From The Archive: Jack Butler
During the 2018 FIFA World Cup finals in Russia, fans were impressed by the exploits of Belgium. However, very few fans realised that in the 1930s, the Belgium national team manager was a man, now largely forgotten, who played a crucial part in Leicester City’s history throughout the Second World War.
He was also the only Belgium manager, until the 2018 World Cup finals, to have beaten England. His name was Jack Butler.
While rediscovering this story, our research included trawling through Leicester City’s directors’ minutes books, talking to a footballer who played for Butler at Filbert Street during the War, and establishing contact in Belgium with a football historian who is also researching Jack’s story, albeit from a Belgian perspective.
Butler's playing career
Butler was born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on 14 August, 1894. When he was a young child, his family moved back to Great Britain. As a youth, he represented West London Schools. He then joined Second Division side Fulham on amateur forms, playing for the Fulham Thursday XI. He played as a professional for Dartford during the 1913/14 season before joining Second Division outfit Arsenal in May 1914. He played for Arsenal’s reserve side in the season before the Football League was suspended in April 1915, due to the First World War.
After serving with the Footballers’ Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment on the Western Front, Butler returned to Highbury for the first post-war season. Controversially, Arsenal were by now in the First Division. Jack, a tall, elegant centre-half, which in those days was more of a midfield role, made his first team debut against Bolton Wanderers on 15 November, 1919. He went on to make 20 more appearances that season.
By the 1924/25 season, despite strong competition for his place in the side, Butler was established in the Arsenal first team. He only missed three games that season and won his only England cap in the match against Belgium at The Hawthorns on 8 December, 1924. The Three Lions won 4-0.
At the end of that season, Arsenal narrowly escaped relegation by finishing in 20th position. However, in the summer of 1925, Herbert Chapman, the manager of league champions Huddersfield Town, was persuaded to join Arsenal as manager.
The following season saw Butler at the heart of a tactical innovation which changed the game of football. An alteration to the offside rule had reduced, from three to two becoming the number of opposition players that an attacker needed between himself and the goal-line.
To exploit this rule change, Chapman developed the ‘WM’ plan, which replaced the traditional 2-3-5 formation with a 3-3-4 formation. This redefined the role of Butler’s centre-half position, requiring him to play a more defensive role.
During that 1925/26 season, he played in 41 league games and, in a remarkable turnaround from the previous season, Arsenal finished in second place to Chapman's old club, Huddersfield Town, who won their third successive league title.
The following campaign, Butler was in Arsenal’s FA Cup Final side, which lost to Cardiff City. In June 1930, after making nearly 300 appearances for the Gunners, Butler signed for the Third Division South side Torquay United. He retired from playing two seasons later after making 50 appearances for the south coast club.
Butler in Belgium
After retiring from playing in 1932 at the age of 37, Butler was appointed manager-coach at the Brussels club Royal Daring, which played in the Belgian First Division.
This was one of Belgium’s top teams in the 1930s. Under Butler’s guidance, they won the league in 1936 and 1937, were runners-up in 1934 and 1938 and won the Belgian Cup in 1935.
One of the reasons for these successes was that Butler introduced the ‘WM’ system, the first coach in Belgium to do so.
He held the post until 1939, but that year the club was relegated because of an issue relating to bribery.
While at Royal Daring, Jack also coached the Belgian national side between 1935 and 1938. Until the 2018 World Cup Finals, he was the only Belgium team manager to record a victory over England when his side defeated England 3-2 in Brussels in May 1936.
His team qualified for the 1938 World Cup Finals by defeating Luxembourg and drawing with the Netherlands in the qualifying stages. The finals of the tournament were held in France. In their only game in the finals, Butler’s Belgium lost 3-1 to France. For the record, Italy won the Word Cup for the second successive time.
Butler at Leicester City
In England, league football had been suspended after only three games into the new season following the outbreak of war on 3 September 1939. By the time that Germany had occupied Belgium in May 1940, Butler was back in Britain.
Leicester City, newly relegated from the top flight, had started the 1939/40 season with a new manager, the ex-Liverpool and England player, Tom Bromilow.
For the next seven seasons, City competed in regional wartime league and cup competitions. Bromilow stayed at Filbert Street until May 1945, helping to guide the Club through the turmoil of the War. Among other things, there was a financial scandal which resulted in the suspension of many players and directors in 1940, Filbert Street was bombed in 1940 and the Main Stand caught fire in 1942.
Gates were small. There were huge financial difficulties which at one point almost resulted in the Club’s liquidation.
The directors’ minutes reveal that soon after Bromilow’s appointment, the Club engaged a new head trainer, Preston North End’s Jim Metcalfe, on £8 per week.
This was later reduced to a wartime salary of £2 per week.
On 9 October, 1940, the directors agreed to release Metcalfe, who wished to return to the North West to look after his sick wife. It was a mutual and friendly agreement.
Seeking assistance in securing a trainer to replace Metcalfe, chairman Alfred Pallett then sent a letter to the secretary of the FA, Stanley Rous (later Sir Stanley Rous, President of FIFA).
Rous wired back recommending Butler. Pallett went to London to discuss terms with Butler, who was then invited to take charge of the team the following weekend, a home game against Luton Town, ‘so that the board might be in a position to take a decision after the match’.
Butler must have impressed because a week later, he was invited to the next board meeting, where he was offered the post, ‘strictly as a wartime appointment, limited to the period under which the present league football arrangements operated’ at a salary of £5 per week.
Butler accepted and the appointment was confirmed. The board also agreed to pay the new trainer’s removal expenses from London.
A month after his arrival, the Main Stand at Filbert Street was bombed by the Luftwaffe, causing considerable damage. One casualty was Butler’s furniture. which was stored in the gymnasium at the time of the air raid. It was arranged for a carpenter to try to repair the damage to the furniture, but the following month, Butler appealed for financial aid concerning the damage to his furniture.
At the end of Butler’s first season as trainer, Leicester came very close to their first-ever Wembley appearance, but they were defeated in the two-legged semi-final of the League War Cup by Butler’s old club, Arsenal. A week later, on 3 May, 1941, City beat Walsall at Filbert Street to secure the Wartime Midland Cup.
The following campaign, Leicester secured the Wartime Southern Section title with a 2-0 defeat of Nottingham Forest on Christmas Day 1941.
However, in June 1942, the Club suffered a body blow when a fire destroyed much of the Main Stand, adding to the damage inflicted by the Luftwaffe two years beforehand.
Together with Bromilow, Butler was heavily involved throughout the war in setting up, developing and coaching City’s junior and Colts teams.
These were aimed at nurturing young local talent for the cash-strapped Club.
One player who played for the juniors, before he progressed to the Colts and then to the reserves, was Ernie Kenney, who spoke recently about his memories of Butler.
As a 15-year-old playing for Cosby, Ernie was invited to a trial at Leicester and started playing for the juniors team which was coached by Butler.
“He was very good,” Ernie remembered. “He coached us in the Arsenal way, teaching us ball control, passing, moving into open space and all that sort of thing. When [the Club's record goalscorer] Arthur Chandler, who was watching us one day, gave me some tips on goalscoring, he wasn’t really telling me anything that Butler hadn’t already taught me.”
Ernie still possesses a note from Butler advising him that a game had been called off.
In July 1944, as part of its youth policy, the Club also adopted Middlesbrough Swifts as a nursery club, from whom they signed the future Leicester and England star, Don Revie.
In November 1944, Metcalfe, who had been promised on his departure that he would be considered for the position of trainer once the war was over, and Butler, who had been appointed for the period that wartime arrangements were in place, both submitted applications for the position of trainer at Filbert Street once the war was over.
Metcalfe wanted £10 per-week and Jack Butler wanted £500 per-annum. The board voted 3-2 in favour of appointing Butler as the post-war trainer.
Bromilow left Filbert Street in May 1945 to take up a coaching position in Holland. He was replaced by Tom Mather, who over a period of 30 years, had managed Bolton Wanderers, Southend United, Stoke City and Newcastle United.
Shortly afterwards, Butler met with the directors about Mather’s appointment. His position at the Club was clarified ‘and it was agreed that the changed conditions would permit a fresh start and that the success of the Club was dependent on all the officials pulling together’.
Butler’s role as the trainer for the post-war era, following the agreement to appoint him to this position the previous November, was activated in August 1945.
In March 1946, Mather left Filbert Street after only nine months. He was replaced by Johnny Duncan, the ex-Leicester City captain from the halcyon days of the 1920s.
The following month, Butler requested six weeks’ leave of absence during the close-season to take up a coaching position on the continent with the Danish FA.
This was granted on condition that Jack’s annual holiday was included in this period and that he discussed the list of players with the new manager in preparation for the following 1946/47 season, when the Football League was due to resume.
Before his departure for Denmark, Butler was offered a further year’s contract at Filbert Street.
However, following discussions with Duncan, it was agreed that although personal relationships between the two were ‘of the happiest nature’, there were significant differences of opinion concerning training and coaching. In view of this, Butler offered to resign to avoid a situation of conflict.
The directors reluctantly accepted Jack’s offer and made a payment of £600 ‘in full settlement of all claims for loss of office’. They also expressed their appreciation of Jack’s ‘qualities and abilities’.
Butler then conveyed to the meeting his appreciation of the frank and fair manner with which the issue had been handled, and thanked the directors for their generosity to him.
Jack's time at Filbert Street was over.
Butler’s later career
In July 1946, after his brief spell coaching for the Danish FA, Butler returned to Torquay United, where he had finished his playing career in 1932, to take up the post of manager.
There were 50 other applicants for the post.
After a season at Plainmoor, he then spent two seasons as Crystal Palace’s manager between 1947 and 1949. Butler signed Ernie Kenney for Crystal Palace as an amateur, before offering him a professional contract at £6.50-a-week during the season and £4.50-a-week in the close-season. Ernie declined, as this didn’t really cover his travel and living expenses.
Butler returned to Belgium to manage Royal Daring between 1949 and 1953. He led them to promotion back to the First Division, but the club was in decline with an ageing board of directors which was slow to embrace the implications of football’s professional era.
The club was losing ground to Anderlecht, which was becoming the new dominant force in Brussels. He was back in England as Colchester United’s manager for 18 months from June 1953 to January 1955.
Jack died in London on 5 January 1961 aged 66. Today, he is largely forgotten. This is surprising because he had a very distinguished career in football.
As a player, he had performed at the highest level for Arsenal and England, and had been central to a revolutionary tactical innovation which altered the game forever.
As a coach, he had been extremely successful at club level, winning two Belgian titles and the Belgian Cup.
As a national manager, he had taken Belgium to the 1938 World Cup Finals.
He was also highly respected at Leicester City, where he has also been largely forgotten.
He had a truly remarkable career; one which deserves to be remembered.
With thanks to Ernie Kenney and Belgian football historian Kurt Deswert for their help with this article.