Education
Born in Bilston, Staffordshire, Shorthouse attended Street Martin"s School in nearby Bradley before serving in the Second World War, where he was wounded in the arm during the Normandy Landings.
Born in Bilston, Staffordshire, Shorthouse attended Street Martin"s School in nearby Bradley before serving in the Second World War, where he was wounded in the arm during the Normandy Landings.
He returned and recovered to sign for Wolves as an apprentice in 1945. His league debut came on 23 August 1947 in a 3–4 defeat at Manchester City. He played as a defender, first at centre-half until replaced by Billy Wright, then at full-back.
The defender remained a first choice player at Molineux until retiring in late 1956.
In total, he played 376 senior games for the club – putting him among the club"s top 20 appearance makers – before launching a career in coaching. Shorthouse went on to coach at Birmingham City, and he and chief scout Don Dorman acted as caretaker managers at the end of the 1969-1970 season while the club sought a replacement after Stan Cullis, Shorthouse"s former manager at Wolves, retired.
He also briefly coached the England Youth Team during the following season and later worked as a youth team coach at Aston Villa, guiding them to victory in the 1980 FA Youth Cup. Known as "The Baron" to his team-mates, he died in a Wolverhampton nursing home on 6 September 2008 at the age of 86.
He had been suffering from dementia.