John Rea (footballer)
Welsh footballer
Lieutenant Colonel John Charles Rea (21 December 1868 – 4 February 1944) was a Welsh footballer who played in the Football League for West Bromwich Albion, and earned nine caps for the Wales national team.
Club career
Rea's only game for West Bromwich Albion was on 15 December 1894 in a 3–2 win against Stoke.
International career
Rea made his international debut for Wales on 24 February 1894 in the 1893–94 British Home Championship against Ireland, which finished as a 4–1 home win. He earned nine caps in total for Wales and scored one goal, with his last appearance coming on 19 February 1898 in the 1897–98 British Home Championship against Ireland, which finished as a 0–1 home loss.
Military career
In 1902, Rea was a Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery (Volunteers), though volunteer units were reorganised in 1908 with the creation of the Territorial Force. One of the new units formed was the 2nd Welsh Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, with one battery of the new field artillery brigade provided by the 1st Cardigan Royal Garrison Artillery (Volunteers), becoming the Cardiganshire Battery. Rea served as the commanding officer of the battery by 1912. In August 1914, after World War I was declared, Rea took up his duty of battery commander within the first line division of the Welsh Division, later renamed the 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division. The divisional artillery were ordered to France to join the British Expeditionary Force, where he arrived in November 1915. The divisional artillery rejoined the rest of the division in Egypt in January 1916, later serving in Palestine.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Rea (footballer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.