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Leigh Richmond Roose (November 27 1877 - October 7
1916) was a Wales|Welsh international football
(soccer)|footballer who kept goal for a number of
professional clubs in the Football League between
1901 and 1912. A celebrated amateur at a time when
the game was played largely by professionals,
Roose was renowned as one of the best players in
his position in the Edwardian period. He was also
well-known as a footballing eccentric, and many
stories about him are still told today. 


==Early life==
'Mond Roose was born in Holt, near Wrexham in
North Wales at a time when association football
was principally confined to the north of the
principality. He was educated at Holt Academy and
at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
(1895-1899). After graduating, Roose studied
medicine for a short period at King's College
Hospital.

==Club career==

Standing 6'1" and weighing over 13 stone, Roose
was well qualified to play in goal, a specialised
position that was, in the Edwardian era,
particularly physically challenging.

He began his footballing career with Aberystwyth
Town F.C.|Aberystwyth Town, playing for the club
on 85 occasions. His debut came in a 6-0 win over
the Shropshire team Whitchurch F.C.|Whitchurch in
October 1895, and he was carried from the pitch
shoulder-high following the team's 3-0 victory
over Druids F.C.|Druids in the Welsh Cup final of
1900. It was during this phase of his career that
Roose was seen playing by the eminent Welsh
historian Thomas Richards, who would later refer
to him as Yr Ercwlff synfawr hwn ("This wondrous
Hercules"). 


Signed by Stoke City F.C.|Stoke City, Roose made
144 league appearances for the Staffordshire club
from 1901-1904 and 1905-1906 - the latter spell,
consisting of only three games, being terminated
by a broken wrist. Roose kept 40 clean sheets
(that is, did not concede a goal) in his 160 games
for Stoke, a remarkable record not least because
his team flirted dangerously with relegation in
1901, 1902 and 1904. 

'Mond Roose punctuated his two spells at Stoke
with 24 appearances for Everton F.C.|Everton, whom
he helped reach the semi-final of the FA Cup in
1905. He arrived part way through the 1904-05
season and replaced the Irish goalkeeper Billy
Scott, who had conceded 17 goals in the first 12
games of the season. Roose kept 8 clean sheets for
Everton, a record proportionately better even than
that he had set at Stoke.

After leaving Everton, Roose went on to play 92
times for Sunderland A.F.C.|Sunderland between
1907 and 1910, helping the club to finish second
in the league on two occasions, and "almost
single-handedly" saving the team from relegation
on a third occasion. In the course of his career,
Roose also turned out for Port Vale F.C.|Port Vale
and Celtic F.C.|Celtic (both 1910). Other clubs he
represented on at least one occasion included
Druids, Huddersfield Town A.F.C.|Huddersfield Town
(1910-1911), Aston Villa F.C.|Aston Villa (1911)
and Arsenal F.C.|Woolwich Arsenal (1911-1912).

Roose was prone to displays of bad temper
throughout his club career, and in 1906 assaulted
one of the Sunderland directors, beating him so
badly that the Football Association banned him for
14 days. 

Roose retained his amateur status throughout his
club career, but charged his clubs handsomely for
his expenses.

==International career==
Roose's international career began in 1900, when
he played for Wales national football team|Wales
in a 2-0 defeat of Northern Ireland national
football team|Ireland. He won a total of 24 caps,
turning out for his last international game
against Scotland national football team|Scotland
in March 1911. He was one of Wales's key players
when the team won the British Home Championship
for the first time in 1907. Since Wales did not
play their first international match against an
opponent from outside the home nations until 1933,
all of Roose's games were played against England
national football team|England, Scotland or
Ireland.

==Playing style and philosophy of goalkeeping==


Roose has been described by the Dictionary of
Welsh Biography as a man who "had been thoroughly
grounded in the fundamentals of his art, and gave
interpretation to them in the style and manner of
a man of genius." According to Thomas Richards
(1878-1962), the renowned Welsh authority on
seventeenth century Puritanism, who saw him play,
Roose's principle attribute was his "prehensile
grip", but Geraint Jenkins, an Aberystwyth
historian who wrote a brief biographical sketch of
the goalkeeper in 2000, adds that he boasted
"sharp eyesight, startling reflexes, competitive
instinct and reckless bravery", and was altogether
"an extraordinarily daunting opponent".

If contemporary accounts are reliable, Jenkins
adds, "the save which Roose made while
representing Aberystwyth against Builth
F.C.|Builth in the Leominster Cup in 1897 was at
least equal to that made by Gordon Banks against
Pelé at Guadalajara in the Wc|1970."

Roose was a famous saver of penalties. Thomas
Richards gave an account of a save he had seen
Roose execute for Aberystwyth against Glossop
North End A.F.C.|Glossop North End, a professional
team from the Midlands League, in an FA Cup match.
"One of the full backs," Richards wrote in Gwr o
Athrylith (Man of Genius), his profile of Roose,

:"committed an unforgivable foul in the penalty
box; the harsh blast of the referee's whistle, his
finger pointing to one of the most calamitous
places in the purgatory of this life; the penalty
spot. The heavy odour of death hung over the
fateful spot: did you not hear a crowd of
thousands suddenly become dumb mutes, did you not
see the players standing in a half circle as if
they were at a graveside... Everyone holding his
breath. I have always believed that Roose grew to
his full height as a man in the purgatorial crisis
of a penalty, drying off the clay around his feet,
washing away the dross which entered his character
with the gold... Arthur's sword against the bare
fist. Then came the signal; the ball travelled
like a bolt from the foot of the penalty taking
forward, and in the blink of an eyelid,
revolution, a thump, and the ball landed in the
heather and gorse of the Buarth."

Roose was also noted for his ability to kick and
throw the heavy leather footballs of the period
prodigious distances. Although early balls become
almost immovably heavy in wet conditions, it was
said that, on dry days, he was capable of sending
a goal kick the length of the field and punching
the ball well over the halfway line.

At his best, Roose was a superb if unorthodox
shot-stopper, once, in his first international
match, saving a full blooded drive from only six
yards out by clamping the ball between his knees.
He was extremely athletic and was reputed, by the
football spectators of the day, to have the
mysterious ability to change his direction while
diving full length.

Roose was further noted for a considerable
physical presence that has been compared to that
of the modern Danish 'keeper Peter Schmeichel, and
according to one biographer, "enjoyed taunting
experienced international forwards, some of whom
felt the full force of his fist in goalmouth
melees." The Athletic Times described him as
"dexterous though daring, valiant though
volatile."

James Ashcroft, the Woolwich Arsenal goalkeeper,
contributed an appreciation of Roose which singled
him out for his bravery in diving at the feet of
onrushing forwards.

:"Last season when Stoke played Arsenal at
Plumstead, I watched the Reds swoop down on Roose
like a whirlwind. There was a scrimmage in goal
and Roose was down on the ball like a shot with a
heap of Arsenal and Stoke players on top of him.
It was all Lombard Street the site of the Bank of
England to a penny orange that the Reds would
score. Presently from out of the ruck emerged
Roose clinging to the ball, which he promptly
threw away up the field. I'll bet that the thrill
of triumph which went through him was ample
compensation for any hard knocks he received."

At a time when other goalkeepers walked onto the
pitch at the beginning of a game, Roose was
unusual in running on briskly, acknowledging the
applause of the crowd. When a penalty kick
(football)|penalty was awarded, he frequently
waved to spectators both before and after
completing a save.



Roose generally carried a pair of white gloves
onto the pitch but preferred, in good weather, to
play with bare hands. He was regarded as unusual
in insisting on playing in padded knee-bandages
and a twin-peak cap.

Roose played in a daring style, often - at a time
when other goalkeepers rarely strayed more than a
few yards from their goals - rushing out of his
penalty area to fill the position left by an
errant full back. In his first international, he
sprinted from his area and shoulder-charged an
opposing Irish winger on the far touchline,
bundling him out of play and knocking him
unconscious. He also took full advantage of the
rules of the day, which allowed the goalkeeper to
handle the ball anywhere in his own half. It has
been said that the 1912 alteration to the laws of
the game, forbidding the goalkeeper to handle
outside his penalty area, was directly due to the
performances of Roose, who enjoyed taking part in
attacks.

Roose was an early example of the familiar adage
that "goalkeepers are different", a point he made
himself in an article on goalkeeping contributed
to the four-volume 1906 work Association Football
and the Men Who Made It. "There is a proverb," he
wrote, "which says, 'Before you go to war, say a
prayer; before going to sea say two prayers;
before marrying say three prayers.' One might add:
'Before deciding to become a goalkeeper say four
prayers.' He's the Aunt Sally."

Considering the goalkeeping ideal, Roose added
elsewhere in the same article:

:"A tall man able to get down to low shots is
certainly preferable to a short one, for he can
reach shots that no little man can get near, and
if his bigness in stature is combined with weight
he will find occasions on which his height and
weight will prove of great advantage to him; yet
he should not come under Dryden's description:
'Brawn without brain is thine.' He should possess
quickness of eye and hand, activity and agility,
and be as light on his feet as a dancing master.
It's not much use for a man who can only move
'once in about two months' trying to defend a
space 24 feet wide and 8 feet high against shots
coming in from all possible directions, and when
there is only a fraction of a second allowed to
get a ball and get rid of it, by either kicking,
catching or throwing out, or punching away with
forwards on top of him."

"To a goalkeeper alone," Roose concluded, "is the
true delight of goalkeeping known. He must be an
instinctive lover of the game, otherwise
goalkeeping will take it out of a man if he is not
devoted to it."

==Stories told of Roose==
Tales of Roose's eccentricities appeared
frequently in newspapers and books published
during his career. Some have been picked up by
later writers and repeated many times,
particularly in books concerning goalkeeping. A
good deal of further research would be necessary
to verify the truth of some of the stories, but
the following were commonly told while Roose
himself was still alive.

* While playing for Stoke, Roose was reputed to
have missed a train that was due to take him from
London to a game at Aston Villa. In the years
before the First World War, railway companies kept
private trains ready at a platform for hire by
wealthy travellers. Roose engaged such a train and
had it take him, in solitary splendour, all the
way to Birmingham at a cost of 5/- a mile plus the
ordinary fare. Upon arrival, he arranged for the
resultant £31 bill - a fortune at the time - to
be sent on to his club.
* When the Football League requested a copy of the
expenses claim Roose had submitted to the
Sunderland club, the account that arrived at their
headquarters listed, as its first item, "Using the
toilet (twice), 2d." 2 old pence
* On 23 April 1910, Roose, by then a very famous
former Stoke player, guested - along with Herbert
Chapman - for Port Vale in a match against Stoke
Reserves that would decide the winner of the North
Staffordshire and District League. Roose not only
insisted on playing against his former club while
wearing his old Stoke City shirt, but aroused the
ire of the 7,000 strong crowd with his
breathtaking play. He "saved every shot with such
arrogant ease that the furious crowd spilled onto
the field, only the brave intervention of the
local constabulary saving him from a ducking in
the River Trent." In the course of the same
fracas, Stoke's chairman, the Reverend A.E. Hurst,
ran on to the pitch to appeal for calm and was
knocked out by one of his own forwards. The result
was appealed to the Staffordshire FA, which
declared the championship void, and Stoke's ground
was closed for the first fortnight of the 1910-11
season. Roose is reported to have said, in his own
defence, that he had believed the game to be a
friendly and had not realised a championship was
at stake.
* Playing for Stoke against Liverpool
F.C.|Liverpool at Anfield on 4 January 1902,
Roose, along with his team-mates, unwittingly ate
a lunch of tainted fish. By kick-off time many of
the Stoke players were feeling the effects and -
having conceded a goal after only eight minutes -
Roose ran from the pitch in search of a toilet. He
had a pulse rate of 148 and did not return to the
game. At the start of the second half only seven
of the Stoke players were in a fit state to
continue, the dressing room resembling "the cabin
of a cross-channel steamer in bad weather."
Liverpool won the game 7-0.
* In March 1909, Roose travelled with Wales to
play Ireland in a British Home Championship match.
He appeared at Liverpool station with one hand
heavily bandaged, telling the waiting press that
he had broken two fingers but would nevertheless
play in the match. Roose's Welsh team-mate Billy
Meredith, suspecting trickery, peered through the
keyhole of the goalkeeper's hotel room soon after
their arrival in Belfast and saw his friend remove
the bandage and wiggle his fingers with no sign of
discomfort. News of Roose's disability having
spread through the city, a huge and expectant
crowd turned out next day in the hope of
witnessing an Irish victory. Instead Wales won the
game 3-2, Roose himself playing superbly.
* Like many footballers, Roose was famously
superstitious, wearing a 'lucky shirt' beneath his
goalkeeping jersey throughout the course of his
career. The shirt, said to have been an old
black-and-green Aberystwyth top, was reputedly
never washed. Some support for this story comes
from a contemporary article in Bolton's Cricket
and Football Field (March 1904), which observed:

::"Roose is one of the cleanest custodians we
have, but he apparently is a trifle superstitious
about his football garments, for he seldom seems
to trouble the charwoman with them. Considerable
amusement was created at Stoke on Saturday and
again at Liverpool on Monday, when it was noticed
that Roose alone failed to turn out in spic and
span garments. His pants, we should say, carried
about them the marks of many a thrilling contest."

==Miscellaneous==
*When the Daily Mail invited nominations for a
World XI to face another planet, Roose was
selected as the World team's goalkeeper by a large
majority.
*Roose was the brother-in-law of Jack Jenkins, a
Welsh rugby union international.
*In the course of a violent football match played
at Holt Academy, Roose's brother Edward kicked
H.G. Wells, then a teacher at the school, so hard
in the back that he ruptured the future novelist's
kidney and left him incapacitated for several
weeks.
*Although accounts of Roose often refer to him as
a doctor of bacteriology, he never qualified as a
doctor.

==Later life and death==
Although well above the age of the average
recruit, Roose joined the British Army as a
private (rank)|private in 1916 and served in the
First World War on the Western Front, where his
goalkeeping abilities resulted in his becoming a
noted grenade thrower. He was promoted to the rank
of lance corporal and was killed, aged 38, towards
the end of the Battle of the Somme.  The exact
location and manner of his death remain a matter
of dispute.

Roose was posthumously awarded the Military Medal
for his bravery in an earlier action, his award
being gazetted on 21 September 1916.

His body was not recovered, and his name appears
(spelled incorrectly) on the war memorial to
missing soldiers at Thiepval.

==References==

===Books===
* Hazelwood, Nick (1996). In The Way! Goalkeepers:
A Breed Apart? Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing.
* Hodgson, Francis (1998). Only The Goalkeeper To
Beat. London: Macmillan.

===Articles===
* Geraint Jenkins. "Leigh Richmond Roose". In
Peter Stead and Huw Richards (eds), For Club and
Country: Welsh Football Greats (2000). Cardiff:
University of Wales Press. 
* Leigh Richmond Roose. 'The Art of Goalkeeping'.
In Alfred Gibson and William Pickford (eds),
Association Football and the Men Who Made It (4
vols., 1906). London: The Caxton Publishing
Company. I, 97-102.

==External links== 
*http://www.powell76.freeserve.co.uk/Roose.htm
Website by Pat Evans covering Roose's military
service. 
*http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/humanities_and_so
c_sciences/pgstudents/football/leigh.htm Brief
coverage and statistics, by Malcolm Henson,
concerning Roose's football career
*http://www.goalkeepersaredifferent.com/keeper/goa
lkeeping_greats.htm Appreciation of a number of
famous goalkeepers, including Roose.
*http://www.1914-1918.net/heroes/roose.htm
Discussion of the possible circumstances of
Roose's death.
*http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/casualty_details
.aspx?casualty=810223 Commonwealth War Graves
Commission 'Casualty details' for Roose.