John Arthur Frederick Poole (12 December 1932 – 17 November 2020) was an English

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 ...

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

who made 33 league appearances for

Port Vale Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley o ...

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 ...

between 1953 and 1961. He later played for

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 de ...

sides

Macclesfield Town Macclesfield Town Football Club was an English professional association football, football club based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, that was liquidation, wound-up after a High Court of Justice, High Court ruling on 16 September 2020. Initially kno ...

and Werrington.

Career

John Poole was born in Stoke-on-Trent on 12 December 1932. After playing for numerous

youth team In sporting terminology, a youth system (or youth academy) is a youth investment program within a particular team or league, which develops and nurtures young talent in farm teams, with the vision of using them in the first team in the future if t ...

s, including Ashley, Penkhull Youth Club, and

Stoke City Stoke City Football Club is a professional football club based in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which competes in the . Founded as Stoke Ramblers in 1863, it changed its name to Stoke in 1878 and then to Stoke City in 1925 after Stoke ...

's youth team, Poole graduated through the

juniors to sign professional forms in September 1953. He did his

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The l ...

with the

Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers The Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME ) is a corps of the British Army that maintains the equipment that the Army uses. The corps is described as the "British Army's Professional Engineers". History Prior to REME's for ...

and served in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

Freddie Steele Freddie Steele (December 18, 1912 – August 22, 1984) was a boxer and film actor born Frederick Earle Burgett in Seattle, Washington. He was recognized as the National Boxing Association (NBA) Middleweight Champion of the World between 1936 ...

handed him his debut on 28 April 1956, in a 3–2 win over

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

Vale Park Vale Park is a football stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, England. It has been the home ground of Port Vale F.C. since 1950. The ground has seen its capacity go up and down, its peak being 42,000 in 1954 against Blackpool, although a club record 49, ...

. Remaining as understudy to Ray King, he featured in three

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 ...

games in the 1956–57

relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

campaign. He played three

Third Division South The Third Division South 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 North with clubs elected to the League or relegated from Division Two allocated to on ...

games in 1957–58, as new manager

Norman Low Norman Harvey Low (23 March 1914 – 21 May 1994) was a Scottish football player and manager. He was the son of Scottish international footballer, Wilf Low. A central defender, he played for Newcastle United between 1931 and 1933, before a th ...

recruited former

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

international Keith Jones as the "Valiants" new number one. Poole did not play in the 1958–59

Fourth Division Fourth or the fourth may refer to: * the ordinal form of the number 4 * ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971 * Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision * Fourth (music), a musical interval * ''The Fourth'' (1972 film), a Sovie ...

winning campaign, but had a run of games in the 1959–60 season, including playing in front of a Vale Park record crowd of 49,768 in 2–1 defeat to

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 ...

in the

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 ...

. He managed to earn the first team goalkeeping spot off

Ken Hancock Kenneth Paul Hancock (born 25 November 1937) is an English former football goalkeeper. He is the younger brother of Ray Hancock. He made 442 league appearances in a 15-year career in the Football League. He began his professional career at P ...

in November 1959, but he lost this position after

fracturing Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displa ...

his

nose A nose is a protuberance in vertebrates that houses the nostrils, or nares, which receive and expel air for respiration alongside the mouth. Behind the nose are the olfactory mucosa and the sinuses. Behind the nasal cavity, air next passes th ...

in a 6–3 defeat at

Mansfield Town Mansfield Town Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in the town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Stags', they ...

on 25 April 1960 – the penultimate game of the season. Manager

informed Poole's wife with a brief phone call: "Hello, Mrs Poole, Norman Low here. John's in the hospital with a

broken nose A nasal fracture, commonly referred to as a broken nose, is a fracture of one of the bones of the nose. Symptoms may include bleeding, swelling, bruising, and an inability to breathe through the nose. They may be complicated by other facial frac ...

. The good news is he hasn't fractured his skull. Goodnight!" He played just three Third Division matches in 1960–61, as Hancock firmly established himself as the club's preferred goalkeeper. Poole left on a free transfer in May 1961, and later played for

and Werrington. Poole retired from playing in 1963.

Style of play

Poole was a

with great anticipation and bravery. He played one game with a

broken wrist In human anatomy, the wrist is variously defined as (1) the carpus or carpal bones, the complex of eight bones forming the proximal skeletal segment of the hand; "The wrist contains eight bones, roughly aligned in two rows, known as the carpal ...

Personal life

Upon his retirement he became a keen Port Vale fan; he co-founded the club's Ex-Players Association with former teammate

. He worked as a motor mechanic. He married Pat, who was named as Miss Port Vale 1954. He had two sons: Greg and Duncan; and two grandchildren: Reece Poole and Katie Poole. His uncle, Tom Davis, also played for Port Vale in the 1920s. Poole's death was announced by Port Vale on 19 November 2020.

Career statistics

Source:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Poole, John Footballers from Stoke-on-Trent English men's footballers Men's association football goalkeepers Stoke City F.C. players Port Vale F.C. players Macclesfield Town F.C. players English Football League players Mechanics (people) 1932 births 2020 deaths