Taken
from ‘The Times’ online on 28 March 2025
He
captained England, penned a football manual and found time to tame wild
animals. Discover the untold story of John Goodall, a true pioneer of the game
It
took three off-duty Royal Hussars on commandeered cab horses to control the
crowd when Aston Villa and Preston North End first locked horns in the FA Cup
in 1888.
The
attendance had swelled to 25,000 at Villa’s Perry Barr ground and the chaos
disrupted play three times as fans spilt on to the pitch.
With
Villa a goal to the good, the Preston captain, Nick Ross, requested that the
game be made a friendly owing to the circumstances. Of course, this was not
agreed to by the home side and so the tie continued.
Preston
went on to win that match 3-1, but could proceed to the next round only when
the referee had insisted the match remained competitive, despite contrasting
recollections by two umpires and the Villa captain.
Villa
sources may dispute this Prestonian account but the tie is so infamous that the
story is still told 137 years later, with the local author Michael Barrett
dedicating five pages to it in his comic book The Rise of the
Invincibles.
That
story is the perfect reminder of how Sunday’s FA Cup tie at Deepdale — the
oldest Football League founder stadium still in use — is one of the most
historic competitive fixtures in the English game.
Villa
descended on Deepdale to visit Preston for the first time in the league later
that year. A tightly contested 1-1 draw was described by The Sunday Times as a
“struggle” that “proved in every way worthy of the high reputation enjoyed by
the two clubs”, at a time when the football column was split into “rugby” and
“association”.
John
Goodall — a player lauded as one of the first true geniuses of English football
— scored for Preston in both fixtures.
“Goodall
was perhaps the final part of the jigsaw,” Barrett says. “He knitted that
forward line together and he fitted into the scientific approach that North End
had.”
Preston’s
“Invincibles” team of 1888-89 strolled to the first Football League title
without losing a game, lifting the FA Cup in the process by not conceding a
goal. Their intricate, calculated style of football, using short passes, was
rarely seen in England at the time.
As
the first Golden Boot winner in England, Goodall was famed for not only his
goalscoring prowess but also his footballing intelligence, and the illustrious
career he forged from it became synonymous with the embryonic stages of the
Football League.
On
the opposing side in their league fixture was his brother Archie, who had moved
to Villa from Preston a few months earlier in the first transfer to be approved
by the Football League. It is believed to have cost £100.
the
pair were both stalwarts of separate national sides. With John born in London
and Archie in Belfast because of their father’s job in the military, they
represented England and Ireland respectively, with John captaining his country
on two occasions. But having been raised in Kilmarnock — where he began his
career — John spoke with a Scottish accent, prompting the historian Mark
Metcalf to title his forthcoming book England’s Scotch Professor.
It
is a nickname that captures the intelligence and leadership on the field that
made him such a versatile player, with Metcalf saying “he played in every
position including in goal”.
When
Preston defeated Hyde 26-0 in 1887, in what remains the biggest FA Cup victory,
Goodall netted only once because his capabilities were trusted at centre half
that day.
“He
was an all-round sportsman. A good cricketer, a really good curler, a good
shooter and a very good bowls player,” Metcalf says. “He had a natural
understanding of the shapes and formations of the games he played in.”
Goodall’s
20 goals in the famed 1888-89 season “came in every shape and form — including
slamming the goalkeeper over the line away to Notts County”.
His
footballing IQ was exhibited when he penned his 1898 book, Association
Football — a quasi-instruction manual on how to play the game, told by
a man who seemed to understand the sport better than his colleagues.
Despite
his legacy as an Invincible, it was Derby County, and later Watford, that
Goodall would call home. He became the latter’s first manager while still
playing and guided them to promotion to the top division of the Southern League
in his first season in 1904, scoring 20 goals in the process.
His
reputation as a gentleman footballer — nicknamed “Honest John” or “Johnny All
Good” — suggested he was destined to have success in management, inspiring and
mentoring the next crop of greats even while he was still playing. The Derby
legend Steve Bloomer, whose total of 314 top-flight goals, scored between 1892
and 1914, is second only to Jimmy Greaves’s 357, credited his success to
Goodall’s guidance on several occasions.
“Bloomer
was taken under Goodall’s wing and the relationship just blossomed. Bloomer
could see in Goodall a pioneer of the game at the time,” says Kalwinder Singh
Dhindsa, a Derby fan who has dedicated so much time to preserving the history
of the club that he is regarded by John and Archie’s descendants as an
“honorary Goodall”.
“Even
when Brian Clough came in [as manager] in 1967, there were various photos from
the old days of Goodall and others. And he kind of binned all the photos, I
think, because he wanted a new generation of players, which did come.
“But
it’s off the back of these legends that our football club was formed. Had the
Goodalls not come to Derby County Football Club, our club may well have gone
out of existence.”
Bloomer
— known as the “Destroying Angel” — became Derby’s most prolific player with
his 332 goals for the club, likely never to be beaten. In his first spell there
he shared a field with John in not only football, but baseball as well.
John
Goodall lived out his life in Hertfordshire after a short spell managing RC
Roubaix in France. He had been married to Sarah Rawcliffe since his time at
Preston and they had eight children.
His
retirement years — which began at the age of 45 — were reserved for his love of
wildlife and filling his time with some unlikely jobs.
“There
may have been a couple of foxes over the time that he tamed and he would
literally walk them around the town in Watford on a leash,” says Brian Goodall,
John’s great-great-grandson, who grew up hearing stories of his ancestor’s
eccentricity as well as his sporting successes.
“It
just lets you know that there was more to this guy than football. Clearly he
was a right character,” he adds.
As
the owner of a bird shop in Hertfordshire, John was pictured in the local paper
as the show manager for the Watford and District Cage Bird Society’s annual
show. He also spent time as a cricket groundsman for West Herts Sports Club.
John
died aged 76 and was buried at Vicarage Road cemetery in 1942, with Watford
paying to mark his grave with an extravagant headstone featuring the club’s
badge in 2018. His legacy spans the UK, with John regarded as a footballing god
at the teams where he spent time. However, many are still unaware of how much
English football owes to the Football League’s first genius.
