Jack Dugnolle was born in 1914 in Peshawar, which was then part of British India, the son of a serving soldier in the Royal Sussex Regiment, John Henry Dugnolle, and his wife Harriett. His father, by then a second lieutenant was killed in France in September 1915. Jack attended Connaught Road School in Hove, and was a member of the Brighton Schools team that reached the final of the 1928 English Schools’ Inter-Association Cup.
He played Sussex County League football for Hove and Southwick, and appeared for Brighton & Hove Albion’s reserve team as an amateur, before signing professional forms with Albion in 1934. He made his senior debut in the Football League Third Division South in November 1935, but played only rarely, and returned to non-league football with Tunbridge Wells Rangers of the Southern League in 1938.
He soon returned to the Football League with Plymouth Argyle, for whom he made four appearances in the Second Division before competitive football was suspended for the duration of the Second World War.
Jack rejoined Brighton after the war, making 65 more appearances in all competitions and staying on to coach the youth team. He returned to the pitch as player-coach of Horsham, with whom he won the 1951-52 Metropolitan League title.
He went on to coach at and manage Worthing, published a coaching manual, Soccer Simplified, and scouted for Liverpool.