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| Jack 'Dickie' Cunliffe |
The Wigan Youth Zone in the town centre is an absolute hive of activity and a roaring success, youngsters from all across the borough descend upon it everyday of the week, it provides a host of activities, the vast majority of which are physical and football plays a large part.
The Youth Zone was a concept that was driven by Latics owner and former chairman Dave Whelan, he reflected back on his own youth with fond memories of attending the Wigan Boys club, the discipline that it instilled in him and the opportunity it allowed to follow his passion for football that saw him achieve a very good career in the professional game.
Whelan though wasn’t the only local lad to come through the ranks of the Wigan Boys club to go on and make a name for himself playing ‘soccer’, indeed during the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s there was a steady stream of young lads honing their talents at the Boys club and making the grade in the professional game. One such lad was Jack (Dickie) Cunliffe.
Jack Cunliffe forged a very good career as a left winger with Potteries club, and this Saturday’s opponents, Port Vale during the 1950’s.
Born on the 4th February 1930, Jack ‘grew up’ around the Pemberton and Goose Green areas of Wigan, and by the late 1940’s he was making a name for himself playing for the Wigan Boys club, which led to him being signed in 1950 by, at that time, Third Division South club Port Vale.
It took Jack a couple of years to establish himself as a regular in the Port Vale side, but when he did he became a terrace hero, playing alongside Port Vale all time legend Roy Sproson and under forward thinking manager Freddie Steele, Jack earned the nickname ‘Tricky Dickie’ for his left wing wizardry. In the 1952/53 season Jack started to feature regularly, he made 19 appearances scoring four goals as Vale ended the season runners-up in the Third Division North. If the 52/53 season was a good one for Port Vale and Jack Cunliffe, then the 53/54 season was simply outstanding.
Cunliffe made a total of 50 appearances and banged home 9 goals (8 league and 1 FA cup) as Port Vale stormed the Third Division North to be crowned Champions, winning the title by 11 points from second placed Barnsley, but it was in the FA Cup this particular season that Vale captured the minds and the hearts of the nation.
A plucky team from the third tier of English football, Vale made it all the way to the semi-final, on route they had faced previous season’s winners Blackpool, Stanley Matthews and all, the cup holders were dispatched at Vale Park in the 5th round in front of 42,000 by 2-0.
In an earlier round Vale had travelled to Southport, it was the same day that the Latics faced Hereford United at Springfield Park and drew their largest ever home crowd of 27,500, but a proportion of Wiganers opted to travel to Southport to watch Jack play instead of the short journey to Springfield as the paper cutting below shows.
In the semi-final Port Vale faced eventual cup winners West Brom at Villa Park, the Albion at the time were top of the first division and the Valiants were always going to be up against it, over 68,000 packed into the ground to witness a flukey own goal and an extremely controversial penalty decide the tie 2-1 in West Brom’s favour.
‘Dickie’ Jack Cunliffe stayed at Vale Park until 1959 when he enjoyed a second promotion campaign during the 58/59 season with Vale winning the newly formed Fourth Division, in total he made 302 appearances scoring 55 goals before moving to Stoke in a player exchange deal. He finished his career off in the non-league circles playing with Macclesfield Town, Stafford Rangers and Buxton.
Jack married Elsie from Newcastle-Under-Lyme and settled in the area, living in Tunstall in Stoke. Sadly Jack passed away in November 1975 aged just 45.
All photos and clippings reproduced with the permission of Jack Cunliffe’s family.
Grab a listen to the latest PWU Latics podcast with a preview of the Port Vale game with guest Jonny from the Ale & Vale podcast:
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