Alfred Jones

Who is Alfred Jones?

Alfred Jones was Small Heath's first secretary-manager. Appointed in 1892, the year of their admission to the Football League, he oversaw the club winning the inaugural Football League Second Division championship, promotion to the First Division the following year, and two further promotions before his retirement in 1908.

Jones worked as a manufacturer of scales. He began acting as unpaid secretary for Small Heath Alliance F.C. in 1885, the year they turned professional. That season they reached the semifinal of the FA Cup, which brought money into the club and broadened popular awareness of it. He supervised their entry into organised league football in the Football Alliance which started in 1889, and their subsequent invitation to join the newly formed Second Division of the Football League. It was at this point that Jones became the club's first paid secretary, and in addition took over responsibility for team affairs.

In Jones's first season as secretary-manager Small Heath won the inaugural Second Division championship, though this did not bring automatic promotion; the club were unsuccessful in a test match against the bottom club in the First Division, Newton Heath.