Originally a forger in the Sunderland shipyards, John Bainbridge experienced life in the Football League with Glossop before making Southampton his third Southern League club following spells with Reading (see Bill Henderson profile) and then Portsmouth. His right-wing partnership with Frank Jefferis drew favourable comparisons with the famed Turner-Wood duo of seven years earlier. Ill health ended his Dell days and he returned to his native north-east where, after briefly playing for the recently-formed Hartlepools, he took employment in the Silksworth coalmines. In the 1939 mini census his occupation was listed as a pit head baths attendant at Easington Colliery.