Leake was born in
Small Heath, Birmingham. After leaving school he trained as a
blacksmith with Hoskins & Sewell, manufacturers of metal bedsteads, in the
Bordesley district of Birmingham, and played for the works football team. He later helped
Old Hill Wanderers win the championship of the
Birmingham & District League in the
1893–94 season. His success with Old Hill did not go unnoticed, and he signed for
Small Heath, newly promoted to the
Football League First Division, in July 1894. Leake made his Small Heath debut in October 1895 at
left half, but from midway through that season (in which the club were
relegated) for the following four years he rarely missed a game at centre-half. He was soon appointed
captain. When he did suffer an injury early in the
1899–1900 season,
inside forward Walter Wigmore was tried at centre-half, and by the time Leake regained fitness, his position was taken. He played the remainder of his Small Heath career at left-half or occasionally inside-left. He helped the club gain promotion back to the First Division in 1901, but left at the end of the
1901–02 season when they were relegated again. During this season he played in an
England trial match and with clubmate
Sid Wharton played for an England XI in an unofficial international against
Germany. In a 1901 profile of the Small Heath club and players in the
Daily Express,
C.B. Fry wrote: He joined
Aston Villa in July 1902, when he was 31, and stayed five years. In his first season the club were runners-up in the First Division, and in 1905 he played in their
1905 FA Cup final team which beat
Newcastle United 2–0. While with Aston Villa Leake won five official caps for England, making his international debut at the age of 32 on 12 March 1904 in a 3–1 win against
Ireland in
Belfast. Leake found himself unwittingly at the centre of one of the great scandals of English football. In the last League game of the
1904–05 season,
Manchester City needed to beat Aston Villa to win the title. It was a spiteful game, and he had been involved in confrontations, both physical and verbal, with opponents. Afterwards Leake, who had captained the side, claimed that City's
Billy Meredith had offered him a bribe of £10 for his team to
throw the match. Meredith was found guilty by
the Football Association, fined, and suspended from all football for 18 months. Because his club refused to help him financially, Meredith made public
the illegal payments Manchester City were making to their players. An FA investigation resulted in life bans for directors, long suspensions for players, and the club being forced to sell its playing staff. An Aston Villa match programme of 1906 describes him as: When Burnley were promoted to the First Division in 1913, Leake was long gone, but he played his part. At the celebration dinner, the club chairman commented that: In 1910 he returned to
the Midlands and played for one season with
Wednesbury Old Athletic, newly elected to the Birmingham & District League. He then took up posts as trainer with
Crystal Palace,
Merthyr Town, and
Walsall, and also coached at school level. Leake died in his native Birmingham at the age of 66. == Honours ==