Bryn Jones (footballer)
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| Bryn Jones | ||
| Personal information | ||
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Brynmore Jones | |
| Date of birth | 14 February 1912 | |
| Place of birth | Merthyr Tydfil, Wales | |
| Date of death | October 1985 | |
| Height | 5' 6" | |
| Playing position | Inside-forward | |
| Youth clubs | ||
| Merthyr Amateurs Glenavon Aberaman Athletic |
||
| Senior clubs1 | ||
| Years | Club | App (Gls)* |
| 1933-38 1938-49 1949-51 |
Wolves Arsenal Norwich City |
163 (?) 71 (7) ? (?) |
| National team | ||
| 1935-48 | Wales | 17 (?) |
|
1 Senior club appearances and goals |
||
Bryn Jones (14 February 1912 – October 1985) was a Welsh professional footballer.
Born in Penyard near Merthyr Tydfil, Jones was part of a famous footballing family; he was one of five brothers to play professional football, along with William, Ivor, Emlyn and Bert. In addition his nephews, Cliff, Bryn Jr. and Ken were also professional footballers.
He played for a variety of clubs as a youth, including Merthyr Amateurs, Glenavon and Aberaman Athletic, before signing for Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1933. He made his debut for Wolves against Everton at Goodison Park. In five years for Wolves, he played 163 times and helped the team to runners-up spot in the 1937-38 season, in which he scored 17 goals.
During his time at Wolves Jones also won the first of his 17 caps for Wales, against Northern Ireland in 1935. His international career lasted between 1935 and 1948, as well as a further eight wartime internationals, the highlight being a 2-1 win over England in 1936 at Molineux.
Jones' exploits for Wolves earned the attention of George Allison's Arsenal, who were struggling in the wake of Alex James' 1937 retirement to find a suitable replacement. Arsenal paid a then world record fee of £14,000 to take him to Highbury, exceeding the previous record (the £10,890 Arsenal had spent on David Jack ten years earlier) by over £3,000. The enormous fee (for the time), coupled with the ongoing Great Depression, led to questions about its appropriateness being asked in the House of Commons.
Jones got off to a dream start for Arsenal, scoring on his debut against Portsmouth on August 27, 1938, and scored twice in the next three matches. However, his goalscoring soon dried up (he only scored four goals in total through the entire 1938-39 season), and Arsenal did not win anything that season; much blame in the press at the time was laid at Jones' feet for not adequately succeeding Alex James, while Jones himself, unused to the light of publicity, was unable to cope as well as other Arsenal players had in the past. Bernard Joy, a team-mate of his and later a sportswriter, wrote in his history Forward Arsenal!:
| “ | Do we write Bryn Jones down as a gamble that failed, or would he have been a success eventually? The outbreak of war in September 1939 prevented us from ever finding the complete answer. There were signs before then that, as James had done, he was weathering the bad patch which always seems to follow a change of style from an attacking to a foraging inside-forward. [...] My own view, however, is that Jones's modesty was the barrier to achieving the key role Arsenal had intended for him. He could not [...] regard the spotlight as a challenge to produce his best; all the time it irked him, making him self-conscious and uneasy. | ” |
Jones served with the Royal Artillery in Italy and North Africa during the Second World War, while still playing wartime games for Arsenal and Wales. Despite being 34 when league football resumed in 1946-47, Jones still played 26 matches that season. However he was dropped for Jimmy Logie the following season (1947-48), in which Arsenal won the First Division Championship; Jones only played seven league matches and did not qualify for a medal.
Jones played (and scored) in Arsenal's 1948 Charity Shield match against Manchester United but was still only a bit-part player in 1948-49. He left Arsenal to become player-coach at Norwich City in 1949; In all he played 76 matches for Arsenal, scoring 8 goals.
After two seasons at Norwich he retired, on doctors' advice because of a chest problem. He did not pursue a full-time coaching career after retirement, instead opening and running a newsagents near Arsenal's Highbury ground. He died in 1985, aged 73.
[edit] References
- Harris, Jeff & Hogg, Tony (ed.) (1995). Arsenal Who's Who. Independent UK Sports. ISBN 1-899429-03-4.
- Joy, Bernard (1952). Forward Arsenal!. Phoenix House.
