As per this posting on the Leicester City FC website, Dave Halliday has been nominated for the Scottish Football Hall of Fame. All ten of the now senior clubs Halliday served as player and / or manager have been in communication regarding his nomination. All ten clubs formally support this and were included in the proposal of his induction:-
* Aberdeen
* Arsenal
* Dundee
* Leicester City
* Leyton Orient (named Clapton Orient when Halliday played)
* Manchester City
* Queen of the South
* St Mirren
* Sunderland
* Yeovil Town (named Yeovil and Petters United when Halliday was player / manager)
Despite football achievements that rank him very highly both at national and world level, he remains a relatively unheralded figure. That is largely due to the Scottish national team selectors sticking with Hughie Gallacher who averaged better than a goal per game for Scotland. Hence Halliday was never given a senior Scottish cap. This is despite Halliday’s prolific club goalscoring which in particular in four seasons at Sunderland was nothing less than astonishing. A lengthy biography of the Dumfries born football great is already featured on qosfc.com. To summarise his very considerable distinctions and achievements in football including at global level:-
Queen of the South:
* 13 goals in 19 appearances at left wing in Queen’s first season in existence pre Queen’s entry to the Scottish League.
St Mirren:
* 2 goals in 13 appearances in the Scottish First Division.
Dundee:
* Moved to centre forward scoring 101 goals in 147 senior games including 90 league goals.
* Top Scottish League goalscorer, 1923/24 with 38 goals from 36 games.
* Top scorer for Dundee in their run to the 1924/25 Scottish Cup Final eliminating the holders en route (the very formidable Airdrieonians team of Gallacher, McPhail and Russell)
* Capped for the Scottish League v English League in the 1924, 1-1 draw.
Sunderland:
* Fastest player in history at any club to 100 top division goals in England (101 games).
* Only player in history at any club to score at least 30 First Division goals in England in four consecutive seasons. Halliday actually scored at least 35 league goals in each of those four season.
* Outright First Division top scorer in England in 1928/29 with 43 goals. This makes him the most recent of only two players to have been outright top scorer in the top divisions of both Scotland and England.
* Halliday’s lowest full season tally of 35 league goals is better than anyone else has ever achieved at Sunderland. i.e. he occupies all four of the season by season top scorer slots at Sunderland
* 165 goals from 175 competitive competitive games for Sunderland (all scored in his first 168 games there). This tally includes 156 league goals of which only one was a penalty.
Arsenal:
* Eight goals from 15 league appearances including four in one game v Leicester City (ironically his last Arsenal first team game despite being on six goals from his last four games at that point).
Manchester City:
* Club top scorer in 1931/32 with 32 league and FA Cup goals and top scoring for City en route to that season’s FA Cup semi-final.
* 51 goals from 82 competitive games including 47 league goals.
* Added to previous goals, this makes Halliday one of only 27 players to score at least 200 First Division goals in England so far. Halliday’s 211 First Division goals in England currently place him 19th in that goal chart (higher than e.g. Denis Law who scored 201 top flight goals in England). Halliday’s 0.82 goals per First Division game in England is second only to Bill ‘Dixie’ Dean’s 0.86 goals per game of those 27 players.
* Halliday was 54th on the 2008 updated IFFHS world list of all-time top division goalscorers (at least four players have since surpassed Halliday’s 303 top flight goals including Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi). Halliday is thus likely now positioned somewhere around 58th of all time in the world.
Leyton Orient:
* Top scorer for the club in the league in his first season with 19 goals from 21 games. This is despite arriving in December.
* Top scorer for the club in his second season with 17 goals from 34 games.
* 36 goals from 56 competitive first team games including 33 league goals from 53 league games.
* This added to his previous achievements make him the 10th in the list of footballers in England and Scotland by number of league goals with 336 goals and gives him a tally of 365 goals from 488 competitive games at then senior clubs.
Yeovil and Petters United (Player / Manager):
* Top scorer in each of his first two seasons there with 22 and 47 goals respectively.
* Managed then non-league Yeovil to the 3rd round of the FA Cup v Manchester United after defeating Ipswich Town and Gainsborough Trinity.
* Three goals in the FA Cup proper for Yeovil to give him a total of 368 senior competitive goals (this excludes goals scored playing in non-senior competitions).
Aberdeen (Manager):
* First Manager to lift a senior trophy with Aberdeen (1946/47 Scottish FA Cup).
* First Manager to take Aberdeen to the Scottish title (1954/55), only since achieved by Alex Ferguson.
* In 1945/46 won the forerunner of what formally became the Scottish League Cup the season after
Leicester City:
* In 1956/57 Halliday’s team won the 2nd Division title with 7 points to spare (two points for a win). New club records (since beaten) were set, with most wins (25), most away wins (11), fewest defeats (6), most points (61) and most goals (109). Arthur Rowley scored a club record 44 goals in 42 games.
* This marked the beginning of Leicester’s longest period in the top flight (12 seasons).
* Kept Leicester in the top flight the season after at the expense of ex-club Sunderland.
* Signed the young Frank McLintock (Scottish Football Hall of Famer), one of Leicester’s greatest ever players.
Announcement of this years’ Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees is expected in the Autumn.