Joe Dines

Joe Dines won the first of his 24 amateur international caps against Wales in 1910, and played at half-back in all three matches at the 1912 Olympics. After attending Peterborough Teacher Training College, he became a schoolmaster at King’s Lynn and earned his county colours while playing for the local team, King’s Lynn, for whom he made 149 appearances, including a 11-0 defeat by Aston Villa in the 1905-06 FA Cup. He also played for Norwich City reserves and Woolwich Arsenal reserves, and was a member of the Norfolk team that won the 1908 Southern Counties Championship. Dines later took up teaching post in Essex, where he was soon appointed captain of Ilford and also played occasionally for Queens Park Rangers and Millwall. On the outbreak of war, Dines was one of three brothers to volunteer immediately and after serving in the ordinance Corps, the Middlesex Regiment, the Machine gun Corps and the Tank Corps, he was commissioned in to the Liverpool Regiment and played one game for Liverpool before being sent to France. He survived just eleven days at the Front before he was cut down by machine gun fire. He had been leading his men in an attack on an enemy position, and although his battalion took 600 prisoners, they lost six officers and 125 men.