Biography
Reader was born in West Bromwich, where he attended Beeches Road School and St Phillips School. He joined West Bromwich Albion as an amateur in January 1885 and turned professional in August of the same year. Reader made his league debut in October 1889 in a Division One match away to Aston Villa. He won an FA Cup winners medal with Albion when they beat Villa 3–0 in the 1892 final. In 1894 he won his only England cap, in a 2–2 draw with Ireland in Belfast. He helped Albion reach the FA Cup Final once more in 1895, but this time was on the losing side as Aston Villa won 1–0. Following Albion's move to The Hawthorns in 1900, Reader became the only player to have represented the club in a competitive match at three different grounds, namely Four Acres, Stoney Lane and The Hawthorns. After 370 senior appearances for Albion, Reader retired from playing football due to illness in April 1901. He then took up the role of trainer-coach at the club, and later became a ground steward at The Hawthorns until 1950. He died in West Bromwich in March 1954, aged 88.
Read more about this topic: Joe Reader
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)