Leeds United Nostalgia: Arch General’s debut hat-trick against the Hammers whips up United fans’ fervour

Having served in the Royal Field Artillery during the First World War, Whipp’s first professional club was Ton Pentre, in the Welsh league and, from there, he joined Second Division outfit Clapton Orient, where he made 20 league appearances and scored eight goals.

In June 1922, Whipp signed for Sunderland where made only one appearance, against Bolton Wanderers, having found his path to the first team blocked by the Roker Park legend, Charlie Buchan.

The signing of Whipp ensured that Leeds United featured heavily in the sports pages for the second day running.

However, the focus the previous day had been on a filly, bought for 200 guineas by a Leeds-based solicitor, Arthur Willey, and named after the football club, which ran in and won the Mill Maiden plate by two lengths, at odds of 6/1, in the 1:30 at Windsor racecourse.

When interviewed by local media following his move, Whipp confessed that he had never visited Leeds before and had no idea what the Elland Road ground looked like.

He claimed the whole experience would seem a little strange to start with. United would end the 1922-3 season in a respectable seventh place in the Second Division but early-season form had been patchy. Ahead of the visit of West Ham United on November 4, Leeds were unbeaten at home but had scored once in the previous four games and had picked up two points in a goalless draws against Clapton Orient and Leicester City, both at Elland Road.

Having played just 90 minutes of first-team football since the start of the season, it was a surprise that Whipp had been handed his debut against the Hammers.

However, despite his claims, the new signing made little fuss of settling in to his new surroundings and he became an instant favourite with the Leeds United supporters. Leeds should have been a goal down in the opening minute but West Ham’s Billy Moore fluffed a glorious opportunity and play was end to end until Whipp opened the scoring with a neat finish from 15 yards after 32 minutes.

The visitors were level a minute before half-time when Jimmy Ruffell, looking suspiciously offside, centered for Moore who atoned for his earlier miss and equalised.

After the interval, West Ham barely laid a glove on Leeds and it was left to the debutant to take centre stage. He restored the advantage with a superb header from Joe Harris’ corner after 70 minutes and, when Tommy Hodgson was penalised for handball in the area with just five minutes remaining, Whipp stepped up to fire the penalty into the net to crown a glorious debut with a hat-trick.

Percy Whipp was dubbed the ‘Arch General’ by the Leeds fans and he stayed at Elland Road until June 23, 1927.

He had been placed on the transfer list at the end of the 1926-27 season and rejoined Clapton Orient. In total, he played 154 times for Leeds and scored 47 goals.

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