John Haworth (8 May 1876 – 4 December 1924) was an English football manager. After playing amateur football as a youth, he was appointed manager of

Accrington Stanley Accrington Stanley Football Club is a professional association football club based in Accrington, Lancashire, England. The club competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They have spent their complete his ...

in 1897. He was in charge of the team for 13 years, leading them to two

Lancashire Combination The Lancashire Combination was a football league founded in the North West of England in 1891–92. It absorbed the Lancashire League in 1903. In 1968 the Combination lost five of its clubs to the newly formed Northern Premier League. In 1982 it ...

titles, before moving to nearby

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, Lancashire, Preston, at the confluence of the River C ...

in July 1910. His 14-year spell as secretary-manager of Burnley was highly successful and guided the team to an

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 ...

victory and a Football League championship. Haworth is the only Burnley manager to date to have won the FA Cup.

Personal life

Haworth was born in Accrington, Lancashire on 8 May 1876 and was the nephew of

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 ...

international George Haworth. He died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

on 4 December 1924 aged 48.

Managerial career

Accrington Stanley

As a teenager, Haworth played amateur football for local club Meadow Bank, where he later became secretary. In 1897, he merged the club with North East Lancashire Combination side

and became a member of the Accrington Stanley committee. Later the same year, he was named secretary of the club. At the time, club secretaries were in charge of first-team duties such as coaching and signing players. Under the stewardship of Howarth, Accrington Stanley were transformed into one of the foremost

non-league Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to d ...

clubs in Lancashire, winning the

in the 1902–03 season. The following campaign, the team finished as runners-up before again claiming the league title in the 1905–06 season. He went on to manage the club for 13 years before leaving in the summer of 1910.

Burnley

Haworth was appointed secretary–manager of

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 t ...

side

in July 1910, replacing Richard Wadge, who had taken care of first-team affairs since the death of Spen Whittaker in April 1910. During his first summer in charge, he signed Burnley's first foreign player, German defender Max Seeburg. Soon afterwards, he changed the colour of Burnley's

strip Strip or Stripping may refer to: Places * Aouzou Strip, a strip of land following the northern border of Chad that had been claimed and occupied by Libya * Caprivi Strip, narrow strip of land extending from the Okavango Region of Namibia to ...

as he considered the green kit to be unlucky. He opted to change the colours to claret and blue, to match the strip of reigning Football League champions Aston Villa. Towards the close of the 1910–11 season, Haworth pulled off his first major signing when he persuaded England centre forward

Bert Freeman Bertram Clewley Freeman (1 October 1885 – 11 August 1955) was an English footballer. He played as a centre forward for clubs Woolwich Arsenal, Everton, Burnley and Wigan Borough. Freeman was one of the most prolific goal-scorers of his tim ...

to join the club from Everton. The following season, Haworth guided the team to a third-placed finish in the Second Division, narrowly missing out on promotion. In the 1912–13 campaign, Burnley reached the semi-finals of the

before losing to Sunderland after a replay. That year, the team finished second in the league to gain promotion to the First Division. In the club's first season in the top-flight of English football since 1900, he led the side to third place in the league, just three points off the title. He also guided the team to an unprecedented FA Cup run, where they conceded only four goals in eight matches. Haworth's team secured a 1–0 victory over

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, making him the only manager to date to have won the FA Cup with Burnley. The team ended the 1914–15 season in fourth place in the First Division before football in England was interrupted for four years by the First World War. Upon the return to competitive football, Burnley finished runners-up in the league. The 1920–21 season started disappointingly for the side, but he eventually led the team to a 30-match unbeaten run to become Champions of England for the first time in 1921. A third-placed finish followed in 1922, but the team's league form fell away thereafter and they could only achieve relatively mediocre finishes in the next two campaigns. On 4 December 1924, he became the second successive Burnley manager to die while in office when he died of

Honours

;

* Football League champions: 1920–21 * Football League runners-up: 1919–20 *

winners:

1914 This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It als ...

References

External links

John Haworth and Burnley Football Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haworth, John 1876 births 1924 deaths People from Accrington English football managers Accrington Stanley F.C. (1891) managers Burnley F.C. managers