Welsh goalkeeper Leigh Richmond Roose, from a contemporary cigarette card. |
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Leigh Richmond Roose | ||
| Date of birth | 27 November 1877 | ||
| Place of birth | Holt, Wales | ||
| Date of death | 7 October 1916 (aged 38) | ||
| Place of death | Western Front, France | ||
| Height | 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) | ||
| Playing position | Goalkeeper | ||
| Youth career | |||
| UCW Aberystwyth | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1895–1900 | Aberystwyth Town | (0) | |
| 1900 | Druids | 0 | (0) |
| 1900–1901 | London Welsh | 0 | (0) |
| 1901–1904 | Stoke City | 81 | (0) |
| 1904–1905 | Everton | 18 | (0) |
| 1905–1907 | Stoke City | 66 | (0) |
| 1908–1910 | Sunderland | 91 | (0) |
| 1910 | Celtic | 0 | (0) |
| 1910 | Port Vale | 0 | (0) |
| 1910–1911 | Huddersfield Town | 5 | (0) |
| 1911 | Aston Villa | 10 | (0) |
| 1911–1912 | Woolwich Arsenal | 13 | (0) |
| Aberystwyth Town | (0) | ||
| Llandudno Town | (0) | ||
| Total | 284 | (0) | |
| National team | |||
| 1900–1911 | Wales | 24 | (0) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals). |
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Leigh Richmond "Dick" Roose, MM, (27 November 1877 – 7 October 1916) was a Welsh international footballer who kept goal for a number of professional clubs in the Football League between 1901 and 1912. A celebrated amateur at a time when the game was played largely by professionals, Roose was renowned as one of the best players in his position in the Edwardian period. He was also well-known as a footballing eccentric, and many stories about him are still told today.
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Roose was born in Holt, near Wrexham in North Wales, at a time when association football was principally confined to the north of the principality. The son of a Presbyterian minister named Richmond Leigh Roose, he was educated at Holt Academy – where in the course of one violent football match, Roose's brother Edward kicked H.G. Wells, then a teacher at the school, so hard in the back that he ruptured the future novelist's kidney and left him incapacitated for several weeks – and subsequently at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (1895–1899).
After graduating from Aberystwyth, Roose studied medicine for a short period at King's College London. Although accounts of Roose often refer to him as a doctor of bacteriology, he never qualified as a doctor.
Standing 6–ft 1 in and weighing over 13 stone, Roose was well qualified to play in goal, a specialised position that was, in the Edwardian era, particularly physically challenging.
He began his footballing career with Aberystwyth Town, playing for the club on 58 occasions. His debut came in a 6–0 win over the Shropshire team Whitchurch in October 1895, and he was carried from the pitch shoulder-high following the team's 3–0 victory over Druids in the Welsh Cup final of 1900. It was during this phase of his career that Roose was seen playing by the eminent Welsh historian Thomas Richards, who would later refer to him as Yr Ercwlff synfawr hwn ("This wondrous Hercules").
Signed by Stoke City, Roose made 147 league appearances for the Staffordshire club from 1901–1904 and 1905–1906 — the latter spell, consisting of only three games, being terminated by a broken wrist. Roose kept 40 clean sheets (that is, did not concede a goal) during his Stoke career, a remarkable record not least because his team flirted dangerously with relegation in 1901, 1902 and 1904.
'Mond Roose punctuated his two spells at Stoke with 24 appearances for Everton, whom he helped reach the semi-final of the FA Cup in 1905. He arrived part way through the 1904–05 season and replaced the Irish goalkeeper Billy Scott, who had conceded 17 goals in the first 12 games of the season. Roose kept 8 clean sheets for Everton, a record proportionately better even than that he had set at Stoke.
After leaving Everton, Roose went on to play in 91 league matches and seven cup games for Sunderland between 1907 and 1910, helping the club to finish second in the league on two occasions, and "almost single-handedly" saving the team from relegation on a third. When his Sunderland career was terminated by a second broken wrist, there was some call for Roose's services to be recognised with a testimonial. Since the player's amateur status forbade this, an illuminated address was presented instead.
In the course of his career, Roose also turned out for Port Vale and Celtic (both 1910). He played one game for Celtic, and it was a Scottish Cup semi-final in which Celtic lost 1-3 to Clyde on March 12 1910. He made his mark on this game by running after the goalscorer of one of the Clyde goals and shaking his hand! Other clubs he represented on at least one occasion included Druids, Huddersfield Town (1910–1911), Aston Villa (1911) and Woolwich Arsenal (1911–1912).
Roose retained his amateur status throughout his club career, but charged his clubs handsomely for his expenses.
Roose's international career began in 1900, when he played for Wales in a 2–0 defeat of Ireland. He won a total of 24 caps, turning out for his last international game against Scotland in March 1911. He was one of Wales's key players when the team won the British Home Championship for the first time in 1907. Since Wales did not play their first international match against an opponent from outside the home nations until 1933, all of Roose's games were played against England, Scotland or Ireland.
Roose has been described by the Dictionary of Welsh Biography as a man who "had been thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals of his art, and gave interpretation to them in the style and manner of a man of genius". This opinion was shared by the long-serving Secretary of the Football Association, Sir Frederick Wall, who thought that Roose – "such a sensation as a goalkeeper" – was "a clever man [who] had what is sometimes described as the eccentricity of genius. His daring was seen in the goal, where he was often taking risks and emerging triumphant."
More, perhaps, than any 'keeper of his time other than Foulke, Roose possessed the size and strength to meet the robust strikers of the period on equal terms. His considerable physical presence has been compared to that of the modern Danish 'keeper Peter Schmeichel, and according to one biographer, the Welshman "enjoyed taunting experienced international forwards, some of whom felt the full force of his fist in goalmouth melees."
The Athletic Times described Roose as "dexterous though daring, valiant though volatile". Spectators, observes the DWB, "could only gaze in wonder at his prehensile grip, the immense power of his punch, and the prodigious length of his goal kicks; they could only guess at the uncanny intuition by which he divined the aims of his opponents, the swift agile mind that worked behind the small, narrow eyes." Geraint Jenkins, an Aberystwyth historian who wrote a brief biographical sketch of the goalkeeper in 2000, adds that Roose boasted "sharp eyesight, startling reflexes, competitive instinct and reckless bravery", and was altogether "an extraordinarily daunting opponent".
If contemporary accounts are reliable, Jenkins continues, "the save which Roose made while representing Aberystwyth against Builth in the Leominster Cup in 1897 was at least equal to that made by Gordon Banks against Pelé at Guadalajara in the 1970 FIFA World Cup."
'Mond Roose played in a daring style, often – at a time when other goalkeepers rarely strayed more than a few yards from their goals – rushing out of his penalty area to fill the position left by an errant full back. In his first international, he sprinted from his area and shoulder-charged an opposing Irish winger on the far touchline, bundling him out of play and knocking him unconscious. He also took full advantage of the rules of the day, which allowed the goalkeeper to handle the ball anywhere in his own half. It has been said that the 1912 alteration to the laws of the game, forbidding the goalkeeper to handle outside his penalty area, was directly due to the performances of Roose, who enjoyed taking part in attacks.
At his best, the Welshman was also a superb if unorthodox shot-stopper, once saving a full blooded drive from only six yards out by clamping the ball between his knees. He was extremely athletic and was reputed, by the football spectators of the day, to have the mysterious ability to change his direction while diving full length.
Roose was a famous saver of penalties. Thomas Richards (1878–1962), the renowned Welsh authority on seventeenth century Puritanism, gave an account of a save he had seen Roose execute for Aberystwyth against Glossop North End, a professional team from the Midlands League, in an FA Cup match. "One of the full backs," Richards wrote in Gwr o Athrylith (Man of Genius), his profile of Roose,
Physical size and agility have, nonetheless, never been sufficient, on their own, to qualify a goalkeeper for greatness, and Jimmy Ashcroft, the Woolwich Arsenal goalkeeper, contributed an appreciation of Roose which singled him out for his bravery in diving at the feet of onrushing forwards:
For all this, Roose's popularity as a goalkeeper was based only in part on his abilities; he was also one of the great crowd-pleasers of the Edwardian period. Supporters recall him putting on gymnastic displays from his crossbar when play was safely at the other end of the pitch. At a time when other goalkeepers walked onto the pitch at the beginning of a game, Roose was also unusual in running on briskly, acknowledging the applause of the crowd. When a penalty was awarded, he frequently waved to spectators both before and after completing a save.
Roose generally carried a pair of white gloves onto the pitch but preferred, in good weather, to play with bare hands. He was regarded as unusual in insisting on playing in padded knee-bandages and a twin-peak cap.
Leigh Richmond Roose was an early example of the familiar adage that "goalkeepers are different", a point he made himself in an article on goalkeeping contributed to the four-volume 1906 work Association Football and the Men Who Made It. "There is a proverb," he wrote, "which says, 'Before you go to war, say a prayer; before going to sea say two prayers; before marrying say three prayers.' One might add: 'Before deciding to become a goalkeeper say four prayers.' He's the Aunt Sally."
Considering the goalkeeping ideal, Roose added elsewhere in the same article:
"To a goalkeeper alone," Roose concluded, "is the true delight of goalkeeping known. He must be an instinctive lover of the game, otherwise goalkeeping will take it out of a man if he is not devoted to it."
Tales of Roose's eccentricities appeared frequently in newspapers and books published during his career. Some have been picked up by later writers and repeated many times, particularly in books concerning goalkeeping. A good deal of further research would be necessary to verify the truth of some of the stories, but the following were commonly told while Roose himself was still alive.
Roose enjoyed to the full the acclaim that his sporting exploits brought him. Contemporaries at Aberystwyth testified to his popularity with both men and women at the college, and in London, in 1905, he was acclaimed by the Daily Mail as one of the capital's most eligible bachelors – second, the newspaper suggested, only to the cricketer Jack Hobbs. When the Daily Mail invited nominations for a World XI to face another planet, Roose was selected as the World team's goalkeeper by a large majority.
Much of Roose's popularity stemmed from his extrovert character. He led – according to his nephew, Dr Cecil Jenkins – an extremely glamorous life, keeping an apartment in the centre of the capital and buying his suits on Savile Row.
"The first thing I remember," the 101-year-old Jenkins told an interviewer,
One newspaper voted Roose among the 10 most recognisable faces in the London of this period, and he enjoyed relationships with several women, among them the great music hall star Marie Lloyd.
For all this, Leigh Roose was prone to displays of bad temper throughout his club career, and once assaulted one of the Sunderland directors, beating him so badly that the Football Association banned him for 14 days. The early sportswriter "Tityrus" (the pen-name of JAH Catton, editor of the Athletic News) recorded that during the half-time interval in Wales's heavy 1908 defeat by England, Roose – who had been injured by an opposition forward – "had an unpleasant conversation with the England selectors, who thought that the speech of the goalkeeper was not such as might be expected from a gentleman."
Although well above the age of the average recruit, Roose joined the British Army as a private of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in 1916 and served in the First World War on the Western Front, where his goalkeeping abilities resulted in his becoming a noted grenade thrower.
He was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery on the first occasion he saw action, the regimental history recording:
His award was gazetted on 21 September 1916.
Promoted to the rank of lance corporal, Roose was killed, aged 38, towards the end of the Battle of the Somme. The exact location and manner of his death remain a matter of dispute.
His body was not recovered, and his name appears (spelled incorrectly) on the war memorial to missing soldiers at Thiepval.
| Club | Season | League | FA Cup | Total | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| Stoke | 1901–02 | 24 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 28 | 0 |
| 1902–03 | 25 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 28 | 0 | |
| 1903–04 | 32 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 33 | 0 | |
| Everton | 1904–05 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 0 |
| Stoke | 1905–06 | 33 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 35 | 0 |
| 1906–07 | 30 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 32 | 0 | |
| 1907–08 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | |
| Sunderland | 1907–08 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 0 |
| 1908–09 | 35 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 39 | 0 | |
| 1909–10 | 30 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 33 | 0 | |
| 1910–11 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0 | |
| Huddersfield Town | 1910–11 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| Aston Villa | 1911–12 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| Woolwich Arsenal | 1911–12 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 0 |
| Career Total | 284 | 0 | 19 | 0 | 303 | 0 | |