John Yates (footballer)

John Yates (1861 – 1 June 1917) was an English footballer who won the FA Cup with Blackburn Olympic in 1883 and made one appearance for England in 1878 playing on the left wing.

Career

Yates was born in Blackburn but started his football career with Accrington in 1879. After a year, he joined Blackburn Olympic and was part of the team of tradesmen and weavers who achieved a small level of success in the 1880s, backed by local iron foundry owner Sid Yates and coached by former England player Jack Hunter. Their greatest success came when they overcame the dominance of local rivals, Blackburn Rovers, and the amateur teams of southern England to win the FA Cup in 1883.

Yates returned to Accrington in February 1886, and spent a further two years with the club before joining Burnley in 1888, in time for the inaugural season of the Football League. He made 21 league appearances, scoring five goals as Burnley finished in ninth place, having to seek re-election at the end of the season.

He had previously represented Lancashire on many occasions, and received his solitary England cap for the match against Ireland played at Anfield, Liverpool on March 2 1889, thus becoming Burnley's first England international [cite web | title=England Players' Club Affiliations - Burnley
work=www.englandfootballonline.com| url=http://www.englandfootballonline.com/TeamClubs/Clubs/Burnley.html| accessdate=2 February | accessyear=2008] . England won the match "quite comfortably" [cite book |last= Gibbons|first= Philip|authorlink= |title= Association Football in Victorian England - A History of the Game from 1863 to 1900|year= 2001|publisher= Upfront Publishing|pages=pp.120-121|isbn=1-84426-035-6] 6-1, with Yates scoring a hat trick. Despite this, he was not selected for the match against Scotland six weeks later. He is one of five players to have scored a hat-trick on his England debut, yet not make a second appearance.

He continued to make sporadic appearances for Burnley over the next few years, before retiring from playing in 1894, returning to his profession of cotton weaver. [cite book | author=Graham Betts| title=England: Player by player | publisher=Green Umbrella Publishing | year=2006|pages=p.269| isbn=1-905009-63-1]

During his later years he was landlord of the Brickmakers' Arms, a pub near to the Turf Moor ground in Burnley. He died of cancer on 1 June 1917. [cite book |last= Phythian|first= Graham|authorlink= |title= Shooting Stars: The Brief and Glorious History of Blackburn Olympic 1878-1889|year= 2007|publisher= Soccerdata|location= |id= ISBN 1-89946-883-8]

Honours

Blackburn Olympic
*FA Cup: Winner 1883

References

External links

*Englandstats|id=1100|name=John Yates
* [http://www.englandfc.com/Profiles/php/PlayerProfileByName.php?id=1105 England profile]