David Jack

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Bone Nightingale Jack (April 3, 1899September 10, 1958) was an English footballer, the first player ever to score at Wembley, and the first footballer in the world to be transferred for more than £10,000. His father, Bob Jack, was also a footballer.

An inside forward, born in Bolton, Lancashire, Jack started his career with his father's club, Plymouth Argyle in 1919.; there he scored 11 goals in 48 appearances. In 1920 he returned to the town of his birth, moving to Bolton Wanderers for £3,500. He spent eight seasons with the Trotters, forming a formidable partnership with Joe Smith, and between them they scored over 300 goals. While at Bolton, he made history by being the first person to score a goal at Wembley Stadium, in the 1923 FA Cup Final; Bolton won 2-0 and Jack earned his first medal.

A year later, he won his first England cap, in a 1-2 defeat against Wales on March 3, 1924. In eight years he played eight times for his country and scored three times. He continued to have success with Bolton, winning the FA Cup again in 1925-26, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win over Manchester City. He was the club's top scorer for five of the eight seasons he was there, scoring 144 goals in 295 league matches.

In 1928, with Bolton in financial trouble, he was signed by Herbert Chapman's Arsenal for £10,890 (nearly double the previous record); famously, Chapman negotiated the transfer with Bolton's representatives in a hotel bar, his tactic being to drink gin and tonics without any gin in them, while letting the other side drink as much as they possibly could. Chapman remained sober while the Bolton representatives got very drunk, and managed to haggle down the fee to a price he considered a bargain.

Intended as a replacement for retired captain Charlie Buchan, Jack was a success at Highbury. He made his debut against Newcastle United on October 28, 1928, and became a regular straight away. He was the club's top scorer for the 1928-29 season. Although less prolific than centre-forward Jack Lambert, he still scored important goals, including the one in the 1929-30 FA Cup semi-final against Hull City which sent Arsenal through to the final; Arsenal beat Huddersfield Town 2-0 in the final and Jack became the first player to win the Cup at Wembley with two different clubs.

Jack continued to feature for Arsenal through the early 1930s, recording a personal best of 34 goals in Arsenal's First Division-winning season of 1930-31. He won two more titles in 1932-33 and 1933-34; however by the time of the latter he was in his mid-30s and reaching the end of his career, with competition for his place from new signing Ray Bowden meant Jack played only 16 matches that season. He retired soon after winning his third league medal, in May 1934. In all he scored 124 times in 208 matches for Arsenal, making him the ninth-best goalscorer in the club's history.

After retiring from playing, he went on to become manager of Southend United from May 1934 to August 1940, and then Middlesbrough from November 1944 to April 1952. Jack also managed League of Ireland side Shelbourne from the summer of 1953 to April 1955. He died in 1958, aged 59.

  • Harris, Jeff & Hogg, Tony (ed.) (1995). Arsenal Who's Who. Independent UK Sports. ISBN 1-899429-03-4. 
Preceded by
Bob Thomas
Shelbourne manager
1953-1955
Succeeded by
Eddie Gannon
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.