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Coordinates: 53°12′50″N 2°29′28″W / 53.214°N 2.491°W / 53.214; -2.491

Map of civil parish of Bostock in the former borough of Vale Royal

Bostock is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 229. The village is situated between the towns of Winsford and Northwich.

See also[link]

• Bostock Hall

External links[link]

Media related to Bostock at Wikimedia Commons

This Cheshire location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

John Joseph Bostock (born 15 January 1992 in Lambeth, London) is an English footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Tottenham Hotspur.

Career[link]

Crystal Palace[link]

Signed as a 7 year old from Ajax 95 he made his league debut on 29 October 2007 at the age of 15 years and 287 days, playing 20 minutes as a substitute in a 2–0 defeat to Watford at Selhurst Park, making him Palace's youngest ever player.^[2] He also became the youngest ever Palace player to start a game,^[3] aged 15 years and 295 days, on 6 November 2007 against Cardiff City at Ninian Park.^[4] He has captained England at Under-17 level.^[3]

Tottenham Hotspur[link]

On 30 May 2008, Tottenham Hotspur announced the signing of Bostock on their club website.^[5] Crystal Palace later issued a statement denying reports that an agreement had been reached with Tottenham.^[6] Tottenham and Crystal Palace entered negotiations over the transfer fee, but agreement could not be reached, leading to the sum being decided at a tribunal. On 9 July the tribunal declared that Tottenham would pay £700,000 for Bostock, with add-on payments of up to £1.25m dependent on appearances and a further £200,000 should he make his full international debut. A sell-on clause entitles Crystal Palace to 15% of any profit Tottenham makes from any future sale of Bostock's contract.^[7][8] Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan said he was so disgusted with Bostock and his stepfather that he intended to revoke and refund their Selhurst Park season tickets for 2008–09, which the pair had already purchased.^[9]

Bostock made his first team debut for Spurs in an 8–0 pre-season win over Spanish side Tavernes, providing the cross for Aaron Lennon's opening goal.^[10] On 6 November 2008 he made his competitive match debut in the 2008 UEFA Cup game against Dinamo Zagreb, coming on as a substitute, and becoming the youngest player ever to play for Spurs at 16 years, 295 days, just beating the previous record-holder Ally Dick by six days.^[11][12] Bostock made a further two appearances in the Uefa Cup that season, however his career with Tottenham stalled after that and had to wait until January 2012 for his next appearance, in an FA Cup match against Cheltenham Town.^[13]

Brentford[link]

On 13 November 2009, Bostock joined League One outfit Brentford on loan for a month,^[14] he was handed the number 17 shirt immediately. Bostock scored twice on his debut against Millwall ^[15]

Hull City[link]

On 6 August 2010, Bostock had joined newly relegated Hull City on a season-long loan.^[16] He scored with a 30-yard strike described as a "wonder goal" on his debut against Swansea on 7 August.^[17] On 31 December 2010, Tottenham Hotspur announced that Bostock had returned early from his largely unsuccessful loan spell at Hull City.

Sheffield Wednesday[link]

Bostock joined Sheffield Wednesday on loan on 30 January 2012 for the remainder of the 2011-12 season.^[18] He made his debut the following day as a substitute in a 1-1 draw with MK Dons.^[19]

He was recalled to Spurs in March after playing only 4 games.^[20]

Swindon Town[link]

Bostock joined Swindon Town on loan on 22 March 2012 for the remainder of the 2011-12 season. He joined Swindon after Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp said it would be good if he played under Paolo Di Canio.^[21] Initially he struggled to make an impact at the League Two side, remaining on the bench for the first four league games of his loan-spell. However, he did make an appearance from the bench in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final at Wembley where Swindon were beaten 2-0 by Chesterfield. John played okay when handed a start in the away defeat at Gillingham, where Swindon gained promotion to League 1 after their closest promotion rivals also slipped up. He then played a role in the 5-0 win over Port Vale at the County Ground, where Swindon were crowned League 2 Champions.

Club career statistics[link]

(correct as of 10 January 2012)

Honours[link]

• 2006 Victory Shield
• 2012 Johnstone's Paint Trophy (runner-up)
• 2012 League 2 Champions

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• John Bostock career stats at Soccerbase
• Tottenham Hotspur player profile

v t e England squad – 2009 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship 1 Steer 2 Hurst 3 Garbutt 4 Gardner 5 Laing 6 Parkes 7 Shelvey 8 Bostock 9 Baxter 10 Wilshere 11 Afobe 12 Freeman 13 Johnstone 14 Tunnicliffe 15 Oshodi 16 Elford-Alliyu 17 Walcott 18 Habergham Coach: Peacock

v t e England squad – 2010 UEFA European Under-19 Football Championship 1 Rudd 2 Clyne 3 Briggs 4 James (c) 5 Caulker 6 Baker 7 Mellis 8 Parrett 9 Noble 10 Delfouneso 11 Nouble 12 Bostock 13 Nicholls 14 Cruise 15 Brown 16 Thompson 17 Phillips 18 Donaldson Coach: Noel Blake

Lyman Wesley Bostock, Jr. (November 22, 1950 – September 23, 1978) was an American professional baseball player. He played Major League Baseball for four seasons, as an outfielder for the Minnesota Twins (1975–77) and California Angels (1978). He batted left-handed and threw right-handed.

Bostock's career was cut short when he was shot and killed in his hometown of Gary, Indiana.

Early life[link]

Lyman Bostock, Jr. was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the son of Annie Pearl Bostock and Lyman Bostock, Sr. (1918–2005), a Negro Leagues professional baseball star from 1938-1954 as a left-handed first baseman. Pearl and Bostock, Sr., split when Bostock, Jr., was a young child, with Pearl relocating her son and herself first to Gary, Indiana, in 1954. In 1958, when young Bostock was eight years old, the two relocated again, this time to Los Angeles, California. The younger Bostock remained estranged from his father for the remainder of his life, feeling that his father had abandoned him.

At one point during his youth, Bostock's baseball glove was stolen. With his mother unable to afford to purchase another, he had to use a glove given to him by a friend of the family. However, the donated glove was for left-handed fielders. Bostock's discomfort in catching fly balls with the hand he was unaccustomed to using led him to begin making basket catches at that time. The habit stayed with him and he frequently made basket catches of fly balls for the remainder of his life.

Bostock played baseball at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles and after graduating from there, attended San Fernando Valley State College, now known as the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). It was there that he met Youvene Brooks, who would become his wife. He did not play baseball during his freshman and sophomore years at the school, choosing instead to become involved in student activism. Nonetheless, he was selected in the 1970 amateur draft by the St. Louis Cardinals.

Bostock chose not to sign with the team, instead electing to stay in college, and he began playing baseball there. Bostock was an all-conference player in the California Collegiate Athletic Association in both of his seasons at Northridge, hitting .344 as a junior and .296 as a senior, leading the Matadors to a second-place finish at the 1972 Division II College World Series. He was drafted by the Twins in the 26th round (596th overall) of the 1972 amateur draft and decided to turn professional, though he was 15 credits short of finishing his college degree.

Career[link]

Bostock's minor league stops were in Charlotte in 1972, Orlando in 1973, and Tacoma in 1974. His batting averages for those years were .294, .313, and .333, respectively. He was promoted to the major leagues in April 1975, and batted .282 in 98 games for Minnesota (and .391 in 22 games for the AAA Tacoma Twins).

A fine defensive center fielder, Bostock finished fourth in the tight American League batting race in 1976, his first full season in the majors. After finishing second in the league in batting in 1977 to Twins teammate Rod Carew, Bostock became one of baseball's earliest big-money free agents, and signed with the California Angels, owned by Gene Autry. Almost immediately, Bostock donated $10,000 to a church in his native Birmingham to rebuild its Sunday school.

The 1978 season started off poorly for Bostock; he batted .150 for the month of April. Bostock met with the team's management and attempted to return his April salary, saying he had not earned it. The team refused, so Bostock announced he would donate his April salary to charity. Thousands of requests came in for the money, and Bostock reviewed each one of them, trying to determine who needed it the most. Ultimately he would recover his form, hitting .404 in June on the way to a .296 average for the season, just outside the top ten for the year.

Murder[link]

Bostock was able to recover his hitting stroke, and as the 1978 season neared its conclusion, he had the highest batting average on the Angel ballclub. With a week remaining in the season, he went 2 for 4 with a walk in a Saturday afternoon game against the White Sox in Chicago, to raise his average to .296. Following the game, as he regularly did when in Chicago, Bostock visited his uncle, Thomas Turner, in nearby Gary, Indiana. After eating a meal with a group of relatives at Turner's home, Bostock and his uncle went to visit Joan Hawkins, a woman whom Bostock had tutored as a teenager, but had not seen for several years. After the visit, Turner agreed to give Hawkins and her sister, Barbara Smith, a ride to their cousin's house. Turner drove the vehicle, with Hawkins seated in the front passenger's seat. Bostock and Smith rode in the vehicle's back seat.

Smith had been living with Hawkins while estranged from her husband, Leonard Smith. Unbeknownst to the group, Leonard Smith was outside Hawkins' home in his car and observed the group's departure in Turner's car. According to Smith, his wife was frequently unfaithful to him, and although he did not know Bostock, he would later say that upon seeing Bostock get into the back seat of the vehicle with his wife, he concluded that the two were having an affair. In fact, however, Bostock had only met the woman twenty minutes previously, when he and his uncle arrived at Hawkins' home.

As Turner's vehicle was stopped at a traffic signal at the intersection of 5th and Jackson Streets, Smith's car pulled up alongside them. Smith leaned out of his vehicle and fired one blast of a .410 caliber shotgun into the back seat of Turner's car, where Bostock and Barbara Smith were seated. Leonard Smith said that his lethal wrath was intended for his estranged wife; however, Bostock was seated between Barbara Smith and the position from which Leonard Smith was firing. Instead of striking Barbara Smith, the blast caught Bostock squarely in the right temple. He died two hours later at a Gary hospital.

Aftermath[link]

Leonard Smith was tried twice for murder, with his lawyers arguing that Barbara Smith's alleged infidelity had driven him insane. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. In the second trial, Smith was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed for psychiatric treatment. Within seven months, he was deemed no longer mentally ill by his psychiatrists and released. Including his time in jail awaiting and during trial, Smith's time in custody amounted to 21 months. In the aftermath of Smith's case, the legislature in Indiana changed the state's insanity laws. After the change, a person found to be insane at the time of the commission of a crime could still be found legally guilty, and thus could be sent to prison if and when they were released from psychiatric treatment.

Smith returned to Gary, Indiana, where he resided for the remainder of his life, in later years, moving into a high-rise apartment building for senior citizens. He died there, of natural causes, on December 17, 2010. After his 1980 release from custody, he never again ran afoul of the law and he declined all requests to comment publicly about the death of Bostock.

In his four-season career, Bostock was a .311 hitter with 23 home runs and 250 RBIs in 526 games. The Angels wore a black armband in memory of Bostock for the remainder of the 1978 season. He is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. A memorial scholarship fund was commissioned in his name, and is annually awarded to a needy CSUN student athlete. In 1981, he became the first inductee into the CSU Northridge Matadors Hall of Fame.

Highlights[link]

• Hit for the cycle (July 24, 1976)

• Collected 12 putouts in the second game of a doubleheader, tying the major league mark, as the Twins swept the Red Sox, 13–5 and 9-4. Bostock became only the third big leaguer to do it in a nine-inning game and just the second center fielder in the 20th century. His 17 putouts in the doubleheader also set a record in the American League that still stands today (May 25, 1977).

• In 1976 hit .323, finishing fourth behind Kansas City Royals George Brett (.333) and Hal McRae (.332), and teammate Rod Carew (.331).

• His .336 batting average in 1977 was only second to Carew's .388. Carew would be traded to the Angels in 1979 shortly after Bostock's murder.

References[link]

Sources[link]

This article's citation style may be unclear. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation, footnoting, or external linking. (June 2009)

1. Pearlman, Jeff (2008-09-18). "Fifth and Jackson". ESPN.com. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=bostock&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1. 
2. Reporter: Tom Rinaldi, Host: John Barr (2008-09-21). "The Tragedy of Lyman Bostock". Outside the Lines. ESPN. 

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• Lyman Bostock's career statistics at Baseball-Almanac.com
• Box Score Final game 23-Sep-1978
• CSU-Northridge Hall of Fame Lyman Bostock, Jr.
• Lyman Bostock's Gravesite Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, CA
• MLB.com profile of Lyman Bostock
• A remembrance of Bostock's career
• Bostock story from author of Cool of the Evening: The 1965 Minnesota Twins