Ralph Coates
Encyclopedia
Ralph Coates was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 footballer who played at both professional and international levels as a winger. Coates played for Burnley
Burnley F.C.
Burnley Football Club are a professional English Football League club based in Burnley, Lancashire. Nicknamed the Clarets, due to the dominant colour of their home shirts, they were founder members of the Football League in 1888...

, Tottenham Hotspur
Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....

 and Leyton Orient
Leyton Orient F.C.
Leyton Orient F.C. are an English professional football club in East London. They currently play in Football League One and are known to their fans as the O's.Leyton Orient have spent one season in the top flight of English football, in 1962–63...

, making 480 appearances in the Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...

. Coates also earned four caps for England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

 between 1970 and 1971.

Club career

Coates was born in Hetton-le-Hole
Hetton-le-Hole
Hetton-le-Hole is a town and civil parish situated in the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the A182 between Houghton-le-Spring and Easington Lane. It is located on the southwest corner of Sunderland on the A182, off A690 close to the A1. It has a population of 14,402 but this...

, County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

. He was an apprentice colliery fitter and his footballing ability was spotted by Burnley's North-East scout Jack Hixon
Jack Hixon
Jack Hixon was an English football talent scout.A familiar face at football games across the North East for decades, Hixon played a major part in furthering the careers of many footballers from the region....

. Coates joined Burnley on trial in 1961 and after a period as an apprentice turned professional in 1963. He made his first-team debut in December 1964 scoring his first goal in a 2-0 win against Leicester City
Leicester City F.C.
Leicester City Football Club , also known as The Foxes, is an English professional football club based at the King Power Stadium in Leicester...

 in March 1965. He would go on to make 261 appearances for Burnley in all competitions scoring 32 goals. After Burnley had been relegated from the First Division
Football League First Division
The First Division was a division of The Football League between 1888 and 2004 and the highest division in English football until the creation of the Premier League in 1992. The secondary tier in English football has since become known as the Championship....

 in 1971 Coates was sold to Tottenham Hotspur for a fee of £190,000. He played over 300 games for Tottenham and earned winner's medals for the 1972 UEFA Cup and the 1973 Football League Cup Final
1973 Football League Cup Final
The 1973 Football League Cup Final was won by Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs beat Norwich City 1–0 at Wembley Stadium, Ralph Coates with the goal.-External links:*...

 where he scored the winning goal in the final
1973 Football League Cup Final
The 1973 Football League Cup Final was won by Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs beat Norwich City 1–0 at Wembley Stadium, Ralph Coates with the goal.-External links:*...

. Coates left Tottenham in 1978 and had a short period playing in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 before returning to play for Leyton Orient where he was also on the coaching staff. He played 84 games in all competitions for Orient scoring 12 goals.

He retired from professional football in 1982 but continued to play non-league football for Hertford Heath, Ware
Ware F.C.
Ware F.C. is a football club established in 1892 and based at Wodson Park in Ware, Hertfordshire, England, currently members of Isthmian League Division One North.-History:...

 and Nazeing.

International career

Coates played eight times for England U-23 and four times for England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

. He was a member of the initial squad for the 1970 World Cup
1970 FIFA World Cup
The 1970 FIFA World Cup, the ninth staging of the World Cup, was held in Mexico, from 31 May to 21 June. The 1970 tournament was the first World Cup hosted in North America, and the first held outside South America and Europe. In a match-up of two-time World Cup champions, the final was won by...

 but was not selected for the final squad which travelled to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.

Later life and death

After his football career ended Coates moved into the leisure industry managing leisure centres in Chelmsford
Chelmsford
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...

 and Boreham Wood and was involved with Tottenham Hotspur for over 20 years where he worked as a match-day host.

In early December 2010, he suffered a series of stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

s and was hospitalised. He died on 17 December 2010 at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Trust
Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Trust
The Luton and Dunstable Hospital is a medium-size, general hospital run by the National Health Service in Luton, Bedfordshire. Founded in 1937, the hospital is currently an NHS Trust, providing general medical and surgical services, for over 350,000 people in Luton and Dunstable, the south of...

 aged 64.

External links

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