Researching Joe Wade

Wade was born in Shoreditch, London and joined Arsenal as an amateur in 1944. Wade was serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II; stationed at RAF Credenhill in Herefordshire, he guested a few times for Southern League side Hereford United during this period as well.

Wade was a reserve full back and only played in a handful of matches during the 1940s; he made his debut in an FA Cup match against West Ham United on 5 January 1946; a mainly reserve Arsenal side were thrashed 6–0, which remains to this day Arsenal's worst FA Cup defeat in modern times. Wade continued to be a bit-part player; he made his league debut in a 4–2 win over Leeds United on 16 November 1946, but in all he only made sixteen appearances between 1946 and 1952; the likes of Walley Barnes and Laurie Scott keeping him out of the side. Arsenal won the old First Division in 1947-48 but he only made three league appearances all season.

Barnes had badly injured his knee in the 1952 FA Cup Final, and Wade duly filled in for him for the whole of the 1952-53 season. Wade was a near ever-present and played 44 times as Arsenal won their seventh league title, pipping Preston North End on goal average; it would turn out to be their last trophy until 1970. However, the following season, 1953-54, Wade himself injured his knee in a floodlit friendly against Queens Park Rangers and after recovering, he struggled to take his place back off Len Wills and a now-recovered Barnes. He continued to flit in and out of the first team but spent all of the 1955-56 season in the reserve side, at the same time carrying out a role as coach of the Arsenal youth team.

In spring 1956 he left Arsenal to return to non-league Hereford United as player-manager. He played 91 first-team matches for Arsenal in total, never scoring a goal. At Hereford, he started the club's long-running tradition for knocking League sides out of the FA Cup, including Aldershot in 1956-57 and Queens Park Rangers in 1957-58. Wade won the "Double" of Southern League Cup and Southern League North-West Division in 1958-59, before leaving in 1962 to concentrate on his sports shop business.

Wade briefly returned as Hereford's caretaker manager after John Charles had quit in 1971, but apart from that he did not return to football management. He died in 2005, at the age of 84.

Born in Blackburn in Lancashire, Wade trained as a compositor with the Blackburn Times until 1940, then during World War II served with the East Lancashire Regiment and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.

Wade returned to compositing in 1946, and became active in the Labour Party, for which he served on Blackburn County Borough Council from 1952 until 1956. He also joined the Typographical Association, becoming a full-time union official in 1956. The Typographical Association became part of the National Graphical Association (NGA) in 1964, and Wade became its first National Officer. In 1968, he was promoted to become Assistant General Secretary, and in 1976 he won election as General Secretary.

As leader of the union, Wade promoted the introduction of new technologies in a gradual manner, to give time to retrain staff and ensure any redundancies were voluntary. He agreed mergers with a number of smaller unions which led the union to become NGA'82, and was elected to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress in 1983. He retired in 1984, but served as a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde from 1985 until 1988.