[Lord Snooty]

October 7:

On this date in 1916, ex Town goalkeeper Leigh Richmond Roose was killed on the 99th day of the Battle of the Somme.

Leigh only played 5 games for us, all in 1911. One of them was our record victory at the time, a 7-1 win at Leeds Road against Birmingham. Before that, he had had two spells as Stoke's goalkeeper and was widely regarded as the most famous footballer at the turn of the Edwardian era. He was an amateur, in a time when most footballers were professional, but was widely regarded as the best goalkeeper around. He was also football's first ever celebrity, the George Best or David Beckham of his generation. A real coup for a team in the 2nd Division, in it's first season in the Football League.

In a game much different to today's, keepers were allowed to elbow opposing forwards and vice versa keepers being bundled into the back of the net whilst holding the ball was all well within the laws of the game. They were also allowed to handle the ball anywhere in their own half, a rule which Roose used to dribble the ball, basketball style out of his area all the way to the halfway line to set up the attacks. All within the rules, but nobody else was ever brave enough to do the same, which was one of the things that made him a crowd puller.

He was born in 1877, the son of the local Presbyterian Minister in Holt near Wrexham and was taught at school by the novelist HG Wells among others at a school that preferred football to rugby. After school he went to the University of Aberystwyth and studied medicine. He joined the university footy team and became a bit of a celebrity with his ability to punch the ball further than most could kick it and his interactions with the crowd, which were unheard of back then. He was signed on by Aberystwyth Town and then earned his first call up to the Welsh national team in 1900.

He wanted to be a doctor though and left Wales for London and a place at King’s College Hospital, joining London Welsh FC to keep his hand in. His name as a keeper though was getting around and when Stoke approached him, he agreed to join them, with them paying all his expenses, meaning he was a professional in all but name.

The people of Stoke had never seen owt like it. He entertained them by swinging on the crossbar and would interact with them during play. He also used to do the old jelly legs when facing penalties, but most of all, results on the pitch improved. He was so popular that fans would follow his hansom cab all the way from the station to the Victoria Ground when he traveled up from London for games.

Things weren't going well for Stoke off the pitch though and his extravagant expenses were a bit too much for the board of directors and they reneged on the deal, which saw him return to London and announce his retirement from the game at the age of 26. In London he got his Bachelor of Medicine and continued to live the London playboy life, but missed the footballing life and when Everton approached him in 1904, he was back. The Toffees were in contention for a league and cup double but ended up runners up in the league and lost in the cup semis.

In 1906, Mitchell & Kenyon filmed a Wales v Ireland match in the British Championships, in which Leigh played in goal for the home side at Wrexham. This is the only surviving film of him in action.....

After a half season on Merseyside, Leigh returned for a second spell at Stoke. He received a 14 day ban for beating up and hospitalising a Sunderland director, who had been taunting him and his Stoke team mates at a post match meal. Fourteen days? He would be imprisoned and banned for life if he did that now!

Despite this, his next move was actually up to Sunderland. I don't know if that mocking director was still there or not. His time at Roker Park was relatively successful, as in, he helped them avoid relegation. But more than anything for the Sunderland fans, he played in the team that won away at Newcastle in a league game in 1908. Not just a win, but a 9-1 win, a record victory for them and a record defeat for Newcastle. Both records still stand today.

His antics were getting crazy now, including one instance where he climbed onto the crossbar when facing a corner and his name would appear in the gossip columns when he started a relationship with music hall star Marie Lloyd.

He was the Welsh number 1 and helped his country win the British Championships for the first time in 1907. He won a total of 24 caps for Wales, but a broken wrist kept him out injured for a while. He was still at Sunderland when he got injured and while he was recovering, being an amateur, he was eligible to play for other teams.

He had one game up in Scotland for Celtic as a guest player. It was a Scottish Cup semi final against Clyde and his eccentricities were on show again as he chased the Clyde goal scorer to the halfway line, just to congratulate him. Celtic lost the match and he wasn't invited back after he had a blazing row with their fans afterwards.

So he went back to the calmer waters of the Potteries and played for Stoke's rivals Port Vale. He played against Stoke when Vale beat them 2-0 in a Staffordshire Cup Final, a game in which Vale also had Herbert Chapman playing as a guest. Leigh had been winding the Stoke fans up all the game, still annoyed that the club had gone back on his expenses deal a few years ago. The Stoke fans invaded the pitch after his winding up went a bit too far for them and poor ole Leigh ran out of the ground (the Port Vale ground wasn't a proper stadium back then) and he jumped into the river to escape.

He moved to the West Riding of Yorkshire and played those five games for Huddersfield Town in what was our first season in the Football League, whilst still on the books of Sunderland. They were the final five games of the season and after draws against Lincoln City and away at Hull, we beat Chelsea 3-1, then that 7-1 win against Birmingham before finishing the season with a 1-0 defeat at West Brom. The crowd for that Chelsea game at Leeds Road was treble the average attendance, like I said, he was a crowd puller.

Typical Town though, they cocked it all up. Having one of the great entertainers of the time in the team, a misunderstanding with chairman John Hilton Crowther led to Leigh eventually signing for Aston Villa in the summer of 1911, when he should've been staying with us. It turned out that Crowther hadn't met Leigh's expenses, which like in his Stoke days, were rather extravagant.

After an unhappy time with Villa, he signed for Woolwich Arsenal and then retired soon afterwards in 1912. The FA had by now changed the rules on keepers handling the ball outside the area, which was definitely down to curbing the antics of a certain Mr Roose, another thing which made him decide to retire.

During the next couple of years, Leigh set about trying to get the money he was owed from Huddersfield Town, claiming we owed him £2,000. He pursued Crowther and even Mrs Crowther, sending derogatory postcards in what would now be called trolling. This all came to a head in court in 1914. Leigh claiming his expenses money and Crowther counter claiming with a case of libel.

By now though the war had broke out and LR Roose served with the YMCA in association with the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in Gallipoli. While he was away, the court case was heard in his absence and without him having any representation. And so Huddersfield Town became the villain in the piece, winning the case unanswered. They would've been the villain had it ever got reported. The newspapers were full of other quite important news going on.

Leigh was then listed as dead due to an administrative cock up as he had been wrongly recorded as LR Rouse by some Captain Darling style clerk, no doubt jealous of this handsome, popular sportsman in his regiment. His family though had been told he was dead and so knew nothing about the final chapter of his life.

After Gallipoli he joined the Royal Fusiliers and went off to France where he became a father figure to his much younger comrades. He used his goalkeeping skills and in particular his strong throwing arm to rain grenades down on the enemy and he was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry.

Sadly though, just a few days later, he and most of his regiment, the 9th Royal Fusiliers, were killed on the 99th day of the Battle of the Somme on this day in 1916, near the village of Gueudecourt. His body was never found and he was 38 years old.

In 1919, Leigh's sister met one of his old team mates at a rugby match. She was telling him how he had disappeared, believed dead in Gallipoli. However, the old comrade told her that he hadn't died there and that he had played cricket with him in Egypt some weeks after the retreat.

Due to the spelling mistake, the Royal Fusiliers told her that no such person of that name had ever joined up and that her information was incorrect.

That administrative cock up meant that he was also listed as LR Rouse on the Thiepval Memorial monument in northern France and the truth would remain uncovered for 87 years until a Welsh football historian discovered the mistake. That spelling error was eventually corrected and then in 2016, 100 years after his death, a plaque was unveiled at Wrexham's ground, his local club but one he never played for, to celebrate his life.

There's a book written about him as well, from 2016, if you want to read more. there's a few still available on Amazon.

On this date in 1974, we had the second replay of our League Cup second round match against Leeds United. After a 1-1 draw at Leeds Road and another 1-1 draw at Bellend Road, we met up again on the Monday night of the scheduled third round matches. The winners of this tie, will get the pleasure of traveling to Gigg Lane to play Bury on the Wednesday night.

We couldn't play Leeds last week, because the so called Champions of Europe were actually playing in the European Cup. And losing away at FC Zurich (but won on aggregate).

Town made two changes from the last game with Steve Smith dropping to the bench and Billy McGinley starting. Graeme McGifford took the place of Geoff Hutt in defence.

Now this game for me, was a bit of an experience. My dad had stopped going. I was 14 by now and had started going to games with a mate from school. He couldn't go, so I went with some other mates, who were Leeds fans. Living in Batley at the time, most people I knew were actual BellEnders.

We stood in the Kop with all the neanderthals and I never dared speak never mind cheer when McGinley scored for Town.

Everybody around us was bawling; "You're gonna get your f***ing heads kicked in!"

Mick Bates and Peter Lorimer scored for Leeds though and we lost 2-1. They went to Bury and won later in the week. But not all bad news. That led to them playing Fourth Division Chester City in the fourth round, which became one of the famously embarrassing results for them, losing 3-0 away at Sealand Road, in a match that has been described as the biggest shock in League Cup history.

BellEnders