[4][6] He was educated at Holt Academy[4] – where in the course of one violent football match, Roose's brother Edward kicked H. G. Wells, then a teacher at the school, so hard in the back that he ruptured the future novelist's kidney and left him incapacitated for several weeks.

[6][8] Standing 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) and weighing over 13 stone (180 lb; 83 kg), Roose was well qualified to play in goal, a specialised position that was, in the Edwardian era, particularly physically challenging.

[6][7] It was during this phase of his career that Roose was seen playing by the eminent Welsh historian Thomas Richards, who would later refer to him as Yr Ercwlff synfawr hwn ("This wondrous Hercules").

[8] Signed by Stoke, Roose made 147 league appearances for the Staffordshire club from 1901 to 1904 and 1905–1906 – the latter spell, consisting of only three games, being terminated by a broken wrist.

Roose kept 40 clean sheets (that is, did not concede a goal) during his Stoke career, a remarkable record not least because his team flirted dangerously with relegation in 1901, 1902 and 1904.

Other clubs he represented on at least one occasion included Druids, Huddersfield Town (1910–1911), Aston Villa (August to December 1911)[1] and Woolwich Arsenal (1911–1912).

This opinion was shared by the long-serving Secretary of the Football Association, Sir Frederick Wall, who thought that Roose – "such a sensation as a goalkeeper" – was "a clever man [who] had what is sometimes described as the eccentricity of genius.

His considerable physical presence has been compared to that of the modern Danish 'keeper Peter Schmeichel, and according to one biographer, the Welshman "enjoyed taunting experienced international forwards, some of whom felt the full force of his fist in goalmouth melees.

Spectators, observed the DWB, "could only gaze in wonder at his prehensile grip, the immense power of his punch, and the prodigious length of his goal kicks; they could only guess at the uncanny intuition by which he divined the aims of his opponents, the swift agile mind that worked behind the small, narrow eyes."

Geraint Jenkins, an Aberystwyth historian who wrote a brief biographical sketch of the goalkeeper in 2000, adds that Roose boasted "sharp eyesight, startling reflexes, competitive instinct and reckless bravery", and was altogether "an extraordinarily daunting opponent".

'Mond Roose played in a daring style, often – at a time when other goalkeepers rarely strayed more than a few yards from their goals – rushing out of his penalty area to fill the position left by an errant full-back.

It has been said that the 1912 alteration to the Laws of the Game, forbidding the goalkeeper to handle outside his penalty area, was directly due to the performances of Roose, who enjoyed taking part in attacks.

Thomas Richards (1878–1962), the renowned Welsh authority on seventeenth-century Puritanism, gave an account of a save he had seen Roose execute for Aberystwyth against Glossop North End, a professional team from the Midland League, in an FA Cup match.

He led – according to his nephew, Dr Cecil Jenkins – an extremely glamorous life, keeping an apartment in the centre of the capital and buying his suits on Savile Row.

[16] "The first thing I remember," the 101-year-old Jenkins told an interviewer, One newspaper voted Roose among the 10 most recognisable faces in the London of this period, and he enjoyed relationships with several women, among them the great music hall star Marie Lloyd.

He returned to London and enlisted as a private of the Royal Fusiliers in 1916 and then served in the First World War on the Western Front, where his goalkeeping abilities resulted in his becoming a noted grenade thrower.