Irvine Boocock (27 February 1890 – 17 November 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 made over 160 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 ...

for

Bradford City Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes. Th ...

as a

left 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 ...

. He represented the

Football League XI The English Football League XI was a representative side of the Football League. The team regularly played against the Scottish Football League XI and other national league select teams between 1891 and 1976. For a long period the annual fixture b ...

Sporting career

Born in Cleckheaton, Boocock began his

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

career with non-League club Sunfield Rovers, before joining First Division club

in March 1910. Either side of the First World War, Boocock made 184 appearances and scored one goal for the Bantams. He finished his career with a short spell at

Third Division North The Third Division North of the Football League was a tier in the English football league system from 1921 to 1958. It ran in parallel with the Third Division South with clubs elected to the League or relegated from a higher division allocated to ...

club

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...

, whom he joined in June 1922. Boocock also played

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

for hometown club Cleckheaton between 1909 and 1932 and later served the club as groundsman and bar steward. He also played for Moorend and Eccleshill.

Personal life

Boocock served as a corporal in the West Yorkshire Regiment during the First World War. He served in five different battalions, including the

Leeds Rifles The Leeds Rifles was a unit of the 19th century Volunteer Force of the British Army that went on to serve under several different guises in the World Wars of the 20th century. In World War I both battalions served as infantry on the Western Fron ...

and a

Bradford Pals Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

battalion. He fell off a bicycle in 1941 and died of his injuries.

Career statistics

References

1890 births People from Cleckheaton Sportspeople from Kirklees Footballers from West Yorkshire English men's footballers Bradford City A.F.C. players Darlington F.C. players English Football League players Men's association football fullbacks 1941 deaths British Army personnel of World War I West Yorkshire Regiment soldiers English Football League representative players English cricketers Cycling road incident deaths Road incident deaths in England {{England-footy-defender-1890s-stub