Holmes Albert Image 1 Nottingham Forest 1905

Description

Mansfield, Nottinghamshire born outside left Albert Holmes began his football career with Hucknall Constitutionals, from where he signed for First Division club Nottingham Forest in May 1905, where he was a member of the Nottingham Forest squad which toured Argentina and Uruguay in 1905. He made his Football League debut at Blackburn Rovers that December, Holmes scoring his only goal in 6 matches for Forest in an FA Cup win over Bury the next month, but he soon lost his place and Forest were relegated at the end of the season.

Holmes joined hometown Notts & District League club Mansfield Wesleyans, which later became Mansfield Town, in the summer of 1906, but he returned to Football League action somewhat over a year later when he signed for Second Division club Chesterfield in February 1908. Coming straight into the team he played 14 matches before the season end, and the next season missed only one match, at the end of which Chesterfield failed to gain re-election.

After 9 goals in 53 appearances for The Spireites, Holmes joined Lancashire Combination club Nelson in 1909, and had a season with Midland League club Mansfield Mechanics from 1910, before joining Second Division club Coventry City in 1911. He scored 17 goals in 107 appearances for Coventry City either side of a brief (loan?) spell in Scotland with Heart of Midlothian, for whom he made his Scottish League debut in the Edinburgh derby at Tynecastle in February 1914, scoring in a 3-1 victory over Hibernian.

He made 2 more appearances for The Jambos that month before returning to Coventry, playing for them up until the onset of the First World War forced the suspension of peacetime football in May 1915. During the War Holmes served as a private in The Footballers Battalion of The Middlesex Regiment, and he also played twice as a wartime guest for Portsmouth in 1915-16, but had retired by the time peacetime football resumed.