Jack Firth was born on 8 August 1907 in
Brightside, Sheffield; before settling in
Woodlands, where Firth attended the village school and captained its football team. Firth made his first-team debut for Birmingham on 29 October 1927, replacing the indisposed
Wally Harris as stand-in for
Johnny Crosbie at
inside right for the 3–1 defeat away to
Sheffield United, the team Firth supported as a boy. The
Sunday Mercury reporter wrote that he "revealed a great deal of footcraft, but he was too slow in parting with the ball and should have fed his partner oftener." He ended the season with six appearances, and made twice that number in
1928–29, six at inside forward and six at right half, in the last of which he broke a collarbone. He was a regular at right half the following season and for the first couple of months of the next, until dropped in favour of Cringan. Brought into the forward line to face
Grimsby Town with
Joe Bradford away on international duty with
England and
George Briggs and
George Hicks injured, and despite carrying an injury for much of the second half, Firth scored a
hat-trick in the last half-hour of the game to secure a 4–1 win. He regained a regular place in the side from mid-February onwards, scored in the
FA Cup sixth round
replay and played in the semi-final win against
Sunderland, but
Bob Gregg was preferred for the
1931 FA Cup Final, which Birmingham lost 2–1 to
West Bromwich Albion. He remained at the club for another two years, during which he made just 14 appearances, and was not
retained at the end of the
1932–33 season. Firth signed for
Swansea Town of the
Second Division in August 1933. He was a regular in their team for three seasons, mainly as an inside forward, and in his first season scored ten goals from 34 league appearances, a return that made him Swansea's second top scorer with only one fewer than
Syd Lowry's 11. and signed for
Bury, another Second Division club. His manager,
Norman Bullock, thought he would "prove a very good
utility player", but, apart from a run of five games at inside right in February 1937 that produced four goals, he rarely played. In addition to football, Firth played league
cricket in Yorkshire. Firth died in Doncaster on 8 December 1987 at the age of 80. ==Career statistics==