Miles Barron

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John Barrow (footballer)
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Miles Barron
Barron with the West Auckland team in Barcelona in 1912
Personal information
Date of birth 1871
Place of birth Waterhouses, County Durham, England[1]
Date of death 9 September 1924(1924-09-09) (aged 52–53)
Managerial career
Years Team
West Auckland
1912 Barcelona

Miles Coverdale Stocks[a] Barron (1871 – 9 September 1924) was an English football administrator and manager.

Personal life

Miles Barron was born in 1871 in Waterhouses, a borough located to the east of the city of Durham.[3] The exact date of birth is not known, but he was registered in the civil registry of Durham between July and September of that year.[3] Barron, the eldest of four children, was born to John Barron (1840–1915), a colliery manager from Durham, and Grace Stocks (1841–1913).[3][4]

As a young man, Barron was an employee of Pease and Partners Ltd, the same company for which his father worked.[3] Barron married Mary Ann Bird in 1893, and they initially settled in the town of Lynesack and later in St Helen Auckland, both near West Auckland.[1][3] They had five children.[3] Barron was a freemason member of the United Grand Lodge of England from 1905.[3]

Career

A

Juventus two years later to win the competition again, the club met with financial hardship and were forced to disband.[5][6]

These exploits in Europe caught the eye of Barcelona president Joan Gamper, who invited Barron to become head coach of Barcelona in 1912.[5] Barron accepted and was therefore appointed as manager upon his arrival.[6] Between September and December 1912, Barron managed Barcelona in twelve friendly matches, and also refereed two of them.[3] After having coached the team in local matches for several months,[2] he was tasked with assembling a squad of British players for Barcelona to test its strength[6] in their Christmas friendlies.[2] The British team he brought over, known as the West Auckland Wanderers, was composed of numerous members of the West Auckland side that had won two Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy titles under Barron.[4][5]

The sides faced off three times at the

Christmas Day of 1912: a 3–3 draw, in which Barcelona's goals were scored by two British players, Alex Steel and Frank Allack.[5][6] The second game resulted in a 4–0 loss for Barcelona, but in the final fixture, played on 29 December, Steel scored two goals in a 2–0 victory for the Catalan club.[5][6] Following this, Gamper attempted to persuade Barron to continue as head coach, an offer which Barron declined in order to return to his family; he resumed his previous career as a surveyor.[4][5][6]

Despite leaving Barcelona, his impact was longer-lasting: the visiting West Auckland squad included goalkeeper Jack Alderson, who replaced Barron as coach.[7][2] Former West Auckland player, and friend of Barron, Jack Greenwell, who had joined Barcelona as a player at the same time as Barron's arrival, also decided to stay in Barcelona after those friendlies and went on to replace Alderson and manage the side for two separate spells.[3][5]

In Spanish newspapers, Barron's name was rendered incorrectly more often than not, with various different spellings, though football historians have identified them as him.[2] Incorrectly named "B. Barren" on Barcelona's official website[4][6] (and earlier as "John Barrow"),[8] he is listed as the club's second official coach, after Billy Lambe, who had served as player-manager earlier in 1912, although Barren was the first one to be specifically contracted by Barça as a full-time manager.[5][7]

Later life and death

Barron would not remain in football, and with the onset of the First World War in 1914, he and his son Percy were commissioned into the Royal Engineers,[3] serving in the Salonika campaign, where he contracted malaria.[5][6] The disease affected most of his later life, and he eventually succumbed to it, dying on 9 September 1924, at the age of 52.[5][6]

Notes

  1. ^ also possibly Slater[1] or Sidney[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c Lloyd, Chris (22 April 2009). "A weekend in Italy would have been an enormous adventure". thenorthernecho.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Descubriendo a Mr. Barron" [Discovering Mr. Barron]. www.sport.es (in Spanish). 22 January 2023. Archived from the original on 17 January 2024. Retrieved 17 January 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "L'entrenador desconegut del Barça: Mr. Barron" [The unknown coach of Barça: Mr. Baron]. memoriesfutbolcatala.com (in Catalan). 6 January 2023. Archived from the original on 17 January 2024. Retrieved 17 January 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d "The mystery Englishman who became Barca's first boss". soccersport.club. 2 February 2023. Archived from the original on 15 January 2024. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l West, Andy (2 February 2023). "Barcelona: Englishman Miles Barron revealed as club's first manager". bbc.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Miles Barron: The story behind Barcelona's mysterious first full-time manager". www.90min.com. 5 February 2023. Archived from the original on 10 January 2024. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  7. ^ a b "Miles Barron (1912)". www.fcbarcelona.com. Archived from the original on 2 February 2023. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
  8. ^ "John Barrow". archive.today. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 2 February 2023.
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