A true amateur, goalkeeper Terry Huddle played for the two top amateurs teams of the 1930s, the Corinthians and the Casuals. He joined Casuals after returning to Britain from South Africa where he had moved to as a 14-year-old with his family as his father was the conductor of the Durban Philharmonic Orchestra. Standing six feet three inches tall, Terry could throw a football further than most men could kick it. He used that skill in the water as goalkeeper of the Middlesex water polo team. After an excellent performance for Corinthians against Sunderland in 1934, the first division club offered him a professional contract but professional football was far from the attraction it is today and he declined the offer. He did later join Arsenal as an amateur but spent all his time in their reserves. Having won an Amateur Cup winners’ medal with Casuals in 1936, he was selected for the Great Britain Olympic squad to go to the Berlin Olympics but Haydn Hill was preferred to Huddle in goal for Britain’s two games against China and Poland. Huddle toured New Zealand, Australia and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with the England amateur team in 1937 and then during the war spent most of his time serving in the Far East. Having not seen his wife Margaret in all that time, he was saddened when she died in her sleep only a few months after his return. After the war he worked as an estate agent and occasional bookmaker – an illegal profession in those days, other than for those operating at race tracks.
Great Britain