What started as a small-scale operation delivering furniture in and around Kent quickly evolved into a furniture delivery conglomerate. “At its height, my dad’s company was delivering furniture all over England, Scotland, and Wales. He ended up with 30 vehicles. They were big trucks — 36 foot long, 13 foot high — and he had 30 of them! So he did great.”

Below: Sydney Ryan, John's adoptive father.

For most young men with aspirations of professional football, making the cut at Arsenal Football Club would be a dream come true. While in the early ’60s they weren’t the powerhouse they would eventually become in the ’70s and ’80s, they were still a solidly mid-table side with a rich history in the English game. And for a 17-year-old making the jump from non-league football to the First Division on a day’s notice, playing at the highest level was truly the opportunity of a lifetime… or so it seemed. Unfortunately for John, timing was unkind — and the environment colder still.

“Arsenal had 44 professionals in the club when I signed. They ran 4 teams at the professional level. I started in the third one. Before I left about a year later, I played 18 games with the reserves — which was the second team. It was full of international players, Irish, Welsh, and Scottish — so I was doing alright!”

John’s ascent to Arsenal’s reserves was swift and decisive, but the opportunity to play first-team football never came. Instead, he had the terrible misfortune of playing under a manager widely regarded as one of the worst in Arsenal’s long, storied history. And to make matters worse, that manager seemed hell-bent on freezing young John out of the side and destroying his confidence.

“He hated me!” said John. “He wanted his wingers — I was a left winger — to hug the touchline and cross it with their left foot; which I could do. But I found it just as easy to cut inside and shoot.”

John, as fate would have it, was gifted with the rare ambidexterity of two-footedness — he was equally comfortable with his left and right foot — allowing him to break down defenders and score from virtually anywhere on the pitch with his prodigious ball-striking ability. This versatility did not particularly interest Billy Wright, Arsenal’s then manager, who had a very doctrinaire way he wanted his wingers to play.

“We went one day to play the Met Police — they played in some small London league, nothing much. And Arsenal put one of their teams in it. And we played, and these policemen were huge — so they were kicking lumps out of us. I didn’t play well, and I wasn’t brave then.”

John, just 17 at the time, was small and physically weak, having yet to reach his athletic peak. “I was terrified! I had come from youth football, and you didn’t kick anybody in youth football. And the first-team manager happened to be there. We got beat 1-nil, which did not go down well with him. And he got on the bus, looked and found me, and he shouted to the rest of the team ‘Don’t talk to him on the way back. He’s let you down today.’”

John’s time at Arsenal mercifully ended shortly after that game in 1965. “Come the end of the season, me and a couple of the other players were sat one morning at breakfast and we each got an envelope. They got a great big brown envelope. I got a little white one. They saw my envelope, got up, and excused themselves. I opened my envelope and it was one telling me I got sacked.”

While John’s short tenure in North London was an education in the harsh reality of professional football, it did little to grow his game — and even less for his confidence.

“I was still a kid…”, exclaimed John. “No one seemed to realize that I didn’t know what I was doing! I did it because of a natural talent; but that talent needed to be coached. The truth is I never got coached till I arrived at Luton. I’d been a pro for 5 years then.”

Before John could make his mark on the English game as a star for Luton Town, his first stop post-Arsenal was in West London, at Fulham. And fortunately for John, he didn’t have to wait long after his departure from Highbury for the next opportunity to come along.

“Within about 4 days I signed for Fulham. The manager came down to my parents’ home in Maidstone, and said ‘I want to sign you.’ So I signed the contract.”

Below: John Ryan at Fulham.

The timing couldn’t have been better — for if the call from Fulham had come a few months later, the difficulties young John endured at Arsenal might have taken a serious toll on his self-belief. Instead, buoyed by the immediate faith of Fulham manager Vic Buckingham, and the confidence and steady resolve instilled in him by his parents, John was ready to kick on without hesitation.

At Fulham, John experienced his first consistent spell of first-team professional football — though how and where it came about was unexpected, and less by design than he ever could have imagined.

Throughout his youth career, John was primarily a goal-scoring left winger with a quick first step and prodigious ball-striking ability. Upon his arrival at Fulham, first-team coach Vic Buckingham sought to highlight that clinical finishing by moving him to center forward. And in his first few months at the club, it looked a masterstroke.

“Three months after being moved to striker, I was scoring quite a few goals in training,” said John. “And then, I remember it quite vividly, one day on a Thursday morning in October we had a training match. And I had the game of my life. First team played against the second team — I was in the second team — and I played really well. Manager came over and says, ‘We’re taking you on Saturday to play in the first team.’ So within a year of turning pro, I’m now playing in the First Division.”

It was all coming together for John. After a brief setback under a poor manager who didn’t believe in him, John Ryan was now set to play at the highest level of English football. He was in great form, his confidence at an all-time high, and he had a team and a coach who trusted his instincts. This was the moment he’d been working all his life for — the moment he’d dreamt of since childhood, when his father took him to see legends like Charlie Hurley at The Den. But, as ever, fate had other plans.

“I got glandular fever. I was in bed for 3 weeks, lost about 20 kilos. Didn’t play again that year in the first team.”

In professional football, the window of opportunity for a player to make his mark can close quickly. So a setback like the one John was dealt in October of ’65 would have been enough to fell many a promising athlete. But John was different. Resilient — almost as if channeling the unshakable work ethic he inherited from his father — he built his body stronger than before, continued to hone his game, and returned for the next season better than ever.

Now he just needed another opportunity to show what he could do.

“Come 1966 I was more reserve than first team pick,” said John.

Allan Clarke was the starting center forward for Fulham at the time, and he was on the cusp of a breakout season in which he would start every game and score 24 goals. As such, for John, beating him out was unlikely. Instead, his chance would probably have to come elsewhere on the pitch. No matter — at this point in his young career, John was adept at playing on either wing or through the middle. But, unbeknownst to him, his position was negotiable.

“They took me to Germany on a preseason tour. The center half was John Dempsey and Allen was starting up front at center forward. We had a little five-a-side match in the morning — I wasn’t going to play in the evening game. I don’t know what happened between the two of them, but it ended with Allen Clarke elbowing John Dempsey in the nose — breaking his nose. So he couldn’t play. The club, looking around — this is so Fulham — says ‘John, you’re the tallest player we’ve got left. You better play centre half.’ I said, ‘I’m a center forward! I’m a winger!’ I was still a kid, you see.”

Apparently, to Fulham’s management, age was but a number. And in professional football, when opportunity knocks for a young player trying to earn his spot in the pro game, he’d best be ready to answer the call. As the tens of thousands of fans in attendance at the Olympic Stadium would soon find out, John Ryan was more than ready.

“So I’m playing in Germany against Hertha Berlin at center back. Every time the ball comes to me I kick it in the crowd. And each time I booted it out of play the manager and the bench cheered me on! If I miscontrolled the ball or took a bad touch as a forward, I’d get a proper rollicking! But now they’re cheering! Anyway, I did ok. I was quick and I could tackle a bit. So I played the next 3 seasons at fullback.”

John Ryan the defender was born.

Between 1966 and 1968, John played in 47 games under managers Bobby Robson and Johnny Haynes. He was a first-team regular, and had earned himself a reputation as a utility man — capable of filling in at any position across the backline at a moment’s notice. But when Haynes — who served as caretaker manager following the sacking of Bobby Robson — was replaced by Bill Dodgin, John’s playing time at the club quickly dried up, as the new boss preferred a different profile of player at fullback.

No matter — for as soon as John was released by Fulham, he was contacted by Bobby Robson, who had just been hired by Ipswich Town to coach the team. Robson and John had gotten along quite well from their days as teammates, first, and then as mentor and protégé at Fulham.

“After I got the sack at Fulham, Bobby rang me and said ‘John, come up and see me — I want you to come to Ipswich.’ So I drove up to see him and I asked for a signing-on fee.”

Because Ipswich sought to sign John on a free contract, he figured they’d have a bit of extra money to sweeten the deal.

“I only asked for 500 pounds…” said John, “…which in those days was nothing, really. Bobby said, ‘No, I can’t do that.’”

Before he could dwell on the disappointment of a deal falling through with Ipswich, another opportunity presented itself — at his favorite boyhood club.

“After that I went to Millwall, saw the manager there — someone had recommended me to him. As I walked in, a player I knew from my days at Arsenal saw me and said ‘Oh hey John! What are you doing here?’ I told him I might sign. He said ‘Don’t sign here mate, it’s terrible!’

Now this was from one of their own players! In the end, it didn’t matter — they weren’t going to give me enough money.”

After contract negotiations with Ipswich and Millwall fell through, John was contacted by Harry Haslam — Luton Town’s head scout at the time.

“Happy Harry had previously managed Tonbridge in Kent, so he’d seen me when I was playing for Maidstone. And he told manager Alec Stock that I was someone he should try and get.”

In the late ’60s and early ’70s, an endorsement from Harry Haslam was practically a guarantee you belonged in the Football League. As chief scout at Luton, he was responsible for bringing in future stars like Malcolm Macdonald, Peter Anderson, Jimmy Ryan, and Don Givens — each of them crucial to the club’s rapid ascent up the English football pyramid.

To that point in John’s young professional career, he had been little more than a journeyman. His time at Arsenal was short and uneventful, and at Fulham he was basically a rotational player. But at Luton Town — a Third Division side with aspirations of something greater — John Ryan finally found his footballing home. After arriving in Luton as a 22-year-old in 1969, John would go on to play seven years at the club, make over 250 appearances — almost all of them as a starter — and play an integral role in two different promotion-winning sides. In every way that mattered, Luton Town and John Ryan were a match made in heaven.

From the moment John first arrived in Bedfordshire, he knew he’d found his place.

“I loved it! When I first went to Luton to play, I went into digs with a nice older couple — Mr. and Mrs. Hughes — who were lovely. And they were just short of the airport. I was a young man, just over 21 — earning good money — and Luton had an airport that imported 180 new air hostesses every February. It was a young man’s dream!”

John was the very picture of the pro footballer as playboy — handsome, charming, quick-witted, and driving a fast cherry-red sports car; the Jaguar E-Type, to be specific. John’s wife of over 50 years, Kay — a former air hostess — can attest to just how notorious he really was.

“Everybody in Luton obviously knew about John — he was the playboy of town. Everybody warned me against him. Because I was a stewardess I used to drive to the airport and think, ‘Who on earth would park a red E-Type on the side of the road like that!’ So my first impression of him was, ‘What an arrogant man!’ He was not my cup of tea at all.”

For Kay, the many stories she’d heard about John were confirmed when she first met him in person.

“I lived in a house with several other stewardesses. And John phoned up the house to see if one of the other girls would be willing to go shopping with him in London to choose some clothes for his boutique. Because he was going on tour the next day to Turkey. When he drove up to my friend’s digs, he jumped over the windscreen and walked down the bonnet. Now what would your impression be of somebody like that? It was a joke! I’d heard all about him. Anyway, he asked my friend and I to go to London with him to shop for clothes. We agreed. The next day he started sending me one carnation every day through a florist.”

While Kay had many doubts about John’s fitness as a partner, John immediately knew that Kay was the woman he wanted to marry.

“I had been out with so many girls…” said John, “…and suddenly I had met a woman.”

John, ever the romantic opportunist, made his intentions clear after their first date.

“On a Tuesday after coming home from a flight, I ran into him in the Flying Club. He invited me to join him at a party that evening. I declined, as I wasn’t dressed for the occasion. Then John said to me, ‘Can I take you out to dinner?’ So we went to dinner that Saturday and he asked me to marry him.”

Kay, equal parts surprised and unimpressed by John’s confession of love, resoundingly rejected him on the spot — “Absolutely not” — for she was well aware of John’s romantic exploits both in Luton and Kent.

“He had a serious girlfriend in his hometown for four years when he first asked me to marry him. I didn’t want to be involved in anything like that. I also knew a lot of the stewardesses from the airport that had been out with him.”

John, completely unfazed and undeterred by this rejection, was determined to make it happen.

“I was in the hospital with what the doctors believed to be typhoid the very next day,” said Kay. “While I was in the hospital John had introduced himself to my parents, and, when I finally recovered, I woke up to a wedding ring by the hospital bed with a note that read ‘Please, will you marry me.’ The nurses said, ‘You’ve got to! He’s got so many parking tickets from that car of his.’ And a few months later we were married.”

When asked what the turning point was from “absolutely not” to “yes,” Kay responded with one word: “persistence.” In the same way that persistence allowed John to overcome the disappointment at Arsenal and the instability at Fulham to find his Eden in Luton, persistence helped him win the heart of the only woman who ever truly grounded him. Fifty-three years, two children, and four grandchildren later, John and Kay are still married to this day.

While John’s social life in Luton was the stuff of local legend, the start of his footballing career there was far more uncertain.

“The first 6 games I played were terrible. I got left out. Alec Stock — who was the manager at the time — said, ‘You’re not doing it.’ For the first time in my career, I thought ‘maybe I’m not cut out to be a professional footballer.’”

In a moment where many athletes would collapse under their doubt and self-pity, John harnessed it for motivation. He always had exceptional ball-striking ability as a crosser and goal-scorer — now he would couple that with a work rate the likes of which the Third Division had never seen.

“I got myself some running spikes and went back every afternoon on my own and ran different distances — never more than 70 yards — but everything was flat-out. I built up my power and running speed and got back in.”

After working his way back into the starting lineup, John received the one thing that had eluded him for his entire career: coaching. And it changed his career forever.

“Jimmy Andrews started to work with me. ‘When the ball is over there, you need to be here.’ That sort of thing.”

It sounds simple, but oftentimes simple is best — especially for a player who was receiving genuine tactical instruction for the first time in his entire career.

“Before, I used to think ‘I’ve got to make something happen. I’ve got to do something.’ And you haven’t really. If you try too hard at the game you’ll make wrong decisions. So, from that point on I just tried to play the game simple. My running power enabled me to get up and down; get crosses in, and have shots. For a fullback, those things alone were a plus.”

John had finally come into his own as a professional footballer — he had coaches who valued his intelligence and adaptability, teammates who respected his work ethic, and a sense of confidence and self-belief that had been hard-won. Needless to say, John’s decision in 1969 to turn down Ipswich and seek a better deal on more money that accurately reflected his talent was the decision of a lifetime. But at the time, it was not supported by John’s most important backer — his father.

“The day I decided to play for Luton I went home and told my dad, ‘I’ve signed for Luton!’ He was confused — he wanted to know why I didn’t sign for Ipswich. I told him that they wouldn’t give me enough money — Luton did. He said — and this really summed up my dad I suppose — ‘John, if you had signed for Ipswich I’d have given you the money.’ I said, ‘Dad, I didn’t want the money from you, I wanted to earn it on my own.’”

Over the course of John’s early life and career, no one believed in him more than his father. In fact, his dad believed in John more than John believed in himself.

“Dad thought he could do anything. But not just himself, he thought people could do anything. When I got into my football career we had many raging arguments — because early on I didn’t think I was good enough; he did.”

In 1969, Ipswich was in the First Division, while Luton was in the Third Division — having recently been promoted from the Fourth Division at the conclusion of the 1967/68 season. For Sydney Ryan, the Third Division simply wasn’t good enough for his son; he knew John’s talent was fit for the highest level of English football. In the long run, Sydney was right — John was better than the Third Division. But what Sydney had no way of knowing when John signed — what no one really could have known — was that Luton Town was on the rise too.

Luton entered the 1969/70 season with a strong squad that was picked by many to do quite well after finishing third in the league the year prior. The addition of John and, perhaps most importantly, Malcolm Macdonald, all but secured their promotion. Macdonald’s signing — another Harry Haslam special — showed stunning foresight from the scouts. In Macdonald, a young and unproven fullback at the time, they saw the potential to be one of the best center forwards in England.

Ultimately, Macdonald scored 24 league goals, John established himself as a consistent, reliable starter and fan favorite, and Luton comfortably won promotion to the Second Division with a second-place finish in the league.

John, for all of his charisma and natural magnetism, was not one to get swept up in the moment. Instead, for him, promotion was simply the result of a job well done.

“It was great…” said John with a shrug. “…I always just wanted to do my best for me, my team, and my future. People forget that it’s a job. And you’ve got a responsibility to do a good job.”

Given John’s no-nonsense mentality, and the increasingly high level of the team, he had the reasonable expectation that the club would earn promotion by season’s end. But by the penultimate fixture of the year, Luton still had everything to play for. Indeed, they needed at least a draw to secure their place in the Second Division for the following season. And it was that game that sticks out most in John’s memory — not for the exceptionally high level of play, but for the sheer chaos of it all.

“The only thing I remember about that season was the game against Mansfield when we clinched it. It was the worst game of football you’d have ever seen. We just kicked it as far as we possibly could and chased after it. It was terrible. Drew nil-nil, it was hopeless. But we were up! That’s it, job done.”

Four years later, with Luton now in the Second Division and pushing for promotion to the First, the club found themselves in the same situation: needing a draw in the penultimate game of the season to secure their place in the top tier of English football. And yet again, the manager opted for a safety-first approach to getting the result. It worked. John, perhaps more than anyone else on the day, took Haslam’s tactics to heart and played the most cynical football of his career.

“We went to West Brom needing a point to go up. And I was marking Willie Johnston, who was a little Scottish winger. I was playing at right back and absolutely kicked lumps out of him. He was a fiery little devil too — he wanted to fight and everything. He said, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’ I said, ‘Willie… we get a draw and we go up man!’ He went, ‘Oh! That’s alright then!’ So we drew 1–1. And that’s the main thing I remember about ‘73!”

Below: John Ryan (front row 1st from left) and Luton Town after the West Brom game in 1974.

Given Luton’s poor form in the first half of the season, they needed help from other teams to stay up. Unfortunately, that help didn’t come. Luton needed Leeds to beat Tottenham in the final week of the season, but Leeds sat their starters — opting to preserve their legs and fitness for the cup final the following Saturday. So Tottenham won the game, and Luton were relegated.

“We were very unlucky to come down in the end,” said John.

Unlucky though they were, Luton was now back in the Second Division. And so began the slow, but inevitable, dismantling of an otherwise great Luton side. Over the next two seasons, many of the core players who anchored the promotion in ‘73/’74 and the admirable fight for First Division survival in ‘74/’75 were sold or released to make room for the next generation of Luton Town football.

Peter Anderson, for example, was sold to Antwerp in Belgium in December of ’75. Jimmy Ryan played his last game for the club on New Year’s Day of 1977. And John was sold to Norwich at the end of the ’75/’76 season — one full year after Luton’s relegation back to the Second Division.

John’s seven phenomenal years of service to Luton Town Football Club were defined, first and foremost, by a resolute devotion to the craft.

“There are certain traits to being a professional. And one of them is persistence. I played with lots of young kids — as I came up the ladder — who were much better than me, but never made it. They missed the key ingredient. Bags of talent — they just didn’t have the grind I suppose,” said John with a shrug. “You have to come into training five days a week, snowing, raining, cold. You just got to keep getting out there and doing what you do.”

Through his hard work, dedication, and persistence, John turned himself into the ultimate Swiss Army knife at Luton. Indeed, over the course of his seven-year tenure at the club, he performed with distinction at right back, center back, center midfield, and center forward. Whatever the team needed, John Ryan provided; whenever the squad had a problem, John Ryan was the answer; and whenever a match tilted toward uncertainty, John Ryan found the margins that mattered.

He was, inarguably, a Luton Town legend. But the end of his time at Luton did not mark the end of his career. And, counterintuitively, at the age of 29 — when most footballers begin to decline — John was about to embark on the best years of his career.

In August of 1976, John Ryan was sold to Norwich City for £60,000. By that point, Norwich had been tracking him for a couple of seasons, and with Luton back in the Second Division and unable to satisfy John’s reasonable request for an increase in wages to match his true footballing value to the club, the time was right to pull the trigger on the transfer. John Bond, Norwich’s then manager, was pleased to acquire a new starting fullback. But what he didn’t know at the time was that John would ultimately make his greatest impact on the side further up the pitch.

“I went to Norwich as a fullback to start with,” said John. “So I played the first season in defense. But after that everything changed. That’s when I got coached. John Bond was brilliant. John Sainty was there as a coach too. They were both good. And they just explained the game to me. So I ended up being a much better player for Norwich than I was for Luton.”

After working with John in individual training sessions, Bond and Sainty realized that his best position for Norwich wasn’t fullback — it was center midfield, as the engine room of the team.

Below: John Ryan at Norwich.

While the football in America was most certainly below the level of the English First Division, John enjoyed his time in Seattle immensely.

“I loved the lifestyle in America. It was great! The crowds were excited and the weather was great — even though they say it’s supposed to rain all the time in Seattle, it was always sunny for us!”

And on the pitch, Seattle had one of the best teams in the league.

“The only team I played in that I thought was too good for their competition was the Seattle Sounders. We played 32 games and won 24. It was the NASL record,” said John. “That team was magnificent.”

After two strong seasons at Seattle, John returned to England to play for Sheffield United — managed by none other than Harry Haslam.

“Sheffield United’s director came out to see me in 1980. Me and Alan Hudson got him drunk as a skunk! This was a chairman of Sheffield United! He ended up laying on a wall, comatose! Anyway, they signed me, and I went to Sheffield United.”

Sadly, John’s year and a half in Sheffield did not go well for the club. Harry Haslam was fired after John’s first season, and the club was relegated to the Fourth Division. Then, in the middle of the ’81/’82 season, John got another call from a former manager seeking his services — this time, John Bond.

“John was coaching Man City at the time, who were top of the First Division, just before Christmas. He asked if I’d fancy coming to play for him. Transferring from the bottom division to the top? Yep, sign me up!”

John had seemingly been given a lifeline out of nowhere for one last shot at meaningful competitive football. He was ecstatic. But then, John Bond added a caveat to the deal that changed the entire tone of the conversation:

“He said, ‘The only thing, John, is that you’ve got to be in Blackpool by 5 o’clock to sign, otherwise you won’t be eligible.’ It was 1 o’clock on the same day when I took his call. And, he added, ‘I only want you for 2 games.’”

Apparently, Man City’s starting right back was suspended for three games and they didn’t have a backup on the roster.

While the prospect of playing in the First Division again was certainly enticing to John, signing a two-game contract was as close to a gamble as any veteran could take. John Bond figured as much and added a sweetener to the deal:

“You’ll be left out after two games…” said the manager, “…but I’ll give you a coaching job.”

John, now 34 years old and nearing the end of his long, illustrious playing career, very much liked the sound of that. So he took the deal.

Two days after signing for City, John started at right back on Saturday — as he’d been promised — and was awarded Man of the Match.

“After that, I played the last 19 games of the season in midfield.”

Those 19 games would be the final chapter of John’s playing career, and he retired from professional football at the conclusion of the 1982/83 season.

“My legs had gone,” said John.

And for a footballer who had so relied on work rate, athleticism, and relentless running, it was the only honest way to walk away.

John Ryan’s professional footballing career spanned 18 seasons and saw him play for seven different clubs. And despite the doubts and reservations he had about his potential as a teenager sacked by Arsenal and Fulham, his father, Sydney, was right all along: he was, indeed, good enough to compete and succeed at the highest level of the game.

Unfortunately for John and his family, Sydney Ryan never got the opportunity to see his son play his best football, as he sadly passed away due to complications from a stroke in 1971. But perhaps he didn’t need to — he had already seen enough to believe it was inevitable.

While John’s career as a player ended in 1983, his footballing life was just getting started. Over the next 20 years, he coached all across the world in various capacities. From Manchester City to his boyhood club Maidstone; from spearheading the youth development program in Thailand to running a week-long training camp in the West Bank; from Director of Coaching at Starfire Sports in Seattle to Director of Coaching at Sonesoccer Academies in New Jersey — John Ryan never stopped giving the game what it had once given him: purpose, belonging, and a reason to keep moving.

Finally, in 2006, after 40 years in football, John ended his lifelong love affair with the game and retired to Spain. In the unvarnished, sentimental words of Kay, his wife of over 50 years:

“There was never a dull moment.”

She wasn’t wrong — and John wouldn’t have had it any other way.