Jack Southworth

Jack Southworth
Personnel
Surname	John Southworth
birthday	December 11, 1866
place of birth	Blackburn ,  England
date of death	October 16, 1956
position	Center Forward
Juniors
Years	station
	Inkerman Rangers
	Brookhouse Perseverance
	Blackburn Olympic
	Higher Walton
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
	Chester FC
	Blackburn Olympic
1888-1893	Blackburn Rovers	108 (97)
1893-1894	Everton FC	31 (36)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals)
1889-1892	England	3 0(3)
1 Only league games are given.

John "Jack" Southworth (born December 11, 1866 in Blackburn , † October 16, 1956 ) was an English football player . In the early years of professional football, he was first used for the Blackburn Rovers and there was a two-time cup winner before he later acted for Everton FC . The center forward was the top scorer in the Football League in the seasons 1890/91 and 1893/94 . Between 1889 and 1892 he also played three international matches for the English national team .

Athletic career

Career start

At the age of twelve, Southworth began playing football at a youth club called "Inkerman Rangers". He was later to play for "Brookhouse Perseverance", which served the FA Cup winner of 1883, Blackburn Olympic as a youth department. In 1883 and 1884, Southworth rose to the reserve team of Olympic and quickly made a name for himself as a team captain. When local rivals Blackburn Rovers Southworth offered a change, the latter waived.

During a visit to Accrington FC , Southworth injured his knee so badly that the continuation of his career was in doubt. He reacted to the reduced mobility and from then on stood in the gate, where he should even make it to the first goalkeeper at Blackburn Olympic. He sustained another serious injury after beating the Rovers and winning the Lancashire Senior Cup in 1885. During a guest appearance for FC Vale of Lune , his other knee was also damaged. Despite these physical problems, he signed a professional contract with Chester FC and scored the first goal in the history of his new club in 1886 against local rivals Wrexham Olympic . As a talented musician, he also took a job in a theater in Chester.

He eventually returned to Blackburn Olympic and reported ready for action in his old center-forward position. He had finally overcome the injuries and after a successful season in 1887/88 he joined the Blackburn Rovers - together with his slightly less talented brother James .

Blackburn Rovers

When the first season in the history of the Football League began in September 1888 in the 1888/89 season, it was Jack Southworth who on matchday one against Accrington FC after a cross from Harry Fecitt the first Rovers goal in the history of the new Professional league shot. In the game, which ended with a 5-5 draw, James Beresford , William Townley (two-time) and Harry Fecitt were the other scorers on the Rovers' side . Southworth had three goals in November at Burnley FC and when his team dismantled eventual runner-up Aston Villa 8-1 in the FA Cup quarter-finals , he appeared again as a four-time goalscorer. In the semifinals he failed with the Rovers at Wolverhampton Wanderers and he finished the championship round in fourth place. He only missed one of 22 championship games and with 17 league goals he advanced to the top scorer of his club (he scored four more goals in the cup).

With its consistently good performance Southworth has been called " dribbling Prince honored" ( "Prince of Dribblers") and a contemporary wrote later about his playing style: "With evasive maneuvers, its refined passing game, his speed and his shot accuracy, he won the hearts of spectators in Leamington Ground . His speed was innate, he played unselfishly, he was good at defending himself and he had excellent judgment. ”In the early years of the Football League, according to many experts, he was the most renowned scorer, who also beat Wales on February 23, 1889 came to his first international match for England. After a 4-1 win in this game, he came to two more selection games in 1891 (again against Wales) and 1892 (against Scotland ). He scored one goal in all three international matches.

Also in the following season 1889/90 Southworth was on target. In the 9-1 home win against Notts County he scored three goals as did his side man Nat Walton and in the 5-1 win against West Bromwich Albion he scored four times. He repeated the last mentioned feat in January 1890 in an 8-0 win against FC Stoke . In the end, he finished third with the Rovers and Southworth was again the most successful goalscorer of his club with 22 league goals. He also had a great success in the FA Cup. After he had scored the only goal to 1-0 in the semifinals against the "Wolves", Southworth and his team defeated the reigning champions of the parallel league football alliance The Wednesday from Sheffield with a 6-1 in the final . Blackburn had gone into the game in the Kennington Oval as a clear favorite due to his placement in the Football League and as a three-time cup winner in the last six years , especially since nine English or Scottish internationals were in the starting lineup of the Rovers. In addition to the three-time goalscorer William Townley, Jack Southworth was back in the hit statistics alongside Nat Walton and Joe Lofthouse . Observers would later boast the game as one of the "finest performances in an FA Cup final" to date, with players like "(...) Walton, Townley, Lofthouse and Southworth at their peak."

With a spectacular 5-8 defeat at Derby County , the Rovers opened the 1890/91 season and despite the defeat, Southworth scored three goals as well as in December in the 5-1 win against Aston Villa. In the first game of the new year, the three-time goalscorer successfully took revenge on Derby County when, in addition to Southworth, Townley and Coombe Hall even met four times into the opposing case for an 8-0 home win. After another "three-pack" against Chester FC in an FA Cup game, Southworth finally scored three goals in a game for the fifth time in a season in a 4-0 win against Accrington FC. In the end, Southworth was the top scorer in the Football League with 26 league goals, although the performance was all the more highly rated as he had to pause in some games due to injuries. As in the previous year, the Rovers reached the FA Cup final at the Kennington Oval in 1891, in which the defending champions put Notts County under pressure from the start and took the lead after just eight minutes through Geordie Dewar . Southworth and Townley increased before the break and Jimmy Oswald's goal to make it 3-1 did not prevent Southworth from celebrating his second cup triumph.

Although Southworth also showed good form in the 1891/92 season with 22 of the 58 Rovers goals in the championship - including three hits against Bolton Wanderers - his club had to struggle with weaker performances and finished in a total of 14 Teams only finished ninth. Also Southworth's four goals in the FA Cup first round game against Derby County did not prevent the end in the next round against the eventual title holder West Bromwich Albion . By then, Southworth had scored 87 goals in 85 championship games over the past four years. The negative trend continued in the 1891/92 season and now spread to the goal scorer. Southworth get relatively few ten hits in 23 league appearances and by the end of the season, which ended the Rovers in ninth place, serious financial problems were evident in Blackburn due to the new venue in Ewood Park . The expected additional income did not materialize and so the club management was forced to let Southworth go to Everton for 400 pounds .

In the end, Jack Southworth left the Blackburn Rovers after 97 goals in 108 championship games. There were also 22 hits in 21 cup games. With his five triple successes (in English football this is called a " hat trick " regardless of the goal scoring) within a total season 1890/91, he still holds the club's internal record as well as the sum of all games with three goals each (13).

Everton FC

At Everton, Jack Southworth stayed only slightly longer than a season. However, he left a lasting impression on the Liverpool supporters from the start, scored 27 goals in only 22 league encounters and thus conquered the top scorer's crown in the Football League for the second time in the 1893/94 season . Particularly noteworthy were his six goals in the 7-1 win against West Bromwich Albion on December 30, 1893, with which he again set a club-internal record "for eternity" that still exists today. Regardless of this, Everton FC ended up only in a disappointing sixth place in the table.

In the following season 1894/95 Southworth had just completed nine games and scored nine goals again when a serious leg injury forced him to an abrupt end to his football career. During his tenure at Everton, Southworth had scored 36 goals in 31 games. He scored his last first division on October 20, 1894 in the 3: 4 away defeat against Blackburn Rovers. He played the last first division game a week later on October 27, 1894 in a 2-2 draw against AFC Sunderland.

After football

Since Southworth's talents were not limited to soccer, he quickly gained a foothold in the music industry after his retirement as a soccer player. In his "second career" he was involved as a professional violinist and played in the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester .

successes

• FA Cup winners: 1890, 1891
• Top scorer in the Football League: 1891, 1894

literature

• Ian Ross, Gordon Smailes: Everton . A Complete Record 1878-1985. Breedon, Derby 1985, ISBN 0-907969-10-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Blackburn's greatest ever team - Jack Southworth" (BRFCS.com)
2. ^ "England Players - Jack Southworth" (englandfootballonline.com)
3. ^ Philip Gibbons: Association Football in Victorian England. A History of the Game from 1863 to 1900 . Minerva, London 2001, ISBN 0-7541-1560-7 , pp. 142-143 .