Proud Ernest Image 1 Bishop Auckland 1906

Description

Bishop Auckland’s amateur goalkeeper Ernest Proud did not have a career at the highest levels of club football and played for County Durham club Bishop Auckland in the Northern League during the first decade of the twentieth century. Capped by Durham at football, cricket and hockey, Proud kept goal for England in their first ever Amateur international, a 15-0 victory over France at Parc des Princes, Paris in November 1906. The following month he also was custodian for The Amateurs in their 4-2 defeat to The Professionals at Hillsborough, Sheffield, However Tom Rowlandson, Ron Brebner and Horace Bailey were then preferred to Proud in the following six England Amateur internationals before he was recalled in April 1908, playing twice that month, first in a 8-2 victory over Belgium at Sukkelweg, Brussels, and two days later in a 5-1 victory over Germany at Viktoria-Platz, Berlin. This proved his final international.

Ernest Proud was the father of Bill Proud, who played first class cricket for Hampshire and Oxford University immediately before the Second World War and also played for Durham and The Minor Counties after the War.

NB this photograph was probably taken during England’s first amateur international in Paris in November 1906.