Biography

Inside forward Ellis Jones joined Bill McCracken’s Tigers in May 1925 and spent one season at the club before returning to the North East football scene. He had to wait until the closing weeks of the season to make his first team debut and he played in eight consecutive games, scoring his only goal for the Tigers in a March 1926 4-0 defeat of Stockport County. Despite this run of games Jones was allowed to leave the Tigers in the 1926 close season.
Ellis Jones was born in the shadows of Oakenshaw Colliery, between Crook and Durham City. His family home was located alongside the incline railway that took the coal to Willington and beyond across the central Durham coalfield belt. The youngest of seven children, Jones’ father was a coal miner who hailed from Lancashire and moved to County Durham as a young man to seek work in the rapidly growing coal extraction and coking industry. Ellis also worked as a coal miner in his younger years while playing local league football as a forward. He spent the 1924/25 season at North Eastern League side Spennymoor United and scored 22 goals, form that attracted the extensive scouting tentacles of Hull City.
Jones returned to the North East in the 1926 close season and joined North Eastern League side Annfield Plain. He rediscovered his form and in the 1927/28 season he scored 36 goals in six months, once again attracting the attention of Football League sides, this time Oldham Athletic. His transfer to Oldham was completed in February 1928 and he scored on his debut against Preston two months later, adding a second start a week later against his former club Hull City. Jones started five games in the 1928/29 season and scored twice against Preston (again) and Southampton but dropped out of the first team picture in October 1928. He joined Workington Town for the 1929/30 season then returned to the North East and rejoined Spennymoor United. By 1933 he was living in Blackhall Colliery village on the County Durham coast, the new frontier for coal extraction in Durham in the 1920s and 1930s. Ellis was working as a miner and playing for the Colliery team’s reserve side. Jones spent the World War Two years in the Nuneaton area of the West Midlands, in his later years Jones returned to the central Durham area where he died in October 1972.
Details
Nationality: England
Date/Place of Birth: 5 April 1900, Oakenshaw
Hull City First Game: 3 March 1926, South Shields A (Division Two), 25 years, 332 days old
Hull City Final Game: 10 April 1926, Stoke City H (Division Two), 26 years, 5 days old
Clubs
Stanley United, Willington, Crook Town, Spennymoor United (1924-1925), Hull City (1925-1926), Annfield Plain (1926-1928), Oldham Athletic (1928-1929), Workington Town (1929-1930), Spennymoor United, Blackhall Colliery Welfare
Hull City Record
Career: 8 apps, 1 goals
Ellis JonesSeason | LGE App | LGE Gls | FAC App | FAC Gls | FLC App | FLC Gls | EUR App | EUR Gls | OTH App | OTH Gls |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1925/26 | 8 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Ellis Jones was married to my Grandmother Nellie Jones. He was a Step Dad to my mother Anne. Myself and my Sister knew him as Uncle Ellis.
They lived in Crook, County Durham. Both were involved with Crook City football Club, where myself and my Sister would attend matches as very young girls. People seemed to know my Grandmother well, at the Club
If anyone has any memories of Ellis or Nellie, please be in contact. I’d love to hear them and learn more about his life and my Grandmother.
Ellis Jones was my grandfather. He moved down to Nuneaton during the war, with his wife, my mum, Myra, and her sister, Rena. Another daughter, Ellen, was born in Nuneaton. My grandmother died when I was 4 years old. Some years later he married Nell. I think I met Anne, but possibly only once or twice, but I knew Aunt Nell quite well after she and my granddad married.
Ellis Jones was my Grandfather on my Mother’s side. He had 3 daughters, my Mother Myra, Rena and Ellen. Rena is still alive, living in Surrey.
As a very young child I remember Ellis taking me to West Bromwich Albion on a few occasions and to more local football games including Nuneaton Borough.
Nellie to us was always Auntie Nellie, even after she married Ellis.
Despite being very young I do remember him being such a nice man.