved on at the end of October 1947.
Dennis joined Accrington Stanley in October 1947, retaining his job at the local colliery for a while before commencing his teaching career alongside football. He served Accrington for seven seasons, initially at inside forward where he scored 8 goals in the 1947/48 season after hitting his first senior goal in a December 1947 3-2 win at Carlisle. For the next six seasons he played mostly at left half and when he made his final appearance for Accrington against Chester in April 1954 he took his tally at Stanley to 159 starts and 16 goals.
After giving up playing in 1954 Smith focussed on his teaching career. In 1957 he was awarded a batchelors degree by the University of London while working as a deputy head at a junior school in Burnley and by 1959 he was headmaster at a primary school in Trawden, a cotton mill village to the south east of Colne. He remained in the North West and died at the ripe old age of 89 in January 2015.
Details
Nationality: England
Date/Place of Birth: 22 August 1925, Nelson
Hull City First Game: 31 August 1946, Lincoln City H (Division Three North), 21 years, 9 days old
Hull City Final Game: 26 April 1947, Accrington Stanley H (Division Three North), 21 years, 247 days old
Clubs
Frickley Colliery, Hull City (1946-1947), Accrington Stanley (1947-1954)
Hull City Record
Career: 15 apps, 0 goals
Dennis Smith| Season | LGE App | LGE Gls | FAC App | FAC Gls | FLC App | FLC Gls | EUR App | EUR Gls | OTH App | OTH Gls |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1946/47 | 15 | 0 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 1947/48 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |