Leigh Richmond Roose

Standing 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) and weighing over 13 stone (180 lb; 83 kg), Roose was well qualified to play in goal, a specialised position that was, in the Edwardian era, particularly physically challenging. He began his footballing career in 1895 with Aberystwyth Town, playing for the club on 85 occasions. His debut came in a 6–0 win over the Shropshire team Whitchurch in October 1895, and he was carried from the pitch shoulder-high following the team's 3–0 victory over Druids in the Welsh Cup final of 1900. It was during this phase of his career that Roose was seen playing by the eminent Welsh historian Thomas Richards, who would later refer to him as Yr Ercwlff synfawr hwn ("This wondrous Hercules"). In March 1900, Roose joined South Wales based Porth until the end of the season. For the 1900-01 season, Roose joined Druids. He played in the 1901 Welsh Cup Final where Druids lost against Oswestry United.

Signed by Stoke, Roose made 147 league appearances for the Staffordshire club from 1901 to 1904 and 1905–1906 – the latter spell, consisting of only three games, being terminated by a broken wrist. Roose kept 40 clean sheets (that is, did not concede a goal) during his Stoke career, a remarkable record not least because his team flirted dangerously with relegation in 1901, 1902 and 1904. Roose punctuated his two spells at Stoke with 24 appearances for Everton, whom he helped reach the semi-final of the FA Cup in 1905. He arrived partway through the 1904–05 season and…

Roose's international career began in 1900 when he played for Wales in a 2–0 defeat of Ireland. He won a total of 24 caps, turning out for his last international game against Scotland in March 1911. He was one of Wales's key players when the team won the British Home Championship for the first time in 1907. Since Wales did not play their first international match against an opponent from outside the Home Nations until 1933, all of Roose's games were played against England, Scotland or Ireland. He also appeared for Wales Amateurs in 1911.

Roose has been described by the Dictionary of Welsh Biography as a man who "had been thoroughly grounded in the fundamentals of his art, and gave interpretation to them in the style and manner of a man of genius". This opinion was shared by the long-serving Secretary of the Football Association, Sir Frederick Wall, who thought that Roose – "such a sensation as a goalkeeper" – was "a clever man [who] had what is sometimes described as the eccentricity of genius. His daring was seen in the goal, where he was often taking risks and emerging triumphant." More, perhaps, than any 'keeper of his time other than William Foulke, Roose possessed the size and strength to meet the robust strikers of the period on equal terms. His considerable physical presence has been compared to that of the modern Danish 'keeper Peter Schmeichel, and according to one biographer, the Welshman "enjoyed taunting experienced international forwards, some of whom felt the full force of his fist in goalmouth melees." The Athletic Times described Roose as "dexterous though daring, valiant though volatile". Spectators, observed the DWB, "could only gaze in wonder at his prehensile grip, the immense power of his punch, and the prodigious length of his goal kicks; they could only guess at the uncanny intuition by which he divined the aims of his opponents, the swift agile mind that worked behind the small, narrow eyes." Geraint Jenkins, an Aberystwyth historian who wrote a brief biographical sketch of the…

Roose was born in Holt, near Wrexham in Wales, at a time when association football was principally confined to the north of the country. Roose was raised by his father, a Presbyterian minister named Richmond Leigh Roose, following the death of his mother from cancer when he was two years old. He was educated at Holt Academy – where in the course of one violent football match, Roose's brother Edward kicked H. G. Wells, then a teacher at the school, so hard in the back that he ruptured the future novelist's kidney and left him incapacitated for several weeks. On leaving school in 1895, he went on to study at Aberystwyth University. After graduating from Aberystwyth, Roose studied medicine briefly at King's College London. Although accounts of Roose often refer to him as a doctor of bacteriology, he never qualified as a doctor.