Jack Whitley

Jack was born in Blackburn in 1874, He was centre-half and captain of the Salmoners during their Football League days, and he was one of the last men to turn out for the Salmoners at Barley Bank for a Football League match. Jack was transferred to Aston Villa in 1899 the day before Darwen's last ever Football League game for the sum of £50 mainly to ease the financial burden on the club at the time. He played for Aston Villa for 6 years as a half-back and also has a "goalkeeper" ( he had played in goal for the Salmoners in his time ). Sadly a foot injury forced Jack to miss the FA cup final in 1905 which Villa won 2-0 against Newcastle United. In 1907 Jack moved to the newly formed Chelsea Football club, playing with the London team as goalkeeper upto the outbreak of the First World War Jack played his last game for Chelsea on the 14th April 1914 away at Bradford City. He then took over as first team coach for the Stamford Bridge side, in his first season as coach he took Chelsea to their first major final - the war-time FA cup final of 1915 which they lost 0-3 to Sheffield United, in all he stayed with Chelsea for a total of 32 years becoming the clubs trainer between the two World Wars, it was during this period that Jack coached the England team for over 50 Internationals.

Acknowledgements for the history in this section are made to :  Darwen RBL -- who originally published this page in 2002