Burkinshaw Jack Image 1 Swindon Town 1910

Description

Kilnhurst, Rotherham, Yorkshire born inside forward and later right half Jack Burkinshaw began his football career with Kilnhurst Town before signing for Second Division Grimsby Town on amateur forms in February 1908 aged only 17, making his Football League debut against Burnley at the end of the same month (on the rare leap year day!), his only appearance of the season. The following season he made just 4 further appearances in October and early November but scored in 3 of those matches, all games ending in wins for The Mariners, but in May 1909 he joined Rotherham County, before a move to Southern League club Swindon Town, still an amateur, in the summer of 1910.

He enjoyed success with Swindon as they won the 1910-11 Southern League Championship, with Burkinshaw scoring 8 goals in 13 matches during the campaign, although he did not play in their 1911 FA Charity Shield defeat to Manchester United. After three seasons at The County Ground, during which he scored 19 goals in 56 appearances, he was signed by First Division club Sheffield Wednesday in May 1913, where he played as a regular at centre forward and inside right in 1913-14, but he only featured in 8 matches (all at inside right) in the final season before the onset of the First World War forced the suspension of peacetime football in May 1915.

Burkinshaw returned to Hillsborough in the aftermath of the conflict and was again a regular during the first half of 1919-20 and first appeared at right half in September, but in January 1920 lost his place in a struggling Sheffield Wednesday team that would suffer relegation and, after 10 goals in 61 appearances for The Owls either side of the War, moved soon thereafter to join Midland League club Rotherham Town before a return to Football League action when he joined First Division club Bradford Park Avenue in June 1920.

Playing both inside right and right half for The Avenue, he scored 3 goals in 25 appearances but their season also ended in relegation and he left the club in June 1921, joining newly elected Third Division (North) club Accrington Stanley. He had a single season with Stanley, mainly playing at left half, and played in their inaugural League fixture at Rochdale in August 1921, scoring once in 32 appearances for them as they finished fifth in the division. He then joined Midland League club Denaby United in 1922 and played for With Athletic in 1923 before joining the flow of professional footballers to the nascent American Soccer League in 1924, where he played for Chicago Bricklayers before his eventual retirement.

He was the older brother of Laurie Burkinshaw,and they played together for Sheffield Wednesday and Rotherham Town, Laurie also played for Birmingham and Halifax Town after the War. Another brother, Ralph Burkinshaw, had a successful football career throughout the 1920’s and into the 1930’s most notably with Bury and Bradford City.

NB in the photograph he sits next to The Dubonnet Cup, won by Swindon Town in Paris in May 1910 in an invitational match in which they beat FA Cup runners up Barnsley with two goals from Harold Fleming, although Burkinshaw hadn’t yet joined the club at the time.