Arthur Holt

Arthur George Holt (8 April 1911 — 28 July 1994) was an English sportsman of the 1930s and 1940s. He played professional football for Southampton as an inside-forward, making 206 appearances and scoring 46 goals. As a cricketer, he played first-class cricket for Hampshire, making 79 appearances and scoring nearly 3,000 runs. After retirement from playing both sports, he became a coach with Hampshire from 1949 to 1965, coaching the county to its first County Championship title in 1961. He was also the proprietor of a successful sports shop in Southampton.

Football career Holt was born in Southampton in April 1911. He represented Southampton Schoolboys, before turning out for Bitterne Congregational in the Church League. Moving to Totton in the Hampshire League he came to the notice of Southampton, whom he joined in September 1931 as an amateur, before signing as a professional in October 1932.

He was "a punchy, enterprising player" and was "reputed to be one of the hardest kickers of a dead ball in the Football League". Over the next few seasons he remained a stalwart in the forward line as other players came and went as Saints struggled both on the pitch and financially. His best season was 1935–36 when, now supporting Vic Watson, he scored 13 goals (to Watson's 14). The 7–2 home win over Nottingham Forest on 15 February 1936 was the first time that two Southampton players had scored hat-tricks in the same match, with both Holt and Watson scoring hat-tricks, along with Dick Neal scoring a seventh in Southampton's first seven-goal haul in a Division Two match. A projected transfer to Bournemouth in the summer of 1939 fell through. Whilst playing for Cunliffe-Owen, he "discovered" Len Wilkins and recommended him to Southampton; Wilkins would become the mainstay of Southampton's defence until retiring in 1958. He made his debut in first-class cricket for Hampshire against Somerset at Taunton in the 1935 County Championship. He made seven appearances that season, scoring 174 runs. In the season that followed, he made just three first-class appearances.

His first game in the following season was against Leicestershire at Leicester, with Holt scoring his maiden first-class century, making 116 and partnering Neil McCorkell in an opening stand of 101. He played eight times for Hampshire in 1938, and in the season before the war, he made eleven appearances, all in the County Championship. During the war, he played a number of exhibition matches for, including for a British Empire XI in 1944. Following the war, he returned to play first-class cricket for Hampshire between 1946 and 1948, making an additional 34 appearances. With the post-war emergence of younger batsman such as Gilbert Dawson, Jimmy Gray, Leo Harrison, and Neville Rogers, Holt retired at the end of the 1948 season. During his sixteen years coaching Hampshire, he helped to guide the county to its first County Championship win in 1961. He was regarded as a fine coach of young cricketers, with Hampshire's youth team being known as "Holt's Colts" during his tenure as coach. He was succeeded as coach by Leo Harrison.

Arlott described Holt during his coaching tenure in his memoirs: "Go to the County Ground on any day in the cricket season – or, for that matter, on a good many days outside it – and somewhere between the indoor school and the pavilion you are likely to meet a comfortable, well-fed-looking man going in one direction when he obviously wants to go in several. He has a rosy face, a quizzical look in his blue eyes and one eyebrow goes up as he asks you wistfully, out of the side of his mouth, "ave you seen so-and-so?" This is 'The Coach'. Arthur Holt finds that title convenient: it saves him the embarrassment of telling ground staff boys that they must call him Mister Holt and not Arthur."

Later life and legacy In 1946, Holt established Holt & Haskell Limited, a sports retailers in Shirley, Southampton. The business operated until 2022, specialising in the sale of cricket clothing and equipment, and was one of the United Kingdom's leading cricket specialists.

In 2004, the Second XI pavilion on the Nursery Ground at Hampshire's new Rose Bowl ground was named The Arthur Holt Pavilion in his memory.