Ralph Gaudie (1876 – 1951) was an English

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 ...

who played as a centre forward. His playing career with Aston Villa has in some sources been wrongly attributed to a brother, Richard Gaudie, who has subsequently been shown not to have existed. Gaudie was born in Guisborough,

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...

and first signed for his local club South Bank, before making the step up to

profession A profession is a field of work that has been successfully ''professionalized''. It can be defined as a disciplined group of individuals, '' professionals'', who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by ...

alism with

Sheffield United Sheffield United Football Club is a professional football club in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which compete in the . They are nicknamed "the Blades" due to Sheffield's history of cutlery production. The team have played home games at ...

. He played six times and scored twice in the 1897–98 season as United won the First Division title, but did not pick up a winners' medal. In August 1898 he joined Aston Villa and played five times for them scoring one goal in the 1898-99 season as Villa too won the First Division title. He thus became the first player to play for different clubs in consecutive League championship winning seasons. He moved to

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 ...

Woolwich Arsenal in October 1899, where he became a regular straight away, and ended the season as Arsenal's top scorer with fifteen goals (including a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

in Arsenal's record league victory, 12–0 against

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second large ...

). Gaudie's 1900–01 season was blighted by illness and injury, yet he was still the club's top scorer for a second season in a row, this time with eight goals. His ill health did not improve, and on medical advice he quit the game in the summer of 1901. In all he played 50 matches for Arsenal, scoring 23 goals. However, he made a brief comeback with Manchester United two years later, and played eight matches in the course of the

1903–04 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. However, he did not score any goals, and decided to quit football for a second time at the end of that season. He later moved to South Africa, seeking a warmer climate due to his poor health; there he became a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

References

* * *

External links

Profile
at StretfordEnd.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Gaudie, Ralph 1876 births 1951 deaths People from Guisborough Footballers from North Yorkshire English men's footballers Men's association football forwards South Bank F.C. players Sheffield United F.C. players Aston Villa F.C. players Arsenal F.C. players Manchester United F.C. players English Football League players