Alexander Leake (11 July 1871 – 29 March 1938), known as Alex or Alec Leake, was an English professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who won five caps for his country and made 407 appearances in

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

playing as a half back for Small Heath,

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

and

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

. After retiring from playing he took up coaching, both with professional clubs and at school level. He was a cousin of fellow Small Heath and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

Jimmy Windridge James Edwin Windridge (21 October 1882 – 23 September 1939) was an English footballer who played as an inside forward. He made more than 250 appearances in the Football League for Small Heath/Birmingham, Chelsea and Middlesbrough, and played e ...

Biography

Leake was born in

Small Heath, Birmingham Small Heath is an area in south-east Birmingham, West Midlands, England situated on and around the Coventry Road about from the city centre. History Small Heath, which has been settled and used since Roman times, sits on top of a small hill. Th ...

. After leaving school he trained as a

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...

with Hoskins & Sewell, manufacturers of metal bedsteads, in the Bordesley district of Birmingham, and played for the works football team. He later helped Old Hill Wanderers win the championship of the Birmingham & District League in the 1893–94 season. His success with Old Hill did not go unnoticed, and he signed for Small Heath, newly promoted to the

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

, in July 1894. Leake made his Small Heath debut in October 1895 at

left half A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

, but from midway through that season (in which the club were relegated) for the following four years he rarely missed a game at centre-half. He was soon appointed

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

. When he did suffer an injury early in the 1899–1900 season, inside forward Walter Wigmore was tried at centre-half, and by the time Leake regained fitness, his position was taken. He played the remainder of his Small Heath career at left-half or occasionally inside-left. He helped the club gain promotion back to the First Division in 1901, but left at the end of the 1901–02 season when they were relegated again. During this season he played in an

trial match and with clubmate

Sid Wharton Sidney Emmanuel Wharton (19 December 1875 – 5 January 1951) was an English professional footballer who played for Small Heath as a winger. He was a pacy winger with good ball-control who created chances and was always involved in the game. He ...

played for an England XI in an unofficial international against

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. In a 1901 profile of the Small Heath club and players in the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'',

C.B. Fry Charles Burgess Fry (25 April 1872 – 7 September 1956) was an English sportsman, teacher, writer, editor and publisher, who is best remembered for his career as a cricketer. John Arlott described him with the words: "Charles Fry could b ...

wrote: He joined

in July 1902, when he was 31, and stayed five years. In his first season the club were runners-up in the First Division, and in 1905 he played in their 1905 FA Cup Final team which beat

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...

2–0. While with Aston Villa Leake won five official caps for England, making his international debut at the age of 32 on 12 March 1904 in a 3–1 win against

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

. Leake found himself unwittingly at the centre of one of the great scandals of English football. In the last League game of the

1904–05 Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music ...

season,

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The tw ...

needed to beat Aston Villa to win the title. It was a spiteful game, and he had been involved in confrontations, both physical and verbal, with opponents. Afterwards Leake, who had captained the side, claimed that City's Billy Meredith had offered him a bribe of £10 for his team to throw the match. Meredith was found guilty by

the Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the ...

, fined, and suspended from all football for 18 months. Because his club refused to help him financially, Meredith made public the illegal payments Manchester City were making to their players. An FA investigation resulted in life bans for directors, long suspensions for players, and the club being forced to sell its playing staff. An Aston Villa match programme of 1906 describes him as:

manager

Spen Whittaker Spencer Whittaker (February 1871 – 16 April 1910) was an English footballer, manager and secretary. Playing career Whittaker played for hometown club Oswaldtwistle Rovers, before retiring from playing, taking up the chairman and secretary ro ...

took him to the club in December 1907, by which time he was 36 years old. He stayed with them a further two-and-a-half years, playing a significant part in building a team for the future. His arrival has been described thus: When Burnley were promoted to the First Division in 1913, Leake was long gone, but he played his part. At the celebration dinner, the club chairman commented that: In 1910 he returned to the Midlands and played for one season with

Wednesbury Old Athletic Wednesbury Old Athletic, often referred to as W.O.A.C., was an English association football club based in Wednesbury, West Midlands (Staffordshire at the time). There were three clubs that had this name. Original club The first began life as t ...

, newly elected to the Birmingham & District League. He then took up posts as trainer with Crystal Palace,

Merthyr Town Merthyr Town Football Club ( cy, Clwb Pêl-droed Tref Merthyr) is a Welsh semi-professional association football, football club based in Merthyr Tydfil, currently playing in the , in the seventh tier of the English football league system. The ...

, and

Walsall Walsall (, or ; locally ) is a market town and administrative centre in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands County, England. Historic counties of England, Historically part of Staffordshire, it is located north-west of Birmingham, east ...

, and also coached at school level. Leake died in his native Birmingham at the age of 66.

Honours

Old Hill Wanderers * Birmingham & District League champions

1894 Events January–March * January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire. * January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United S ...

Small Heath *

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

promotion 1900–01 Aston Villa * First Division runners up

1902–03 Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20 * one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film Music ...

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

winners

1905 As the second year of the massive Russo-Japanese War begins, more than 100,000 die in the largest world battles of that era, and the war chaos leads to the 1905 Russian Revolution against Nicholas II of Russia (Shostakovich's 11th Symphony i ...

Wednesbury Old Athletic * Wednesbury Charity Cup joint winners 1911

References

General * * For league statistics and clubs played for: * For clubs' league positions: * For Wednesbury Old Athletic information: Specific

External links

*
Profile
at Aston Villa Player Database. {{DEFAULTSORT:Leake, Alex 1871 births People from Small Heath, Birmingham Footballers from Birmingham, West Midlands 1938 deaths English footballers Association football wing halves England international footballers Coventry City F.C. players Old Hill Wanderers F.C. players Birmingham City F.C. players Aston Villa F.C. players Burnley F.C. players Wednesbury Old Athletic F.C. players English Football League players English Football League representative players FA Cup Final players