He attended the Grote Street Church of Christ where he captained the Australian rules football side and led the Bible class.

[5] Early in the innings, Gooden hooked a ball out of the ground and onto the roof of a passing tram on the way to the city.

Later, he played a similar shot that landed on the same tram on its return trip to the Hindmarsh terminus.

[9] Outside of cricket, Gooden worked for the South Australian Gas Company for many years while heavily involved with the Hindmarsh Baptist Church and the YMCA.

[11] He "always had a leaning towards foreign mission work", and joined the evangelical Poona and Indian Village Mission[12] (of which his uncle Henry Gooden was the long-serving Adelaide secretary)[13] and in 1920 moved to Nasrapur, India, to work and preach in small villages in the Bombay Presidency.