CROOK TOWN BOY MAKES HIS WAY VIA MALLORCA

I am off to Mallorca soon, so I thought I would seek out some history of the Balaeric island’s football. So I start with County Durham.

John “Jack” Greenwell was born in 1884 in Crook, Durham and was the son of a miner. He played for Crook Town in the Northern league and for West Auckland, a team that won the original “World Cup” known as the Sir Thomas Lipton trophy in 1909 (see previous blog). He played for Barcelona in 1912, and even brought Crook Town out to Spain to play friendly matches, which resulted in a win and two draws for the northerners. He became manager of Barcelona for seven consecutive seasons during the first Golden Age when he oversaw nearly 500 games and in 1939 went to South America to coach, winning national trophies for his clubs and also guiding the Peru International side to a win in the South American championship. He managed clubs such as Espanol, Valencia and RCD Mallorca.

The Civil war forced Jack to take his Spanish wife to safety in South America, where he coached in Peru and in 1940 he moved to the Colombian port city of Barranquilla, and worked with the national team.  He died there of a heart attack in 1942.