George Haywood (11 December 1906 – 25 January 1992) was an English professional footballer who played as a centre forward. He made 60 appearances and scored 23 goals in the Football League, playing for Birmingham, Chesterfield and Southport. Early life and career George Haywood was born on 11 December 1906 in Gelsmoor, Leicestershire. He was the son of Joseph Haywood, a coal miner, and his wife Lizzie, and was raised in nearby Coleorton. Haywood worked as a miner at Coleorton Colliery and New Lount Colliery, and played football for three seasons for his local club, Coleorton Bible Class of the Coalville Sunday Schools League. In April 1927, he was selected to represent that league against their Leicester counterparts, and he joined Whitwick Imperial of the Leicestershire Senior League ahead of the coming season. He had trials with several higher-level clubs, including Leicester City, Southend United, for whose reserves he scored twice against Watford in a London Combination match and played against Leicester City in the same competition; Chesterfield, and Loughborough Corinthians, for whom he played once in the Midland League but did not turn up for his second outing. Haywood remained with Whitwick until April 1928, when he signed for Birmingham Combination club Gresley Rovers. He scored twice on debut, in a 4–0 win against Tamworth Castle, and took his league totals to 11 goals from 20 matches by the end of November. Birmingham After a trial in which he and Gresley team-mate Tommy Robinson played for Birmingham's Combination side, both signed professional forms for the Football League First Division club in January 1929. It was a year until he made his first-team debut: having been until then restricted to third-team football, he stood in for the injured Joe BradfordEngland international and, , the club's all-time top scorerfor the visit of league-leaders Manchester City on 7 December 1929. Despite the misgivings of some, he produced what the Evening Despatch "Look round the world of sport" column dubbed "a display which would not have discredited players of far greater experience and bigger reputations", scored twice in a 3–0 win, and "proved to be a tenacious player, who never gave up until the ball was finally cleared, and, above all, a young man who had a very clear conception of the whereabouts of the goal." He played seven games before Bradford regained fitness and his place, and another five alongside him later