Peter Roney

Peter Roney

Personal information
Full name	Peter Roney
Date of birth	(1887-01-15)15 January 1887
Place of birth	Rutherglen, Scotland
Date of death	25 August 1930(1930-08-25) (aged 43)
Place of death	Clydebank, Scotland
Position(s)	Goalkeeper
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
0000–1906	Cambuslang Hibernian
1906–1907	Ayr	18	(0)
1907–1909	Norwich City	69	(0)
1909–1915	Bristol Rovers	178	(1)
0000–1919	Ayr United	0	(0)
1919–1921	Albion Rovers	10	(0)
1921	Ashington
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Peter Roney (15 January 1887 – 25 August 1930) was a professional footballer who played in goal for Norwich City and Bristol Rovers prior to the First World War.

Footballing career

Roney began his footballing career in Scotland with Cambuslang Hibernian, before moving to Second Division club Ayr in 1906. He moved to England in 1907 and joined Norwich City. Two years later, Roney joined Bristol Rovers and became one of the first goalkeepers to score a goal, when he scored from the penalty spot in the club's final match of the 1909–10 season. As of October 2024, Roney is the only goalkeeper to have scored for Bristol Rovers. He made a total of 178 Southern League appearances during his six-year stint with the club. Roney finished his career after the First World War with Ayr United, Albion Rovers and Ashington.

Personal life

Roney was born in Rutherglen in Scotland in January 1887. He married his wife Violet in 1909, and at the time of the 1911 census he had one son, Kenneth.

In 1914 Roney joined the 17th Middlesex Battalion, better known as the Football Battalion, with whom he served as a private in the First World War. He later transferred to the Machine Gun Corps. He found the realities of war difficult to cope with and the mental traumas that he suffered meant that he only briefly returned professional football, it being reported in 1919 that he had undergone "such experiences during the war that he is unlikely to be heard of again in professional football".

You could hear the Germans talking and singing among themselves as though there was no war on at all. Then all of a sudden our artillery would send them a reminder, and then all you could hear were cries of agony. I've nearly turned grey listening to the groans of the wounded.

— Peter Roney, March 1917

His plight became a matter of concern to Bristol Rovers in 1921 when he was said to have been "down on his luck" and "[lying] on a bed of sickness", suffering from severe rheumatism as a result of his time fighting in the war. The directors of the football club donated ten guineas (£10.10s) to him and arranged for a collection to be made at a Southern League match between Bristol Rovers and Norwich City, his two former clubs.

Roney died on 25 August 1930 in Clydebank, Scotland, at the age of 43.

Sources

• Byrne, Stephen; Jay, Mike (2003). Bristol Rovers Football Club – The Definitive History 1883–2003. Stroud: Tempus. ISBN 0-7524-2717-2.