12 Facts About Tommy Ball

Thomas Edgar Ball was an English footballer who played at centre-half for Aston Villa.

Tommy Ball was shot dead by his landlord and neighbour, ex-policeman George Stagg, thus becoming the first and to-date only active Football League player in England to have been murdered.

Tommy Ball was born in Chester-le-Street, County Durham in North-east England, and was brought up in nearby Usworth.

Tommy Ball played football for his school, winning a medal as a ten-year-old.

Tommy Ball made no first-team appearances for Newcastle before moving to the West Midlands to join Aston Villa of the Football League First Division in January 1920, where he was seen as cover for Frank Barson.

In May 1922, Tommy Ball married Beatrice Richards, the daughter of a local pork butcher and pie maker.

Tommy Ball ran out into the garden where she saw her husband "in a very distressed state, reeling towards her".

Tommy Ball was buried in St John's churchyard in an ornate grave decorated with footballs.

Tommy Ball claimed that he had fired the gun in order to frighten Ball and that Ball was shot as he attempted to grab the gun.

Stagg continued to claim that the killing was an accident and that he first fired the gun when Tommy Ball started to climb over the gate following an argument.

Stagg claimed that Tommy Ball had threatened to attack Mrs Stagg who was watching from a first-floor window: "I will come up and dash your brains out" and that Beatrice Tommy Ball had later said "He would not have hurt Mrs Stagg, although he kicks me about".

Tommy Ball eventually died in a Birmingham mental hospital in February 1966, aged 87.