Donald Stratton Coles (29 July 1879 – 13 December 1941) 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 played as a

right back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

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 ...

for

Leicester Fosse Leicester City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Leicester in the East Midlands of England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home ...

. He also played in the Southern League for

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

and St Leonards United.

Life and career

Coles was born in

Plymouth Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west. Plymouth ...

in 1879, the son of Robert Stratton Coles, a dental surgeon, and his wife Katherine Jane ''née'' Willmot. When his father took up practice in London, he sent Coles to be educated at

Ardingly College Ardingly College () is an independent boarding and day school in the English public school tradition located near Ardingly, West Sussex, England. The school is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and of the Woodard Corp ...

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

. He remained in the area after leaving school, and played amateur football for clubs including

Burgess Hill Burgess Hill is a town and civil parish in West Sussex, England, close to the border with East Sussex, on the edge of the South Downs National Park, south of London, north of Brighton and Hove, and northeast of the county town, Chichester. It ...

, Brighton Athletic, Brighton & Hove Rangers, and Southern League Second Division club

. He had a brief spell with

at the start of the 1902–03 season, during which he made one unsuccessful appearance in the

Football League Second Division The Football League Second Division was the second level division in the English football league system between 1892 and 1992. Following the foundation of the FA Premier League, the Football League divisions were renumbered and the third ti ...

in a 5–0 defeat away to

Chesterfield Chesterfield may refer to: Places Canada * Rural Municipality of Chesterfield No. 261, Saskatchewan * Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom * Chesterfield, Derbyshire, a market town in England ** Chesterfield (UK Parliament constitue ...

. Returning to Brighton & Hove Albion in December 1902, he turned professional, and made a further five appearances as his team were promoted to the First Division of the Southern League. He never played at the higher level, left the club in 1904, and ended his football career with St Leonards United, also of the Southern League Second Division. The

1911 census The United Kingdom Census 1911 of 2 April 1911 was the 12th nationwide census conducted in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The total population of the United Kingdom was approximately 45,221,000, with 36,070,000 recorded in England ...

records him living in a boarding house in

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

and working as an insurance agent. During the First World War he served as a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

in the

Royal Army Service Corps The Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) was a corps of the British Army responsible for land, coastal and lake transport, air despatch, barracks administration, the Army Fire Service, staffing headquarters' units, supply of food, water, fuel and dom ...

. He married Lilian Mash in 1930. The 1939 Register finds the couple living in Addison Road, Hove, with Coles working as a representative for a wine firm and as a commission agent. He was still resident at that address when he died two years later at the age of 62.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coles, Donald 1879 births 1941 deaths Footballers from Plymouth, Devon English men's footballers Men's association football fullbacks Burgess Hill Town F.C. players Brighton Athletic F.C. players Brighton & Hove Albion F.C. players Leicester City F.C. players Hastings & St Leonards United F.C. players Southern Football League players English Football League players People educated at Ardingly College British Army personnel of World War I Royal Army Service Corps soldiers