Forgotten story of Reds’ goalscoring great Jack
AFTER his retirement from the game that had given him so much, Jack Rowley was a private man, turning down invitations to football events and rejecting complimentary tickets at Old Trafford to avoid being fussed over.
Rowley is a certified Manchester United legend. Scorer of two of the most important goals in the history of the club and fourth on the list of all-time goalscorers, behind only Wayne Rooney, Sir Bobby Charlton and Denis Law.
He could be even higher on that list, with his 211 goals across 12 seasons including a six-year hiatus during the Second World War. Despite his heroics, on and off the pitch, there is a feeling he is something of a forgotten legend, alongside his even more prolific brother Arthur, who is the top scorer in the history of the Football League.
But if Jack Rowley, who died in 1998 aged 79, is a footnote in the modern history of United, it hasn’t always been that way. At the age of 72, he was finally tempted back to a gala dinner at Old Trafford, but only after grandson Christian convinced him to go.
“On the night of the event, a friend and I collected grandad in my car and we headed north. Sir Matt Busby was the guest speaker and was ecstatic to see my grandad, who greeted Sir Matt with “hello boss” and “how are you boss?”,” recalls Christian.
“Even at the age of 72, my granddad still showed Busby huge amounts of respect. There were many footballing legends at the dinner and, one by one, they all came over to speak to granddad that evening. It was only then that it dawned on me how famous he actually was.
“During Busby’s speech, I saw Sir Alex Ferguson enter the room. He headed straight over to grandad, shook his hand and said, “It’s fantastic to see you after all these years.”
“Later that evening Ferguson returned and during their conversation, he turned to me and said, “Do you realise how good your grandfather was? He is a big part of the history of this club and he was my favourite player of all time”. That statement stood the test of time as he flew over from France to attend my grandad’s funeral some years later.”
That anecdote is one of many in a new book about the exploits of Jack and Arthur Rowley, titled The Forgotten Brothers and written by Ian Davidson.
Davidson died in June 2020 at the age of 63, just a month after finishing the book, but the families of the Wolverhampton-born brothers wanted the works to be published.
The author was inspired to pay tribute to the Rowley brothers after reading a feature on the 40 best footballing brothers in esteemed football magazine FourFourTwo.
Arthur and Jack weren’t included and Davidson felt the omission was an injustice, one that’s hard to disagree with given their respective records.
Jack signed for United in 1937, joining from Bournemouth for a fee of £3,000 just after he’d turned 19, a signing pursued by the club’s owner and chairman at the time James Gibson.
“This was a significant fee in prewar football, especially, when you consider that United’s financial position at the time was precarious with trading losses and a significant overdraft,” writes Davidson.
“However, Gibson had a hunch about Jack and so backed his judgement – not for the first, or last time, in respect of Manchester United. Throughout his business and football life Gibson did not get many decisions wrong and buying Jack proved a shrewd one.”
After helping United to promotion to the First Division, Rowley had just established himself at the elite level when war broke out. He scored 101 games in 78 games during unofficial war-time fixtures for United, but also saw action, joining the South Staffordshire Regiment and landing in Caen, France, in 1944 just a few days after the D-Day landings.
Once the war was over he returned to United and scored goals at an even greater rate. His two equalisers in the 1948 FA Cup final victory against Blackpool are considered two of the most important in the club’s history.
It was a first trophy for 45 years and the first under Sir Matt Busby, with Rowley twice dragging United back into the game at Wembley in a 4-2 win. He left United in 1955, but not before he’d started penning an insightful weekly column for the Manchester Evening News.
Davidson’s book details Rowley’s goalscoring exploits and his relationship with Busby, as well as tributes from family members and an exploration of the achievements of the two brothers.
Ferguson said: ‘Do you realise how good your grandfather was? He was my favourite player of all time