Peart: John George (Jack)

1916-1919 (Leeds City War-time Guest Player Details)

Centre Forward

Born: South Shields: 03-10-1888

Debut: v Bradford City (h): 05-02-1916

Height & Weight: Unknown

Jack Peart was a Centre Forward who played for nine Football League clubs in a career that spanned nineteen years. He played in every Division of the Football League and also in the Southern League and the Western League. He started with South Shields Adelaide, in his home town, and then moved on to Treharris, a South Welsh club who operated in the Western Football League, before first playing in the Football League with First Division Sheffield United, who he joined in May 1907. Peart was known as the 'most injured man in football', which included a broken leg in his spell at Bramall Lane, which kept him out of football for almost two seasons. While with the Blades he made twenty-seven League appearances and scored eight goals and played in one F.A. Cup tie. He moved to Stoke who were then operating in the Birmingham & District League in 1909 before joining First Division Newcastle United in March 1912. He scored six goals in seventeen League games at Gallowgate before leaving one Magpie team for another when he joined First Division Notts County in February 1913. He was unable to prevent his new club from being relegated in his first season at Meadow Lane but they came roaring straight back to the top flight. He was only able to play three seasons for County before the First World War brought a cessation to the Football League fixtures, but Peart returned after the war to score five goals in nine league games and took his tally to fifty-one goals, including one from the penalty spot in just eighty-two League games together with one goal from the spot in two F.A. Cup ties. During the war years he guested for Rochdale and Barnsley but he would be best remembered for his feats with Leeds City during that time. Joining the Elland Road team towards the end of the 1915-16 season he became virtually an ever-present in the Number Nine shirt and the goals flowed at a prodigious rate. In all competitions he scored seventy-one goals in one hundred and seven games and along with Arthur Price, John and Billy Hampson, Tommy Lamph and Clem Stephenson he was one of the cornerstones of the highly successful team which became unofficial Champions of England in the 1917-18 season by beating Stoke in a two-legged play-off, with Peart playing both games and getting one of the goals in the home fixture. He Left Notts County in November 1919 for Second Division Birmingham but failed to score in his three games there and quickly moved on to First Division Derby County in January 1920. It was a short stay too at the Baseball Ground, scoring once in nine League appearances before leaving the Football League for Ebbw Vale Steel & Iron Company as Player-Manager. He resigned in January 1922 and returned to League Football as a player with Second Division Port Vale. Injuries dictated that he only played seven League games without scoring before he was on the move once more in July 1922 when he joined Third Division South Norwich City. At Carrow Road he scored seven goals in twenty-one League games and another two goals in three F.A, Cup games before leaving for Rochdale as Player-Manager in March 1923. He scored ten goals in twenty-one League games and also turned out in one F.A. Cup tie before retiring as a player at the end of the season. His only representative honours were three appearances for the Southern League and one game for the Football League. He stayed with Rochdale until July 1930, when he left to replace Bradford City’s most successful Manager, Peter O’Rourke. He was able to preserve City’s second Division status in the five years he spent at Valley but offered to resign at the end of 1933-34 season before agreeing to see out the final two years of his contract. He then joined Fulham and remained at Craven Cottage until his death on 3rd September 1948, aged 59. The fruits of his thirteen year reign came in the season after his death when the Cottagers won the Second Division Championship.