Remembering Doug Morgan

With Sunday's fixture against West Bromwich Albion being our dedicated remebrance fixture, we take a look at former player Douglas Morgan. Born June 18th, 1890, in Inverkeithing, Scotland, Morgan was the only player on the Tigers books to lose his life in the Great War. This is Doug’s story.

The youngest of a family of seven children, Morgan grew up in Inverkeithing, a coastal town in Fife, less than 10 miles northwest of Edinburgh City Centre. Naturally, Doug started his footballing journey at one of his local teams, joining Inverkeithing Renton (Juveniles) at 18 years of age for the 1908/09 season.

Renton changed their name to Inverkeithing United when they stepped up to the junior level in 1912. Morgan was a key part of the side that would win the Scottish Junior Cup in 1912/13 as United beat Dunipace Juniors 1-0 in front of a crowd of 9,564 at Firhill Stadium, home of Partick Thistle. Inverkeithing United was the first club from Fife to win the Junior Cup.

After catching the attention of Hull City scouts with his performance in the final, Doug moved South of the border in the 1913 close season. Morgan joined City under the management of highly-celebrated player turned manager Harry Chapman, who was in his first season at the helm after retiring from football in September 1912 following a fractured knee cap.

The younger brother of the legendary Huddersfield Town and Arsenal manager, Herbert Chapman, Harry Chapman, was renowned as one of the finest forwards of his generation. Morgan’s first game in black and amber came on the opening day of the 1913/14 Division Two campaign, as the Tigers drew 2-2 away at Blackpool.

In his first season at the club, Doug competed against Boldon Collier, South Tyneside native John ‘Jack’ McQuillan, for the permanent left-back role. McQuillan had been a regular in the City team since joining in 1906, but Morgan made the spot his own by mid-October 1914.

When the Scotsman became a permanent fixture in the team, the Tigers were ninth in the table. City proceeded to go on a nine-game unbeaten run between the 22nd of November 1913 and the 3rd of January 1914, climbing from eighth to first in the Second Division.

The run included a couple of notable wins: a 4-0 win away at Leicester Fosse and a 7-1 home demolition of Wolverhampton Wanderers, who were four-time FA Cup finalists and two-time winners. After the 2-1 win over Nottingham Forest on January 3rd, 1914, City won just four of their final 17 games in a miserable finish to a promising campaign, which would ultimately see them finish seventh.

McQuillan was favoured for much of the run-in as Morgan played just two of the final 12 games of the campaign. Doug made 25 appearances in all competitions in a solid first season in English football.

Morgan’s second season in East Yorkshire, 1914/15, was shrouded in controversy, with the decision not to suspend the football program, despite the outbreak of World War One just two months prior. Meetings were held in late August 1914 by the Football League, Southern League, and Football Association to discuss the difficult situation.

Doug Morgan (Third from left on front row) pictured v Huddersfield Town 1913.

Yet, the Football League and Southern League announced that the season would proceed as planned. However, it was recommended that the clubs provide basic military drills and shooting practice for the players. Harry Chapman resigned as the Tigers manager in the 1914 close season due to ill health, and was replaced by Fred Stringer in October 1914.

Stringer initially deployed Morgan as both a left-sided forward and full-back, and this versatility caused Doug to be overlooked in spells of the season in favour of specialist players. Morgan returned to the full-back role in March 1915 and played in the final 15 games of the season as the Tigers finished seventh for a second-successive season.

Notably, Morgan played in four of the Tigers’ five FA Cup matches on the way to reaching the fourth round before losing 4-2 away at Division One Bolton Wanderers. The standout result of the run came in the 1-0 first round win at Anlaby Road over six-time finalists and two-time winners West Bromwich Albion.

Morgan made 33 appearances in all competitions in the 1914/15 campaign, in what sadly, would turn out to be the Scotsman’s last in a Hull City shirt. Just weeks after the end of the season, both the Football League and Southern League announced they were to suspend their league programs for the duration of the war.

Doug Morgan joined the war effort as a Gunner in the 168th Siege Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery, where his unit first deployed to France in September 1916. Siege Batteries RGA were equipped with heavy howitzers, sending large calibre high explosive shells in a high trajectory.

However, on New Year’s Eve, 1916, Morgan was involved in a shell explosion in West Flanders and sadly died of his wounds in a field ambulance at 26 years of age. Doug was buried in Vlamertinghe Military Cemetery, in a borough in the city of Ypres, and the province of West Flanders, which holds 1,175 Commonwealth burials of the First World War.

Doug Morgan was one of five City players who fought in the Great War, but unlike three of his teammates who returned to play for the Tigers after the war, Doug never made it back to East Yorkshire.

We will remember them.