Elland FC is the first of three clubs from the town to have made its mark before the outbreak of World War One. The club seems to have started playing matches against other local teams in the 1878/79 season, playing in red and amber, and nicknamed the Yellanders or earthites.
The team was controversially knocked out of the 1886/87 Halifax Charity Cup at the semi-final stage, when it objected to the late notice given to re-play their semi-final with Hebden Bridge. Elland had won the initial tie, but an appeal by the Hebden Bridge was upheld, and it was they who were therefore awarded the tie. The Elland team did turn up for the final itself, but were told that they could not play in the final.
It took another ten years before Elland did reach the final of the Halifax Charity Cup, when the team went down 9-14 to Mytholmroyd on the ground of the Sowerby Bridge club in the 1896/97 competition.
Elland initially played at Elland Cricket Club, but left in 1890 when the cricket club raised the rent. A moved was made to the Old Earth Ground (hence the ‘earthites’ nickname), which was soon hosting matches in the Yorkshire No 2 Competition, to which Elland became founder members in the 1892/93 season.
The club was the subject of accusations of professionalism in November 1892, but the Yorkshire Rugby Union decided not to pursue the claims made by Rev Frank Marshall, who claimed to have a written testimony of a former committee member of the Elland club. The committee member in question was a Mr Hopkinson, who forwarded private books that he had kept in his office. In this case the Yorkshire RU committee passed three resolutions: 1. That the charges were not proved, 2. They disapproved of the way the club’s books had been kept and accounts audited, and, 3. It was disappointing that Marshall should rely so much on the evidence of Hopkinson
Marshall, of course, was more successful in his charges against many other clubs over the years. Shortly after the event, his carriage was stoned by youths in Elland as he took his school team to play Rishworth.
Despite not really having established itself among the best of the clubs in the region, Elland’s runner-up position (behind Holbeck) in the league in that first league season will have been a surprise to many. That form could not be maintained however, but there was still a respectable finishing position of eighth place finish in each of the next two seasons.
With the defection of clubs to the new Northern Union, Elland was elevated to the No 1 competition for the 1895/96 season., and finished fifth out of 14 teams. A slip to ninth the following season, and sixth in 1897/98. The latter season was one in which the club produced its best run in the Yorkshire Challenge Cup by reaching the Semi-Final.
Victories were achieved against Bottomboat Trinity (32-6), Meltham Mills (12-0), Skipton (6-0), and then Stainland (8-3) before a 6-14 defeat at Sowerby Bridge against eventual runner-up Hebden Bridge. Elland had led 6-4 at half-time.
Having certainly established itself by now, the summer of 1898 saw the club jump ship to the Northern Union. The decision was made at a meeting held on Monday 2nd May, when the club committee decided to make the switch, which was ‘entirely in accordance with public feeling in the town,’ according to local newspaper reports.
Elland FC was one of twenty clubs to become a founder member of the new Yorkshire Second Competition in the 1898/99 season. The club was placed in the Western Division, finishing in fourth place of the nine that completed the season, and that was followed by seventh place in an expanded division in 1899/1900, in what would become the club’s final season.
The difference in standards between the Yorkshire Senior Competition, and the Second Competition was illustrated when Elland played Hull in the Third Round (last 16) of the Northern Union Challenge Cup in the 1898/99 season. Elland lost 0-86 on Saturday 1st April, in a rout which included 20 tries, and 13 goals. The tie had been due to be played at Elland, but the inducement of £125 to switch the game to Hull was too good to turn down. This was a huge score in the days when points were harder to come by. In the first round, Elland had defeated Workington 13-5 at home on Saturday 18th March 1899, and then defeated Bowling, also at home, the following week by ten points to three.
All was not well at the club though, with internal dissention making an already difficult financial situation even worse. A general meeting to discuss the finances of the club, held on Thursday 25th May 1899 at the Clubhouse, on Westgate, was notable for the non-appearance of the club committee, other than the recently-elected secretary, Wright Worsick (who had assumed the role following the resignation of Fred Radcliffe). However, at a hastily arranged AGM the following Monday it was decided to continue the club, despite its financial struggles and a debt totalling around £60. In comparison with other struggling clubs such as Manningham, which was faced with a £750 shortfall, Elland’s total was not too considerable. However, attracting good gates for home fixtures could not be expected as Elland’s support was nowhere close to that which Manningham could expect. Radcliffe himself was elected new club president at that AGM.
However, Elland FC collapsed at the start of the 1900/01 season following the administration problems that had hindered the club the previous season. There was talk of an amalgamation with the Stainland Northern Union club and playing on its ground at Holywell Brook, but this did not come to pass. A pitch at Cross Lane was also available if necessary.
On Wednesday 5th September 1900 the club’s effects at the Old Earth Ground – including turnstiles, grandstand, player’s pavilion, and goal posts – were sold for around £20 by auction by Mssrs R Scarborough & Sons. Of this amount, a couple of turnstiles raised £6, the grandstand raised £3 5s, and there was £2 7s 6d paid for the pavilion.
Elland Free Wanderers
The demise of Elland FC was to the benefit of Elland Free Wanderers, a local team who played at Jepson House on Victoria Road. Wanderers were founded around 1884 but having moved across to the Northern Union joined the Halifax & Brighouse League for the 1896/97 season, finishing runner-up in the behind Brighouse Free Wanderers. Elland would have finished joint top had it not been for points deductions for a rule infringement (an Elland Victoria FC finished further down the twelve team league). Two seasons were spent in the competition before a season playing friendlies and cup games only.
The three years between 1899-1902 were spent in Huddersfield League, with a third place finish in the nine team No 2 Division behind Brighouse Juniors and Siddal Victoria in the first of those seasons.
The loss of Elland FC was perhaps less felt in the town in the light of the fact that within months of that club’s demise the Free Wanderers – who gained several of the former Elland FC players – won the Halifax Charity Cup competition. Wanderers defeated Halifax ‘A’ in an exciting final at Brighouse on New Years’ Day 1901.
Brighouse News, 4th January 1901
HALIFAX CHARITY CUP – FINAL TIE. HALIFAX ‘A’ v ELLAND F W
One of the moat interesting and keenly-contested football matches seen in the Calder Valley for some time took place on the Lane Head ground at Brighouse, on Tuesday afternoon, when the Halifax ‘A’ team met the Elland Free Wanderers in the final tie for the possession of the challenge cup offered yearly for competition to the junior clubs in the Halifax district. Both clubs put strong teams into the field, but it was a matter of criticism among many of the spectators that the Halifax ranks included some first team players. There was a large attendance, and nearly 9,000 lined the enclosure. Ormerod lost the toss, and had to kick off for Elland up the slope. Elland attacked, and the opening stages of the game were played in the Halifax half. The latter went away with a determined rush, and from a penalty kick W Albon landed a fine goal. The Elland men went straight away from the restart, and T H Ormerod landed a goal from a penalty. Elland again attacked, and as the result of a capital pass from Milner, T H Ormerod ran half the length of the field, and scored a fine try, the same player failing at goal. Halifax then took up the running, and Pickles, from a pass by Scott, got over and scored, W Albon landing a splendid goal. Play became keen, and Longbottom, one of the Halifax forwards, was sent off the field for kicking an opponent. At half time the score read:— Halifax: 2 goals, 1 try (7 points), Elland: 1 goal, 1 try (5 points).
In the second half W Knowles started for Halifax, and play was for some time at the centre. After a good burst by the Elland forwards Dawson scored, but T H Ormerod failed at goal. This proved to be the winning point, and decided the match in favour of Elland. Halifax attacked, but Ormerod relieved with a fine kick. W Albon made a good attempt at goal for Halifax from a penalty kick, the ball just going outside the upright. Elland attacked strongly after this, but could not score, and the final result was:— Elland: 1 goal, 2 tries (8 points), Halifax A: 2 goals, 1 try (7 points).
PRESENTATION OF THE CUP
A scene of much excitement followed the close of the game, the victory of Elland evidently being a popular one. Mr F Radcliffe, of Elland (president of the Competition), in handing the cup to Mr T H Ormerod, captain of the Elland team, said the match had undoubtedly been a victory for junior football. He was sorry to see that Halifax had deemed it advisable to include several first team players in their ranks, which he thought was wrong, as the contest ought to have been confined to members of the ‘ A” team. Ormerod briefly responded, and gold medals were presented to the members of the Elland team, and silver medals to the members of the Halifax team.
Both the aforementioned Ormerod and Dawson had played for Elland FC, the former having initially moved to Bradford FC before returning to his home-town team.
The honours continued for Wanderers, which won the Huddersfield & District Cup in the 1901/02 season, one year after having lifted the Huddersfield & District League title. The latter came despite the club having its ground suspended for the second half of February due to the ill treatment of referee A Jessop during a home fixture against Slaithwaite on 25th January 1901. There was also an appearance in the Huddersfield district’s Holliday Cup final, this following victory over the holders Slaithwaite, but this ended in a 2-6 defeat at Linthwaite to Rastrick on Saturday 23rd November 1901, one week after the initial final date at Huddersfield had been called off due to a frost-bound pitch.
Marsden were defeated 13-3 on Saturday 8th March 1902 in the Huddersfield Cup final at Fartown, with Elland captained by Holt. The Halifax Evening Courier’s editorial the following Monday stated, ‘If there is a team in Yorkshire which is a standing example of the success attending amateurism on the proper line, it is furnished by this Elland organisation.’ A large number of people were waiting back in Elland to hear the result, with an initial rumour circulating that the team had lost 3-19. However, a telegram a little later confirmed that the cup was theirs.
Yet on Tuesday 10th June a general meeting convened at The Central Hall, Elland in order to discuss the future of the club, given that subscriptions had fallen off badly in recent times. The club debt had been reduced from £13 to £3 over the season, partly through a successful end of season cup competition hosted by the club, but things did not look good for the future. The meeting was adjourned for two weeks, and when reconvened, the small number of individuals present voted to disband the club due to poor financial support and ‘the disinterested state of football in Elland at present’.
It was a sad end to a club that had swept to success over the past two seasons, but as with the case of other clubs too, success simply did not guarantee financial stability in the early years of the 1900s, and the Elland Free Wanderers were by no means the biggest club to discover this. Whether the club really was truly amateur, particularly in light of its success on the field, will never be known.
Elland Wanderers
After a having played friendlies the previous season, Elland Wanderers began its competitive life in the Halifax Intermediate League in 1908. Sadly the club made a name for itself for all the wrong reasons when its players were banned sine die for for their violent conduct during a League Cup final on Saturday 6th May 1911. Their opponents, league champions Catherine Slack from Queensbury won the tie 13-8.
Wanderers did not leave the league however, which suggests that at least some of its players may have been reinstated. The league final was reached at the end of that following season, with a narrow 5-6 defeat to unbeaten Rastrick FC.
The league dropped its ‘Intermediate’ tag before the outbreak of World War One, during which time the club was also variously referred to as Elland FC and Elland Free Wanderers. The club made the league final at the end of the 1914/15 season, but went down 2-5 to Wyke, a team that also defeated it in the Halifax Charity Cup final that season.
On Saturday 8th March 1913, Wanderers hosted Wakefield Trinity in the Northern Union Challenge Cup. In front of 5,000 spectators at Old Earth (receipts of £150), on which was built a new stand on the south side of the ground for the occasion to house many of them , Elland led by two points at half time, before finally going down 2-6.
Following World War One, Elland Wanderers played in the Halifax Junior League and was able to move back into the Old Earth ground. It was successful in the local league, winning the Courier Cup competition in the 1918/19 season.
A step up to the Yorkshire Senior Competition was made in 1920. Among the 18 clubs in the 1921/22 season were six junior clubs, notably Sharlston (who finished fourth), Elland Wanderers (7th), Normanton (10th), Wyke (13th), Knottingley (14th) and Selby (18th).
After having struggled financially for some time, the club was disbanded at a meeting that was held at the Savile Arms Hotel, Elland, on Wednesday 16th September 1926, not long after a proposal to wind-up the club had been deferred at the club’s AGM. However, the result of the meeting was that a new Elland Wanderers Rugby Union club would be formed in its place, and, having paid off the £85 debt of the old Northern Union club, the new organisation would take over the Old Earth ground, as well as its fittings, which included posts, fences, grandstand, pavilion (with accommodation for two teams, and with room for the holding of meetings), and two sets of jerseys. Two teams were fielded in the 1926/27 season, after which the team dropped the ‘Wanderers’ part of its title.
Rugby League has of course been revived in Elland since then, the current club having been founded in 1978 as Ogden Engineers.
Only two teams can claim the unenviable distinction of having spent just one season in the Football League. One, Bootle AFC on Merseyside has been reformed at a much lower level, but the other, the uniquely-named Middlesbrough Ironopolis, hailing from the far north of Yorkshire has vanished into obscurity as its major rival for top team in the town has gone on to establish itself in the higher echelons of the game.
The area around Middlesbroughwas largely rural, agricultural land until the early 1800s.The coal industry, and resulting iron and steelworks that developed around the area drove demand for labour. Large numbers of Welsh and Irish settlers swelled the population. By the late 1800s, steel production and ship building had also become primary producers. By 1851, the population had grown to over 7,500 residents, a number that was to mushroom into the 1900s, reaching 90,000 by 1900.
Middlesbrough AFC was founded in 1876, and by the 1879/80 season had moved to an old cricket ground in Linthorpe Road.There was a split early in the 1889/90 season over the issue of professionalism, which resulted in the formation of the Ironopolis club. The Middlesbrough AFC membership numbered around 400, but upon a votein May 1889 it was left to the casting vote of W Cochrane to decide the club’s future progress – the decision ‘the Club to remain unchanged’, which was to remain amateur.
That was far from the end of the matter though, as the club made a very poor start to the season, and then six of its eleven first team players threatened to strike in late September / early October until the club agreed to remunerate them for their services, thought to be 10s for a victory and 7s 6d for a draw or defeat, rather than merely paying expenses for away fixtures. An impasse was reached whereby the players involved would play on, if the club made an application to the English Football Association to adopt a rule which would enable Middlesbrough AFC to pay its players for loss of time in taking part in matches whilst still retaining their amateur status.
However, those involved in the sport in the town that wanted full professionalism tooktheir own action, with a meeting at the town’s packed Temperance Hall,with a Mr Malcolm McDonald in the Chair,on 29th October 1889. The event wasattended by around 2,000 and was reported in detail in the likes of the Northern Echo and Middlesbrough’s Daily Gazette, and a decision to form a breakaway club. Former Middlesbrough AFC committee-member J Wood was one of those behind the new club, arguing ‘Football was now a money-making affair, and the players had an equal right to share the money with anyone else’. It was also argued that the paying of players would stimulate them into giving better performances on the field, particularly apt given that Middlesbrough AFC had made such a torrid start to the season.
The new professional club was launched with some 150 £1 shares towards the new company being sold, towards a target of £1000. Those who committed to two or more shares would be granted free access to home fixtures, with season tickets sold for 5s for those without shares.The Northern Echo reported that ‘The meeting caused the liveliest interest in the town, and for hours after its close it was the topic of animated conversation in knots of enthusiasts’.
With the club being founded during the late Victorian industrial boom – during which time Middlesbrough was a centre of iron and steel production -thenthe nickname ‘Ironopolis’ (iron-city) was adopted in order to emphasise this.Hence one of the club nicknamesThe Nops was based on ‘Ironopolis’. The other nickname for the club was The Washers. At an early meeting of the club, a shipyard worker is said to have stated that ‘If you want professionals you must put your washers together’. Washers meaning ‘coins’.
The headquarters of the newly formed team was the Swatters Carr Hotel, the club later relocating to the County Hotel in Newport Road, which was almost opposite the old North Riding Infirmary.
A field formerly used by a local rugby club was rented, becoming known as ‘The Paradise Ground’, and which was close to the main entrance to the Royal Albert Park and Middlesbrough Union Workhouse, south the town centre. Although it offered open seating area and some covered accommodation by the time Football League status had been achieved, it was not as well equipped as the Linthorpe Road ground, and almost certainly offered no shower or refreshment facilities for players or spectators.
ThreeMiddlesbrough AFC players – W Hopewell, T Cronshaw and J Taylor (all of whom were part of six threatening strike action) – went to the new club, with six coming from Scotland via Arthurlie (3), Dundee Strathmore (2) and Dundee Harp. There were 140 applications from professional players in total.
Ironically, despite having initially planned to pay expenses only for the 1889/90 season, in a dramatic about-turn, Middlesbrough AFC itself turned professional in November 1889and played its first professional match before the Ironopolis. Had the club committeecome to this decision only weeks earlier then there would have been no break-away club.
First ever Ironopolis game was on 14th December 1889 at home to Gainsborough Trinity, a 1-1 draw the result, Seymour equalising for the Washers before half-time. An estimated 4,000 attended the game. The first ever Ironopolis line up was: Goal: G Smart, Backs: T Anderson, J Matthew, Half Backs: J A Elliot, R F Thompson, W Hopewell, Forwards: T Cronshaw, J M M’Gregor, T J Morrisey, J Taylor, T Seymour.Middlesbrough AFC went down 0-7 at Darlington the same day. Two wins came from the eight matches played by the Washers before the New Year, against Northern League clubs South Bank and Darlington St Augustine’s, the latter of which ended the season as league champions.
Middlesbrough AFC declined an invitation to play the new club early in 1890, but to be fair, defeat could have spelt the death knell of the better established club, a suggestion certainly alluded to in the local press at the time. In the event Ironopolis could have been merged back into Middlesbrough AFC, given that both teams were following the same path now, although the suggestion that each shareholder of the Ironopolis club should be paid £650 if the clubs were to merge put paid to any chances of that happening at the time. The teams did finally meet, on 26th April 1890, a goal-less draw resulting,in front of a crowd of 12,000 at Linthorpe Road in a Cleveland Charity Cup Final (beneficiaries being the North Riding Infirmary and North Ormesby Cottage Hospital). The replay, at the Paradise Ground was won by Ironopolis 2-0.
Other opponents that first season included West Bromwich Albion, Notts County, Sheffield Wednesday, Sunderland, and Aston Villa, with 20 of the club’s 36 matches being won, with a further eight resulting in draws. One of the most interesting fixtures of the season took place on Thursday 6th February 1890, a friendly fixture at home to Sheffield FC under artificial gas-light. The novelty, one of several played around the country around this time, attracted several thousand spectators to the Paradise Ground. The Northern Echo reported, ‘The night was dark and cloudy, but by the aid of the Wells’s light the game was carried on with but slight disadvantage, as the nine powerful lights disposed round the ground enabled the ball to be easily distinguished except in the centre of the field, where the darkness was not so completely dispelled.’ The result of friendly fixture was secondary to the spectacle itself, but for the record, the home team won 10-2.
The Washers were elected to the Northern League for the 1890/91 season, alongside the likes of Middlesbrough, Sunderland Albion (itself a break-away club of Sunderland), and the two senior Newcastle teams, West End and East End. However, the club’s opening league fixture, on 10th September 1890 resulted in a 0-3 loss at Sunderland Albion’s Blue House Fields ground, in a match that was completed in near darkness due to the non-appearance of the appointed referee. However, the club had only three days to wait for its first victory, a 5-1 success at home to Newcastle West End, followed by a massive 8-0 home victory against the East End club a week later.
A crowd of almost 10,000, at that time a record for the Northern League, packed into Linthorpe Road for the Middlesbrough derby on 1st November, bringing with them receipts of £200. A 2-2 draw ensued. Ironopolis won the return fixture by a single goal later in season, and despite heavy defeats at home to Stockton and at Darlington, won the title at its first attempt, just a point clear of local rivals Middlesbrough AFC.
A first foray into the FA Cup produced a run through three qualifying rounds before a first round proper tie at home to the cup holders, Blackburn Rovers. A narrow 1-2 home loss was the result in front of 10,000 spectators (£230 receipts) on 17th January, but a successful appeal by Ironopolis over the state of the ground saw the match replayed. Blackburn won again, 3-0 and went on to retain the cup. A 6-0 victory over Darlington was also overturned, for the same reason, in the previous round, with Ironopolis winning the re-played match 3-0.
Several Football League teams were also played in friendly fixtures this season, notably Sunderland, Preston North End, and Everton, as well as founder members of the newly formed Scottish League,Cowlairs, who were thrashed 9-0. A massive 52 fixtures were played throughout the season, with 36 won and 4 drawn. The Cleveland Charity Cup was retainedwith a 2-0 victory over Darlington in the final, and a reserve team established to enable a bigger, and stronger, squad of players. But all was not rosy, with a deficit of over £513 on the season. As a result, since its inception, the club was now over £1,090 in the red.
While Middlesbrough continued to draw its main support from the middle and upper classes of the town, Ironopolis were very much the team of the working man. Evidence for this comes from the occupations listed on the register of investors who bought £1 shares in 1891.
The 1891/92 season saw Ironopolis win 14 of its 16 league fixtures, this time with a three point cushion between them and their local rivals. There were also victories in the Cleveland Cup (later known as the North Riding Senior Cup, 4-0 v Middlesbrough in the final), and the Cleveland Charity Cup (2-1 v Middlesbrough in the final), as well as the Cleveland Amateur Cup, won by its reserve team which played in the Teeside League (3-1 v Port Clarence in the final). The club once again made it through the qualifying rounds of the FA Cup, which included a 7-0 thrashing of Whitby Town and defeats of both Stockton (in a replay), and Darlington (again) before becoming unstuck by six goals to nil at First Division giants Preston North End in what was in effect a replay following a 0-0 draw on a quagmire of a pitch on the scheduled date. The original match was deemed a ‘friendly fixture’, but not until the final whistle had been blown by the referee.
A report in the Northern Echo on 26th August 1892 on the club’s AGM indicates that finances were at that stage causing further concern though. Unexpected financial losses in several key fixtures alongside the Durham miners’ strike had hit income hard and they ended the season with a deficit of over £379. Cleveland Cup ties had resulted in losses of £110, and the FA Cup run also saw the club a further £50 in arrears. It was also reported that qualifying round opponents Hurworth had been ‘paid off’ in October, suggesting that it was more financially prudent for Ironopolis NOT to have played the tie against opposition that would not have attracted a good gate (The Washers reserve team defeated Hurworth in a Cleveland Cup tie later in the month).With Middlesbrough AFC also struggling financially an amalgamation of the two clubs was again proposed. On 7th May 1892, officials representing the two clubs met to present a joint application for membership of the Football League. As a result, for just a few weeks, there was just one senior club in town ‘Middlesbrough and Ironopolis AFC’.
Sadly the application failed, as did that of Newcastle East End (both teams receiving just one vote each), while Sheffield United -third in the Northern League that season – were elected with five votes, alongside Burton Swifts, who gained two. There was a suspicion that both Middlesbrough clubs had been poaching players from Football League clubs during the season, an act that led to an agreement that banned this practice between the Football League and Northern Leagues. It has been suggested that the suspicion surrounding the Middlesbrough teams could have led to the poor show of support for the ‘merged’ club’s application.
However, an opportunity was provided to join the new Second Division of the Football league instead. This opportunity was passed on, on account of the additional costs that would result, as well as reduced gates from fewer local derbies.In the event, the two clubs involved chose to go their own ways again rather than continue as a merged club in the Northern League again for the 1892/93 campaign.
The short-lived merger between the two Middlesbrough clubs fell apart over disagreements over which ground would be used, and over the composition of the club committee. Two separate clubs may not have been good for the town of Middlesbrough but it was for the Northern League, which, despite the playing strength of its members, was by now down to six clubs. Sheffield United retained a first team in the league despite also competing in the Football League, while Newcastle East End (which had also turned down the chance to play in the Football League’s Second Division) absorbed its cross town rival to create a new unified Newcastle United during the season.
There was no mistaking The Washers’ supremacy this time around, with only Sheffield United managing to take a point off the three-time Northern League champions. Although five of the club’s nine league victories were by a single-goal margin, the points difference between Ironopolis and Newcastle United was a huge eight points.
The club was given exemption to the first round proper of the FA Cup this season, and victory over non-league Marlow, following a giant-killing defeat of First Division Notts County saw Ironopolisamazingly through to the quarter-final of the competition, with Preston North End again lying in wait, after having only played two ties. A record 14,000 crowd saw the underdogs snatch a 2-2 draw on 18th February 1893 after having taken the lead in the fifth minute, but sadly the replay a week later ended in a 0-7 defeat in front of a crowd of 8,000 at Preston.
In late September 1892, the club staged a Bazaar at Middlesbrough Town Hall, with proceeds intended for a possible move to a new ground on the Ayresome Grange estate, which would also contain facilities for athletics, cycling and other community sporting uses. However, the event, postponed from an earlier date in March, was not a huge success, as the club’s financial position was beginning to cause further concern. Despite donations to local charities, totalling £400, the Ironopolis club was struggling to reach the break-even figure of between £60 and £70 per week at the gate. Another loss, of £246, was made on the season, certainly an improvement on the past two seasons but one which plunged the club further into the red. A move to a new ground was no closer to fruition, and in the event, would never do so.There was serious consideration given to reverting to amateur status for the following season but Ironopolis would continue as a professional concern.
The club’s penultimate season saw 53 matches played, resulting in 33 wins and 6 draws. The Cleveland Charity Cup was won for the third successive season, with Middlesbrough defeated 2-0 in the final, which was played at Linthorpe Road, although the club lost its grasp on the other two Cleveland Cup competitions it had won twelve months previously. It is interesting to note that cricket and baseball teams bearing the Ironopolis name were also in existence at this time.
The Football League expanded its Second Division by four teams in the summer of 1893, with Newcastle United among those elected. However, when founder members Accrington later chose to compete in the Lancashire League instead of being demoted from the First Division, then a further vacancy was created. Despite its previous reluctance to play in the Football League’s second tier twelve months previously, not without misgivings over club finances, the Ironopolis committee made an immediate application to fill the vacancy, and on 2nd August, at the Football League’s management committee meeting at Birmingham, the club was accepted into the competition.
Alongside Ironopolis were the likes of Liverpool, Woolwich Arsenal (now of course without the Woolwich prefix) and Small Heath (now Birmingham City). In fact The Washers’ debut in the Football League was at home to Liverpool on 2nd September 1893 in front of a ‘large and enthusiastic crowd’. A 0-2 loss resulted, with the club’s first victory coming in its fourth match of the season, a 2-0 revenge victory over Ardwick (now Manchester City), a team that had thrashed them 1-6 two weeks earlier. However, that first victory was watched by a crowd of only 800. The visit of Newcastle United on Christmas Day was attended by only 2,000, due to the inclement weather and it was obvious that life in the Football League with an average attendance of only 1,450 over the season just wasn’t viable.
As a Football League club, Ironopolis was exempt from qualifying round ties in the 1893/94 season. A first round tie at home to Luton Town was won 2-1 on 27th January 1894, before defeat at First Division Nottingham Forest on 10th December.
Among the Ironopolissquad that season were: G Watts, J Elliott, Philip Bach, Thomas Seymour, Robert Chatt, R Nicholson, J Hill, Archibald M Hughes, Thomas McCairns, P Coupar, Wallace McReddie.
The club finished 11th out of 15 clubs, recording impressive wins in succession at home to Small Heath (now Birmingham City), 3-0, and Rotherham Town, 6-1, but the club’s financial position was by now beyond repair, as gate receipts did not cover the cost of players’ wages and the costs of travelling to fixtures outside the North-East of the country. As early as December 1893 there were doubts as to whether the club could complete the season. In February 1894 all the professional players were served notice of the plans to liquidate the team, with the club’s final game a 1–1 draw against South Bank on 30th April 1894. Ironopolis resigned from the Football League the following month and was wound up.When the Paradise Ground was repossessed by the landlord at the end of the season, this resulted in the Ironopolis cricket and baseball teams also having to find a new location for home fixtures. Ironically, both were accommodated by Middlesbrough AFC at Linthorpe Road.
Middlesbrough AFC had reverted to amateur status for the 1893/94 season, and this ploy in effect saved the club from going the same way as Ironopolis. Six years later having turned professional again after having improved its fortunes, winning the FA Amateur Cup in 1895 and 1898, the club was elected to the Football League.
As a postscript, having entered the FA Cup for the 1894/95 season, the defunct Ironopolis was drawn away at Mickley in the Preliminary round of the competition, giving their opponents a bye into the first qualifying round.
The Paradise ground disappeared soon after the demise of Ironopolis, but a good deal of the site was later covered by the new Ayresome Park stadium that was finally opened by Middlesbrough AFC in 1903 following their relocation from Linthorpe Road, itself located near the junction of Gresham Road and Portman Street.
The Ironopolis kit was, in 1889/90, maroon and bright green halves, with a possible alternative kit being a dark blue with a white sash.In January 1891,No-Side wrote in the Northern Echo that prior to a match with Cambuslang, ‘Alderman R Weighill, a well-known owner of racehorses, and proprietor of the Cleveland Bay Inn and Oxford Music Hall, presented the team with jerseys of his racing colours (cherry with white stripes)’. The club’s old maroon and green tops were retained as an alternative.In February 1893 cherry red shirts with a white sash were also adopted by the club.
The West Riding club, based in Meanwood, Leeds, is one that enjoyed a brief, yet relatively successful existence, culminating in a place in the Yorkshire Challenge Cup final.
The origins of the club lay in the Woodhouse Football club, which , by 1893, had fallen out with Mark Higgins, landlord of the Swan with Two Necks in Woodhouse, where the club had its headquarters. Higgins sued the club, which he had been supporting financially, to the value of £26 19s 3d. this was of course contrary to the RFU rules on professionalism, and his assistance included refreshments to the players comprising cigars and two gallons of beer and a dozen bottles of ginger beer at every home game. The solicitor for the club, Mr Foster asked Higgins, ‘Do you know that it is contrary to the rules of the Rugby Union to supply these men with drinks and cigars at the expense of the club?’ Higgins’s reply brought laughter to the courtroom, ‘The Rugby Union are not supposed to know anything about this.’ Higgins, who had been falsely promised that the debt would be settled by the West Riding club, with which Woodhouse had amalgamated, won his case, being awarded £25, plus costs.
The Woodhouse club had moved to the newly formed West Riding Athletic ground and became the football arm of the West Riding Sports Club which also included Cycling and Athletics.
Woodhouse FC had been founded in 1886, (and was possibly linked to the Woodhouse Juniors team that had existed in the 1885/86 season) with its first trial match taking place on its ground at Delph Lane, Woodhouse Ridge on Saturday 21st August that year. One can assume that this was on the same site as the Woodhouse Cricket Ground that was shown on maps of the time. The Swan with Two Necks had been its headquarters right from its inception, with a J Fisher the club’s inaugural secretary. The club had enough players to form two teams in its first season, its second team playing a Woodhouse Trinity team in October 1886.
Leeds Times, Saturday 4th March 1893
THE WEST RIDING ATHLETIC CLUB (LTD.) Though dispossessed by strategy of their original title, the promoters of what was to have been called the Leeds and County Athletic Club, have not lost faith in their venture, and have now, as our advertising columns disclose, brought it before the public in a definite form. The post-haste fashion in which another body of individuals have registered the title ‘Leeds City and County Athletic Club’ has necessitated the change of name in the case under notice to West Riding Athletic Club (Leeds) Ltd. This is not an alteration for the worse. The capital the company ask for the purchasing of land in Meanwood-road, laying it out for football and cycling, erecting a club house, and making provision for 39,000 spectators is £12,000 in ordinary shares of £1. It has been arranged that £5,000 of the purchase money is to remain on mortgage at 4 per cent. So there will not be the necessity at present of calling up more than £7,000 of the capital, and as £3,000 shares have been taken up by members and friends of the Harehills Cycling Club, a very fair beginning has been made. Whether the venture will pay, is of course, an important question. Cycling and football and social comfort are to be the three heads of the catering, and these, it is well known, are profitable when properly managed. By sticking to these the promoters are sanguine of making their venture a thorough success.
In September 1893 the Yorkshire Evening Post noted that the club included players from the Woodhouse, Holbeck, Leeds Parish Church, Buslingthorpe, and Newtown clubs adding, ‘with Arthur Pickford, captain, a successful season is anticipated—in fact, if confidence will do anything, the Intermediate Competition trophy is already assured its resting place for next summer.’ The West Riding club’s first match on its new Meanwood Road ground, close to Education Road, was a defeat to Yorkshire Cup holders Halifax on Monday 25th September 1893, before its league programme as a founder member of the Yorkshire Intermediate League began. As it was, the title was not won, the team still finishing a respectable fourth place in the 14 team competition, behind Alverthorpe, Sowerby Bridge, and Goole.
The club reached the Semi-Final of the Yorkshire Cup in its first season as West Riding. Following victories over Luddendenfoot, Goole, Hull KR and Bramley, the team went out of the competition at the last four stage after a 0-6 loss to Castleford. This was a marked improvement to its previous season, when, as Woodhouse, it had been thrashed 0-30 by Keighley in the First Round.
The 1894/95 season saw an improved league performance, with the team finishing as runner-up in a renamed Yorkshire No 3 Competition, just two points behind Pudsey. The West Riding team were easily the highest scorers in the league, with 323 points scored in its 26 matches, and would have won the title had it not lost its first three league fixtures.
Probably the best West Riding FC player was Tom Broadley (see chapter on Bingley FC) In January 1896 he replaced R Walton as club captain after the latter was accused of not doing ‘his best to secure the victory of his own team’ after a disappointing defeat to Pudsey, according to the Leeds Mercury.
The West Riding club’s third and final season – 1895/96 – saw it finish in third place in the No 2 Competition behind Shipley and Hull KR. However, the highlight of the season, and indeed the club’s short career, was in reaching the Yorkshire Challenge Cup final, which was held at Scatchered Lane, Morley, on Saturday 18th April 1896. The match ended in a narrow defeat, going down 0-3 to Castleford .The West Riding team that day was: Horne, back; Halfyard, Newby, Lister and Whitley, three-quarter backs; Pickford and Scott, half backs; Broadley (captain), Crowther, Shaw, Stead, Brewster, Crosby, Widdowson, and Vollans, forwards.
The team had drawn 0-0 with Featherstone in the Semi-Final, played at Dewsbury on Saturday 11th April. In the replay, played at Bramley in front of 10,000 spectators just three days before the final, West Riding led 3-0 at half time thanks to a first minute try for Vollans. However, when Featherstone’s Howson refused to leave the field of play after having been sent off a quarter of an hour into the second half, the referee abandoned the match, and the tie was awarded to West Riding.
At a meeting Tuesday 31st March 1896, the club adopted the following resolution, ‘That the committee of the West Riding Football Club are in favour of the abolition of competitions and that we will remain loyal to the Yorkshire Rugby Union’, and yet the Yorkshire Cup final turned out to be the last competitive match played by the club, which was forced to fold during the summer.
The Meanwood Road ground, meanwhile, was considered good enough to host England’s international game against Ireland in Saturday 1st February 1896, which was won by Ireland 10-4.
It seems that the club could not come to terms with ground owner, W L Jackson MP, over its use for the following season, so with no options open to it, its committee the decision but to disbanded. The club would have taken a place in the Yorkshire No 1 Competition for the 1896/97 season, and its loss was lamented, given that the healthy gates it attracted to its ground would now be lost. The No 1 Competition committee expressed regret that it was particularly bad news, given that the West Riding club had been a leading light in the fight against Northern Union.
Leeds Parish Church FC briefly considered moving into the Meanwood Road ground in 1896, but this did not come to pass, as Jackson himself was in the process of selling the sports ground to the local corporation in order that public baths could be built. This also led to the destruction of the cycling track, which had hosted an international match between England and Ireland. In November 1895, The West Riding Athletic Club (Leeds) Ltd had failed to raise enough capital to buy the grounds from Jackson and as a result he took back possession of the them, honouring an agreement to allow the West Riding FC to use it for the rest of that season, but not beyond that (he allowed the ground to be used for association football the following season before the builders moved in). The Athletic Club had meanwhile paid £150 a year in rent on the ground, (and earned £80 a year in advertising hoardings and other business ventures), before its venture to buy the land ultimately failed.
Morley’s case is somewhat different from many others around the time what we know as ‘The Great Split’, in that this was not simply a case of a club switching from the Rugby Union to the Northern Union. When the original club reached a crossroads, events led to a split that led to the founding of new Rugby Union AND Northern Union teams, although the latter succumbed in a short space of time due to the demands put on it by playing in the new rugby code.
In 1878 pupils at the Turton College, Gildersome, taught the sport of rugby to local youths, and this led to the formation of Morley Football Club, which had its first ground on Cross Hall fields. This was located at the top of Fields Lane and which is now known as Fountain Street. Cross Hall itself was located at the junction of Fields Lane / Fountain Street and Britannia Road. Among the visitors to the ground in that first season were Dewsbury Birkdale, who were defeated on Saturday 9th November 1878 by one goal, two tries & three touchdowns to nil.
In 1880 there was a merger with Gildersome (itself founded a year before the Morley club), and no doubt discussions regarding the marriage between the clubs were ongoing when the teams met at Gildersome on Saturday 7th March that year. The ‘Gildersome & Morley FC’ played home matches on both grounds but the merger dissolved a couple of years later, with the Morley contingent moving to Scatchered Lane as part of the newly constituted Morley Cricket and Football Club.
The club’s headquarters by then was The Dartmouth Arms, with meetings also held at the Temperance Hall, Fountain Street and The Fountain Inn. Club colours were established as maroon.
The Gildersome club seems to have faded away by the mid-1880s, but Morley gradually became one of the strongest in the Heavy Woollen district. Harry Bedford played for England against Maoris in 1889, plus Scotland and Ireland in 1891, as well as gaining twenty Yorkshire caps between 1888-1891. Bedford was a member of both Morley and Batley clubs at that time.
Other members of the Morley club made appearances for Yorkshire too: S Todd played twice in the 1889/90 season, and J Parker played seven times in the 1895/96 season. John Henry ‘Jack’ Shooter also played twice for his county while in Morley colours.
Although not invited to join the Yorkshire Senior Competition in 1892, the club instead became founder members of the Yorkshire No 2 Competition instead, where it quickly became one of the leading clubs in the division. Third place in the inaugural 1892/93 season was achieved, behind Holbeck and Elland, with a position just one place lower twelve months later.
Morley were, at the third time of asking, Yorkshire No 2 champions in the 1894/95 season, just a point ahead of Castleford, winning twenty of its 24 league fixtures. Its team also reached the final of the Yorkshire Cup, when it went down 4-16 to Brighouse Rangers in front of 14,000 spectators at Headingley, Leeds. Morley had defeated Wakefield Trinity en route to the final and were expected to put up a better fight on the day. There were some suggestions that they had thrown the match, given that there was heavy betting involved on the day, but this was never proved.
The 1895 breakaway meant Morley club had a difficult decision to make. The top clubs had defected, and although it would mean that Morley would be promoted to the top Yorkshire Rugby Union division, it did mean that there would be no ‘promotion’ into the senior Northern Union league, in which county’s strongest clubs now played. Legend has it that when the Northern Union clubs broke away from the Rugby Football Union, the Morley representatives missed the train to Huddersfield as they were still in the pub. As a result, Morley remained with the RFU. However, the club was not in the Yorkshire No 1 Competition at the time and was not involved in initial talks. It could have seceded from the YRU any time after the famous meeting at the George Hotel, Huddersfield on Thursday 29th August 1895, but chose not to. At least not yet.
The club was at least elevated to the Yorkshire RU No 1 Competition for the 1895/96 season, and duly finished third, behind Leeds Parish Church, and on points difference to Castleford. The following season was less successful, with a sixth place finish in the competition
The club was split on the issue of defecting to the Northern Union, with the club membership voting 36-35 against joining the NU for the 1897/98 season. However, the Morley committee still decided to defect as long as it could be accommodated in the Yorkshire Senior Competition for the 1897/98 season. Hull KR, who won the Yorkshire No 1 Competition also decided to make the switch.
The heavy handedness of the English Rugby Union may well have had a direct influence in the decision of those two clubs to switch to the Northern Union. In February 1897, Hull KR was investigated for professionalism by the Yorkshire RU, and at the same time as Morley’s ‘Jack’ Shooter, who had initially requested an application form to join the Hunslet club but then changed his mind, was also charged with breaking the rules. Shooter was suspended for three weeks, and although the enquiry found no evidence against the Hull club, the national body would not accept this and chose to hold its own inquiry at the Station Hotel, York. Hull KR was then suspended for three weeks but this caused something of a storm among Yorkshire clubs, who were increasingly agitated by the high-handedness of the English RU, the same high handedness that had assisted the original break-way clubs come to their decisions.
Morley FC made that step on 4th May 1897, very much taking a risk given that the meeting of the Yorkshire Senior Competition was two days later, and so the club had not yet been admitted to that league. The club’s worst fears were realised when, at the YSC meeting at The Mitre Hotel, Leeds, the senior clubs decided that it was impossible to add to their existing numbers, and that it would be unfair to ask the bottom placed club to retire at this stage. However, the clubs agreed that they would happily play ‘ordinary’ matches against both Morley and Hull KR instead.
The decision to defect made the Morley club unpopular with other clubs in the YRU, who felt that Morley (and Hull KR) had let them down after they had supported them in their dealings with the English Rugby Union. The Morley club itself was now even more split down the middle, and in effect the application to join the Northern Union was made by a section of the current club’s membership, and not by the club’s members.
Therefore, the Rugby Union contingent broke away from the club on 15th July 1897 and ‘re-formed’, being accepted back into the Yorkshire No 1 Competition for the 1897/98 season. The ‘new’ Rugby Union team chose the Queens Hotel as its headquarters, and its ground was at the Queen’s Park sports complex, which included among other things a trotting track. This was located at the other side of Scatchered Lane, where the Northern Union club continued to play. The new club was titled ‘Morley English RFC’, with the Northern Union club becoming known as ‘Morley Northern’. The latter continued to use the Fountain Hotel as HQ. Both clubs played in the traditional maroon colours, although Morley English adopted a blue sash.
However, the Northern Union club still had to pay the fines accrued by the old club as the Rugby Union side was considered a new entity, and its inherited debts put it at an immediate disadvantage. The financial situation was underlined at a special meeting of members on 17th February 1898 at the Temperance Hall. The debt was around £498 at this time, and although this debt was not actually growing, it was decided to canvas each Ward in the borough in order to gather additional subscriptions to the club.
On the field, things were not a success. With some players opting to stay with the Rugby Union – the incentive of county caps one factor in their decision – and a with lack of competitive fixtures the team struggled. Castleford, Heckmondwike and Holbeck were defeated in friendlies, but many matches were lost, and a 0-50 loss at Hull KR on Saturday 2nd October 1897 did the club’s reputation no good at all.
However, there was some optimism at the club’s AGM, held at The Fountain on Wednesday 20th March 1898. Additionally, with more clubs defecting to the Northern Union then a second league could be formed, which would give Morley some meaningful fixtures at last. The new Yorkshire Second Competition was split into ‘West’ and ‘East’ sections, with Morley in the former, after having again been denied a place in the Yorkshire Senior Competition.
Unfortunately it proved difficult to attract spectators to fixtures against lesser opposition. Following a cancelled opening fixture against the recently defunct Pudsey, Birstall were overcome quite easily, although that club later inflicted a first league defeat on Morley. Eventual league winners Todmorden were defeated, but this was offset by defeat at bottom-placed Luddendenfoot in torrential rain after the Morley players had missed their train connection at Mirfield. It was often a problem putting a full team out, with players often unpaid and being unable to afford to take time off work. Some players preferred to play with amateur teams in preference to playing ‘amateur professionalism’. The situation at Hull KR couldn’t have been more different, as they won every one of their 18 fixtures, as well as a play-off with Todmorden to win the overall No 2 Competition title, and then defeated bottom placed Senior Competition Heckmondwike to gain promotion to the top table.
The Scatchered Lane side had been in second place in the West division at the turn of the year, but slipped down the table to finish fifth in the nine-team section. A disappointing loss also ensued to struggling Bradford side, Bowling in the Challenge Cup. The defeat by one try to nil, in a match that was played in a snow-storm, ended hopes of money-spinning tie against one of the top teams.
Towards the close of the season, Morley played local junior club Morley Red Rose, which had just won the Gildersome & District League, which had gone over to the Northern Union en masse. The ‘Rags’, as the amateur team was known, played in a chocolate, blue and gold kit and played on a ground at Wide Lane, with its headquarters at The Gardeners Arms, but it was easily defeated by the senior Morley team.
The Morley Cricket and Football Club AGM took place on Wednesday 29th March 1899, with a debt of around £250 reported (on top of the £290 owed to grandstand shareholders). At a later meeting, arrangements were made with local traders, several of which had threatened legal action, for them to accept 10s in the £, with another agreement reached with grandstand shareholders meeting, who were owed a further £290 by the club.
A further meeting on 3rd May 1899 and the club decided to continue as an amateur club, which was quite ironic given that there were now two amateur rugby clubs representing the town, one playing Rugby Union, the other Northern Union. Clearly the move to Northern Union had been something of a disaster.
E S Hirst was elected ‘Northern’s’ new President, with D Ramsden as secretary. The Queen’s Head was chosen as the new HQ, given that Morley English had moved on to the Sycamore Hotel.
However, with the Northern Union club having been reconstituted as a ‘new’ organisation, then its players were not automatically signed to the new, amateur club, and were hardly likely to do so when other clubs were offering broken time payments. J Clegg, for example, went to Leeds Parish Church, with others going to the likes of Leeds and Batley. Unable to attract quality players to the club, the new committee decided, after all, to formally disband the club. Morley English did not last much long either and the town was served only by junior clubs (in status, not age) until the formation of the current Morley RUFC in 1919.
SOCCER
Its not often that a successful football club is forced to fold straight after its greatest achievement, but that was sadly the case with the original Morley AFC
Morley AFC played on the ground at Scatchered Lane adjacent to the cricket field. The club was formed around 1898, not long before the Morley Cricket & Football Club temporarily abandoned rugby due to its precarious finances. The new association club was successful from the start, winning the 1898/99 Wheatley Cup, with a 1-0 victory over Mirfield United in the final, played on Saturday 22nd April 1899 at Dewsbury. A late winner by Schofield in an entertaining match was enough the bring the club its first silverware.
The next two Wheatley Cup finals were lost, 1-2 to Saviletown Clarence in 1900, and 1-4 to Dewsbury & Savile in 1901. The club also played in the Heavy Woollen League from its inception in 1898, winning the title with an unbeaten record in the 1899/1900 season after winning the ‘North’ division, well ahead of Pildacre Mills, and then the league championship with a 3-1 victory over ‘South’ division winners Dewsbury Celtic.
In the summer of 1902, Morley stepped up to the West Yorkshire League, staying in the competition until 1909. Its first season saw Morley and Mirfield United edged out by the eventual champions Altofts, but in subsequent seasons Morley did not make an impression on the top of the table, although neither did it struggle in this competition. Debts associated with running a side in the competition were reported to have been wiped out in the summer of 1904 thanks to contributions from a number of local gentlemen. The club also won the prestigious Leeds Hospitals Cup in the 1905/06 season, with an easy 6-1 thrashing of Glasshoughton in the final, played on 21st April 1913 at Castleford.
Morley returned to county league football in 1910, after having had a year out in order to wipe off its latest debts, and joined the newly-formed Yorkshire Combination, finishing in mid-table for three seasons from 1910-13. The club and enjoyed what was easily its best run in the FA Cup during the 1911/12 season. Entry to the national competition had first been made for the 1903/04 season, when a 0-3 defeat at Rockingham in a Preliminary Round tie was the result, but the club’s run in 1911/12 too it to the Fourth Qualifying Round. Leeds United were defeated 3-1 in the Preliminary Round, followed by victories over Calverley United (1-0), Mirfield United (2-0, following a 0-0 draw), and South Kirkby Colliery (1-0), before a 1-2 defeat at home to Castleford Town in a replay (following a 1-1 draw).
This run was in contrast to Morley’s only FA Cup tie in the 1905/06 season, a 0-11 loss at Leeds City in a First Qualifying Round tie.
However, winning the West Riding County Cup was undoubtedly the highest point achieved by Morley AFC, a 2-0 victory over Hebden Bridge played at the Clarence Ground, Kirkstall on Saturday 12th April 1913.
The Leeds Mercury carried a report of the match the following Monday,
MORLEY’S CUP TRIUMPH. After a fast and exciting game, Morley beat Hebden Bridge by two goals to nil in the final of the County Junior Cup, at Kirkstall, on Saturday, this being the first trophy they have secured since they won the Leeds Hospital Cup tan years ago.
It was unfortunate for the losers that Moon, one of their best forwards, was compelled to leave the field early in the game through the result a collision with one the Morley players. Morley’s rear division played an important part in attaining the verdict, and, singularly, it was a movement started by Whittingham, one of their backs, that led up to Naylor scoring their first goal. Green, the Morley custodian, cleverly saved a penalty from the foot of Martin. Hardy looked putting his side level terms before the interval, for after beating the opposing backs was left with only Green to beat, but shot high over the bar.
Aided by the breeze in the second portion, Hebden Bridge, in spite of being man short, gave their opponents an anxious fifteen minutes. Then Sherman, seizing upon momentary hesitation in the Hebden defence, placed the ball to Laing, who, being unmarked, had little difficulty registering another goal.
Morley deserved their victory, their forwards proving the more effective. Martin, the Bridge left half, was about tbs best player on the field, whilst Hardy tried hard to make up for Moon’s absence from his side. Mr J Connor, the President of the Riding Association, presented the cup and medals after the game.
Sadly, following its greatest success, the club folded in August 1913, citing a lack of support due to the sporting public transferring their affections to Leeds City FC. It was hoped that the club would be reformed in the near future but that never came to pass, due in no small way to the outbreak of war. Harold Wainwright was the club president when the club disbanded with debts of around £80. Former goalkeeper John Green landed himself in court when he sold lottery tickets to raise money to reduce the debt, presumably from his tobacconist shop. He was fined 10s for his efforts.
Morley United briefly made a name for itself the following season, reaching the Wheatley Cup final , where it lost to Thornhill Lees Albion 0-3, following a 1-1 draw, and taking part in the FA Cup (losing 1-2 at West Vale Ramblers in a Preliminary Round tie). However, the War put paid to any progress that the club might have made.
The well-established Morley Town successfully flies the flag for the town at the current time, but the football history of Morley could well have been very different had Morley AFC been able to ride out its financial crisis before the outbreak of World War One.
Normanton FC played at the highest level of the game, competing with the very best clubs in the land for a brief period. Only a decade or so earlier the village club had been in the third tier within the Rugby Union. However, the club’s demise did not represent the death knell of Northern Union in the town, with two further clubs taking up the mantle in the years leading up to World War One.
The first Normanton FC, nicknamed ‘The Colliers’, was established in 1879, using the Midland Hotel as its base. A meeting on Thursday 24th July that year in the village National School saw the club formally established, and the Rev W M Lane consented to be president. By September, the club reported that a large number of young men had signed on and that a number of them had recently commenced practice. Initial ‘matches’ were between club members, ‘W Hutchinson’s’ side defeating ‘G Stearns’s side’ in October, being one instance. A ground at Mopsey Garth was originally used for its matches. This ground would be used by several other teams in future years, with the Hark To Mopsey Inn soon replacing the Midland Hotel as the club’s headquarters.
Wakefield St Michaels were visitors to Normanton on Saturday 15th November 1879, and came away with a victory by four tries, three disputed tries, five touches down, and one touch-in-cue (sic) to Normanton’s, nil, showing that the newly-formed team still had a way to go before it could become really competitive, but the young team would, in time, become a major force in the locality.
The club was clearly an integral part of the community. In May 1885, the club gave 400 loaves to the families of striking miners, and £1 10s to the Normanton Relief Committee. In October 1886, matches were played at Mopsey Garth in order to raise money for the Altofts Colliery disaster, when several miners were killed by an explosion.
At Normanton’s AGM on Tuesday 4th May 1887, it was announced that Mr Horsfall’s field near the Parish Church had been secured, and was being thoroughly re-laid in preparation for the coming season. The ground, known as Horsfall’s Paddock, was officially opened on Saturday 27th August with a match between two teams consisting of club members. A wooden fence was erected around the new ground in order to fully enclose it.
Tuesday 6th March 1888, a concert to wipe out the club’s debts ‘proved successful beyond anticipations’, and by May the following year, at the club AGM, a small balance in hand was reported by the club secretary Mr Stones, a well known player with the club, who had succeeded R Kitson, himself an ‘energetic and obliging secretary’, four years earlier.
Softback edition
By the 1888/89 season the club had local rivals. Besides Normanton St John’s, there was also Normanton Parish Church FC which played regular fixture against the likes of Normanton United and the St John’s and Normanton FC ‘A’ teams as well as other teams such as Wakefield Parish Church and Bottomboat Trinity.
On Saturday 13th August 1892, a first athletics festival was organised by the club, before a large number of spectators. This event continued for a number of years on the football field.
Normanton FC’s league debut was made in the Yorkshire Rugby Union Intermediate Competition in the 1893/94 season, when it finished seventh of 14 teams. However, this is perhaps not a bad performance when you consider the ongoing miners disputes that would have affected attendances (and which led to local rivals Normanton St John’s suspending activities). The following season saw a ninth place finish in a renamed No 3 Competition.
Promotion was achieved when the Northern Union was formed, leading to the defection of the clubs in the top division, thereby allowing all the teams in Normanton’s division to be elevated to the No 2 Competition. Normanton finished sixth in the 1895/96 season, then third behind Keighley and Alverthorpe the following season, before a rather disappointing eighth out of 13 in the 1897/98 season.
Normanton’s ground was suspended by the Yorkshire Rugby Union in February 1896 after the referee in a match at home to Shipley awarded the away team a late penalty, which won them the match. His claims that he was ill treated by the home spectators held to the ground being until 14th March 1896 as a punishment. This went some way to explaining the financial deficit of around £60 at the end of the season, with several key fixtures being lost due to that.
Normanton AFC proposed an amalgamation with Normanton FC in 1896, the latter rejecting the proposal as it intended to continue running its (loss making) second team the following season, which would leave the pitch unavailable. The association football team had been founded in 1894 and had been a founder member of the West Yorkshire League but needed a ground of some standing to be able to achieve the level of success it craved.
The decision to transfer to the Northern Union was made at a meeting held on Monday 25th April 1898, and the club, by now playing in a black and white striped kit, became a founder member of the Yorkshire Second Competition (Eastern Section) for the 1898/99 season. Sixth place was achieved at the season’s end, in what was a ten team competition.
However, Normanton won the Eastern Division title in its second Northern Union season, despite having two points deducted for rule infringements, but went down to Heckmondwike (West division winners) 2-9 in a replay on Wednesday 21st March at Dewsbury in a championship decider The teams had drawn 2-2 on Saturday 10th March at the same ground.
In between the two Heckmondwike matches, Normanton caused a surprise by defeating Leeds in the first round of the Northern Union Challenge Cup, 5-0 ,at Horsfall’s Paddock. Batley ended hopes of further progress in the second round, however.
With promotion being denied to the losers of the play-off, Normanton found itself in the same division for the 1900/01 season, and in a two horse race for the Eastern Division title, was pipped at the post this time by York. In the past two seasons, the club had played 42 fixtures, winning 38 of them. The club stepped up to the Yorkshire Senior Division for the following season, albeit only because several clubs had moved on to form a Northern League with the best of the Lancashire clubs.
In 1901 Normanton FC returned to Mopsey Garth after a four year stay at Horsfall’s Paddock. The Mopsey Garth ground had been used by the Normanton St John’s club in the intervening years (and would continue to be in the future). There was also a return to the headquarters at the nearby Hark to Mopsey Inn, Wakefield Road. The ground at Horsfall’s Paddock is now part of a housing estate with a road called The Paddock on the site of the old pitch.
Normanton finished a creditable 8th in the 1901/02 season, just above local rivals Castleford in a 14 team division. At the end of the season, the County Leagues elected 18 teams to join the new Northern Division Two. Normanton was one of those selected, and capped its first season in the professional ranks with a 12th place finish. Unfortunately its second season was something of a disaster, with a 17th place finish, right at the bottom of the table. Normanton won just four of its 32 matches, and with attendances falling, the full implications of playing in the professional game were becoming apparent.
The 1904/05 season was a little better and Normanton managed to finish 10th out of 14 before a major structural change occurred in the game. For the 1905/06 season, the ‘Northern League’ reverted to one single division of 31 clubs, thereby pitting Normanton against the top teams in the sport. A finishing position of 26th was perhaps expected, but the club ended the season in severe financial difficulties. These problems were recognised by the league committee who allowed Millom and Normanton to cancel their game due to the cost of travelling.
On Saturday 24th February 1906 there were more disturbances on the Normanton ground, when the referee in the league match with Huddersfield walked off the pitch after only ten minutes of the second half due to rough play by the forward players from both sides. Additionally, both of the touch-judges were assaulted by spectators. As a result, both teams were found to be guilty of rough play, and both sets of forwards were censured The match was ordered to be replayed in April at Belle Vue, Wakefield.
By the summer of 1906 the club was on its knees, with creditors lining up for payments. The landlord of the Hark To Mopsey successfully sued eleven members of the club committee for a sum of over £20 in June for the provision of refreshments supplied and monies lent. The club’s officers explained in court that its books were being audited, a balance sheet prepared, as well as plans to meet the claims of all creditors. At the 1906 AGM on Saturday 30th June saw only 12 of its 130 members attend, and a decision to fold was made by those who were there. At a creditors meeting later that month it was shown that Normanton FC needed £200 to settle all claims. With further threats of legal action the club moved to offer 10s in the pound, and that the average call upon each club member would be £1 to £2. Two years later, committee members were still being taken to court by creditors, however.
A new club, Hopetown Rovers joined the Wakefield & Dewsbury District League for the 1906/07 season, using the Huntsman Inn as a base and playing on Normanton Common. It is believed that several of the Normanton team went on to play for this club. Rovers finished down in tenth place in the 13-team league and did not reappear the following season.
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However, a new Normanton FC appeared in the Wakefield & Dewsbury District League for the 1907/08 season, playing for four seasons in the league on the Mopsey Garth ground. This was not merely an amateur reformation of the club, but an attempt to return the club to the standard it had played at just a few years earlier.
The ‘new’ club made an immediate impact. In its first season, it made the final of the Yorkshire Junior Cup, after having defeated the likes of Knottingley and Outwood Church en-route. However, Normanton went down 2-15 in the final to Hull White Rose on Tuesday 21st April 1908 at Craven Street, Hull, although the winners medals were initially withheld due to Normanton claims that the Hull team fielded an ineligible player. That appeal was dismissed a few days later.
Normanton did win the competition the following season. At Belle Vue, Wakefield on Easter Monday 12th April 1909 they defeated Stanningley in front of 2,000 spectators. The Yorkshire Evening Post printed a short report on the match the following day, ‘Early on Stanningley pressed, and Hudson scored a fine try for Holder to add the extra points. Keen play followed, and Walker (Stanningley) was sent off for rough play. Normanton now had the best of play, and Huskins crossed for Turton to add the goal, while soon after Turton raced over after a capital run. Normanton again attacked, and Bob Ward raced over for Turton to add the goal. Stanningley then pressed, and Townes scored, but Holder missed the goal. Result: Normanton 3 goals and 2 tries (13 points), 1 goal and 2 tries (8 points).’
In the 1908/09 Challenge Cup, Normanton played host to Hull FC on Saturday 27th February 1909. Gate receipts were reported to have been almost £127, with the Hull Daily Mail claiming that the true amount would have been more than that, given that the whole of Normanton turned out to watch the contest, as well as the Altofts Working Men’s Institute Comic Club, who, in their striking costumes, provided much light relief prior to the match. There was little relief for the players during the match however, with the match being described as ‘The battle of Mopsey Garth’, before the Hull team emerged victorious by 20 points to 10..
Normanton reached the Yorkshire Junior Cup final for a third successive season at the end of the 1909/10 season but its appearance ended acrimoniously. The team drew 12-12 with Featherstone in the final, again held at Belle Vue, on Monday 28th March, necessitating a replay on Wednesday 6th April at the same venue. A bad tempered game, that had seen players from both sides sent off, ended 2-2 after extra time. With extra-time declared, several of the Normanton team initially refused to play the extra period, and with only half a dozen players on the field, Featherstone scored a try to lead 5-2. The Normanton players responded by kicking the ball out of the field, and when they did it again straight afterwards the match was terminated. Featherstone were not given the cup on the day as many had not realised that they had actually scored a try.
The following week the Yorkshire committee of the Northern Union awarded the tie to Featherstone, and withheld the runner-up medals from the Normanton team, which was also banned from taking part in the competition the following season, as well as being made to pay the referee’s expenses for the replayed final. Furthermore, Normanton’s E Dooler, sent off in the match, and who had only just returned from a three year ban, was suspended sine die.
Normanton’s under 21’s side was also successful, winning Yorkshire Intermediate Cup in 1910/11 and 1911/12, , defeating Burley Vale 6-3 in the former, and York Leeman 17-0 in the latter
There was no open-age team from 1911-13, and in fact no Intermediate team either for the 1912-13 season (although Normanton St John’s still were providing plenty of opportunities for footballers in the village).
Normanton returned for the 1913/14 season, alongside Normanton St John’s, and won the 1914/15 Leeds & District Union’s League Cup on Saturday 1st May 1915, as reported in the Yorkshire Post the following Monday,
NORMANTON v HARROGATE. The match for the championship of the Leeds and District League was played on the ground of the Headingley Rugby Union Club at Kirkstall Saturday. There was a satisfactory attendance of 2,300 spectators, the receipts amounting to nearly £30. Normanton had the assistance of three of their former players who are now on the register of the Dewsbury flub —Dyson, Rogers, and Kilcommons – while the Harrogate team included the ex-Leeds players, Stacey and Fawcett, and the former Yorkshire Rugby Union County players, Orton and May.
The first half was closely contested, and good passing was witnessed on both sides. Unfortunately, some rough play developed at one stage, and the referee found it necessary to order Howell, of Normanton, and Whitehouse, of Harrogate, off the field. Stacey was several times prominent in the first half, and led to one or two ‘near things,’ but Normanton were, on the whole, the more dangerous side, and they deservedly took the lead just before the interval. Their score was initiated by Dyson, who doubled round a scrummage and passed to Rogers, who in turn transferred to Morgan, the last-named player running over with a try, which Morgan improved upon. Thus Normanton led at the interval by a goal and a try to nil.
Harrogate were handicapped all through the second half by the absence of one their forwards, Townend, who had sustained an injury to his shoulder. That handicap caused them to be altogether over-matched in the forwards, and Normanton, who were very well served at half back by Dyson and Rogers, made practically all the running. Just before close, however. Harrogate made a spurt, and a strong effort by Fawcett nearly led to a score, Stacey having ‘hard lines’ in being unable to gather the ball after following up Fawcett’s kick. Still, the victory was well earned by Normanton, who at the finish received the cup and medals from the hands of Mrs Smalley, of Hunslet. Result: – Normanton 1 goal and 1 try (5 points), Harrogate nil.
Teams:- Normanton —Green, back: Webster, Howell, Stead, and Hanley, three-quarter backs: Dyson and Rogers, half back; Morgan. Senior, Winstone, Walker, Wood, and Kilcommons, forwards.
Harrogate—Fawcett, back; Stacey, Orton, Mitchell, and Watson, three-quarter backs; May and Kershaw, half backs; Ford, Wood, Booth, Townend, Whitehouse, and Varley, forwards. Referee, A Brown, Wakefield,
The ‘new’ Normanton club sadly failed to emulate the original Normanton FC by playing at the highest level of the sport, but Northern Union/Rugby League has continued to be played in Normanton to a high standard since the end of World War One.
Normanton St John’s
Wakefield Free Press, Saturday 8th October 1887
NORMANTON ST JOHN’S FOOTBALL CLUB – TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREE PRESS
‘Sir – Will you please allow me a short space in your paper respecting the above club? It was started by the Rev Father Herfkins, not in opposition to any other club, for we wish to be friendly with all, but simply for the welfare of the young men committed to his care in a temporal point of view, so as to find them innocent recreation, keep them together, and avoid bad company. As we are under certain rules of the church, he is able to keep a strict watch on our movements; and I must say he has spared neither time, trouble, nor expense for our benefit, and our heartfelt wish and prevent prayer is that Divine Provenance may bestow on him all those favours he so richly deserves. We also feel grateful to Mr G Rush, in trying so nobly to assist Father Herfkins to make St John’s Club a success. We also beg to return our thanks to all the gentlemen who have so kindly assisted us, as also to Mr Lodge for the use of the field, and we hope by strict attention and good behaviour on our part to gain the esteem and patronage of the public at large. – Yours truly, George Burton, Secretary, 20 Alpha Terrace, Normanton
By the time the Normanton St John’s club was formed, the village already had an established football team in Normanton FC, but as the letter above states, St John’s was not founded in order to take on the best in the sport, but as a means of ensuring the welfare of the young men in the district. The Rev Herfkins would, of course, have appreciated the benefits of organising a football team as a means of increasing his congregation too. St John’s used the Mopsey Garth ground, the site of which is now covered by Garth Avenue.
An early opponent of the club was Normanton United, with the teams meeting on Saturday 20th October 1887 in the First round of the Wakefield Express Challenge Cup, United winning by one goal and two tries, to one try. Other opponents in that first season included Wakefield Albion, the Normanton FC ‘A’ team, and Upper Wortley, the latter of which was defeated heavily by 4 goal, 5 tries and 8 minors to nil on Saturday 5th November 1887.
At the club AGM in May 1890 it was reported that there was a debit balance of £2 1s 2d, but that a Mrs Elsenshon had presented the club with the sum of £82. This money was put towards the building of a new reading-room for the club, one which would benefit not only the players themselves, but the whole St John’s congregation, as a desirable alternative to the local public houses.
Normanton St John’s first piece of silverware was in winning the Barnsley Beckett Hospital Cup, defeating Doncaster 7-0 in the final on Saturday 31st October 1891 at Shaw Lane, Barnsley. The victors scored one goal, one try and four minors, to Doncaster’s three minors. St John’s had actually been defeated in the Semi-final by Shepley on the same ground on Saturday 24th October, but on appeal the game was replayed, on the grounds that the referee had misinterpreted the rules of the game during the match. The match was ordered to be replayed at Honeywell Lane, the ground of the Barnsley club, the following Thursday but Shepley refused to attend, and Normanton St John’s claimed the tie. Normanton FC had also entered the competition, but after defeating Cudworth in the First Round, they were disqualified for having fielded an ineligible player.
The 1893/94 season ended prematurely for the St John’s club. In November 1893, after having played six matches, four of which were won, the club officials declared in that due to the ongoing miners strike, the club would have to suspend activities for the rest of the season. Poor gates meant that the club just could not continue, due to expenses being so high. Those ‘expenses’ were not explained, but it does reflect the shift from the club’s original aims of merely providing a pastime for local youths to one which was being run on more formal, businesslike lines.
The club was back the following season, and continued to take part in cup competitions as well as, for the first time, league competition in the form of the ultimately short-lived 1894/95 West Yorkshire Competition. There was also an equally short-lived West Riding Competition that season, both of which contained clubs deemed not quite strong enough to take part in the newly constituted Yorkshire Leagues. Both West Yorkshire and West Riding leagues fell apart at the end of the season, with fixtures being left unfulfilled in both competitions. St John’s did not make impact in the former, which was eventually won by Keighley Shamrocks, although having four points deducted for non-appearances at Keighley and Thornhill Lees on December 22nd and 26th respectively did their cause no good at all.
St John’s switched to the Barnsley & District League for the 1895/96 season, but the season was possibly its worst yet, with a finishing position at the foot of the eleven-team competition.
The club shut down for three seasons, but made a brief return for the 1899/1900 season, with a team in the Wakefield & District League (although it was very nearly excluded when the club’s representative missed the first league meeting of the season, and once the season was in full swing the team made no impression on the leading positions in the competition) before it again becoming dormant until 1908.
Conversely, the revived St John’s team – for the first time affiliated with the Northern Union – made a huge impression. Not only was a team entered into the in the Dewsbury, Wakefield & District League for the 1908/09 season, alongside a re-formed Normanton FC, but the club also placed a team in the Wakefield Intermediate League. Both teams were also in the same leagues the following season, with St John’s winning the Dewsbury, Wakefield & District League. Father Herfkins himself treated the club members to supper, where he presented the players with medals, on Saturday 18th June 1910.
Rev Herfkins would, I’m sure, have been less than delighted with the regular sanctions and fines applied to the St John’s players in the years leading up to World War One. Fighting, wrestling, and swearing at the referee among the misdemeanours for the players, who were playing, not to keep out of trouble, or to impress God, but because they were being paid to do so, expenses at the very least. A report in the Halifax Courier in February 1911 referred to the club, stating that it had attracted players from such clubs as Leeds, Dewsbury, Wakefield, Batley, and Hunslet on account of being found employment in the pits and about Normanton. The club’s very raison d’être had certainly shifted.
The 1910/11 season saw the club’s first team in the Leeds & District League, where it finished as runner-up behind Halifax ‘A’. St John’s own ‘A’ team meanwhile stepped up to the Dewsbury, Wakefield & District League
The following season both Normanton St John’s teams stepped up further – the first team into the Yorkshire Combination league, which consisted of many ‘A’ teams of senior teams, which also played in their local leagues. The club’s ‘A’ team effectively moved into the Leeds League, although strictly speaking it was a first team that was run in both leagues . Significantly, Normanton FC had temporarily disbanded its open-age team.
Following three appearances in the final of the Yorkshire Junior Cup for its rivals Normanton FC, it was Normanton St John’s turn to reach that stage in the 1911/12 season. However, that final was lost, 8-12, to Yorkshire Combination rivals Purston White Horse on Saturday 27th April 1912.
The St John’s team surprised Warrington in the Northern Union Challenge Cup that season, holding the Lancashire team to a 6-6 draw at Mopsey Garth on Saturday 17th February 1912. However, the Normanton team were thrashed 0-75 in the replay, played just 48 hours later.
For the 1912/13 season, the Yorkshire Combination clubs merged with its Lancashire counterparts to form a new Northern Combination. St John’s finished well down the table, 27th out of 28 teams, in a league that determined places on percentage. Millom, who finished at the bottom of the table, played just two fixtures, Beverley in 12th played six, Normanton St John’s played 17 (winning three), while Wigan, who finished top, played 30 games.
Featherstone Rovers and Purston White Horse were also playing in the Northern Combination. Fixtures were also played by St John’s in the Leeds & District League, with a further team playing in the Wakefield Intermediate League again for a single season.
For the 1913/14 season, St John’s finished one place higher in the Combination, with Brighouse Rangers and Leigh Shamrocks below them. The team won four of it 15 fixtures, while Wigan ‘A’ finished top and they played 35 fixtures. The Leeds & District League team was retained for the season too. Success in the Combination could well have been the stepping stone to a place in the senior ranks of the Northern Union, something that Featherstone Rovers achieved, but in which the Normanton club was certainly struggled to hold its own. The outbreak of World War One, however, put paid to the ambitions of all clubs, at all levels.
Mexborough Football Club is a prime example of one that for many years proved too strong for local football, yet, for a town of less than 20,000 throughout most of the late 1800s and early 1900s, wasn’t large enough for it to compete with those from larger towns at a regional level. For some of that time, Mexborough’s football team was able to punch above its weight, but could never maintain its lofty position at the head of the Midland League.
Throughout the 18th, 19th and much of the 20th CenturiesMexborough’s economy was based around coal mining, quarrying, brickworks, and the production of ceramics. Glassmaking was also big business, with the Phoenix Glassworks, established in 1850, providing employment for hundreds of local workers. For over a hundred years, the railway locomotive maintenance and stabling depot, ‘Mexborough Loco’ was also a major employer. The South Yorkshire, Doncaster and Goole Railway arrived in Mexborough in 1850, with extensive coal traffic generated by the local collieries and it soon became a busy railway junction.
According to the 1887 Football Annual, the football club was founded 1876, with dressing rooms located at the town’s Commercial Hotel, High Street. This would coincide with the Mexborough cricket club’s move to the ground, which had been covered by allotment gardens before being secured by the club, which had itself been founded a few years earlier. It is almost certain that the football club was formed as a winter pastime by the cricketers, initially with informal games played between members.
The football section soon became established as a separate organisation and early competitive games were played against other local teams such as Parkgate Rising Star, who were defeated 3-1 on 1st November 1879. There were a few informal teams operating in the Mexborough district at the same time, such as Mexborough White Rose, which played other local clubs in and around 1877. These teams had no ambition to become Mexborough’s ‘town’ club, being, in the main, a group of lads experimenting with the new, rapidly growing code.
By 1887, the Mexborough AFC club colours were red and white, with the secretary being one W Sayer of Garden Street, Mexborough. The 1886/87 season proved to be fairly successful, with 14 matches won, and one drawn from 29 completed fixtures. In addition, the Mexborough reserve team had won eleven and drawn four of its 18 matches. One of the team’s early stars was Jimmy Sayer, who played with club in 1880 and soon went on to play 24 times for Stoke, and once for England, in a 7-0 win over Ireland in 1887. Dubbed ‘Greyhound’ by Stoke fans due to his pace, he returned to play for Mexborough after leaving that club in 1890.
The football club organised its own feast sports at the Hampden Road cricket ground, those over three days in June 1887 involving the usual footraces, as well as potty-races, obstacle races, a six-a-side football contest, and donkey races.
A few years later, the Sheffield Evening Telegraph, on 10th January 1907 referred to a past incident occurring at a football match in Mexborough, and one can assume that this refers to a certain relative of Sayer, ‘the mother of a popular player, who afterwards wore an international cap, was invariably conspicuous in her strenuous approval or condemnation of incidents of the game. Indeed, on one occasion, her partisanship led her to heartily belabour a player with her umbrella, an incident that is still recording reminiscences of local football,’
Another player of note in the club’s early years was Walter Bennett, who went on to play for Sheffield United (195 appearances, 59 goals) and Bristol City (48 appearances, 22 goals), and gained two international caps, playing for England against Wales and Scotland in the 1901 Home International Championship. After leaving Bristol City he moved to Denaby Main, where he took a job as a miner and played for the colliery team there. He was tragically killed in April 1908, aged 33, following a roof fall at the colliery as he was making his way back to the surface after his shift, leaving a widow and four children.
‘Cocky’, as he was nicknamed, was also one of the best all-rounders in the Mexborough and District Cricket League. He was not alone in his family in being a top-class footballer.
His eldest brother William, or ‘Micky’, also started his career at Mexborough before going on to play for The Wednesdayas centre-forward. Harry E Bennett, better known as Tip,was captain of the Mexborough team when Walter, as a youngster of 17, joined it. Subsequently he went to Barnsley, where he became club captain, as aright-half. Another brother, George, also played for Sheffield United and Barnsley.
Later in 1908, another Mexborough footballer lost his life. Full-back, Arthur W Windle, succumbed to injuries received on the 12th of September, when he broke his leg during a match between his team and Barnsley reserves at Oakwell. The cause of death was exhaustion and heart failure due to lockjaw. The saddest aspect his death was the fact that Windle had only married three months earlier.
***
The first piece of silverware won by Mexborough football club was the Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior Cup in 1885/86, after having reached the Semi Final stage the previous season. The final saw the favourites, Heeley, defeated 2-1 at the Old Forge Ground, Newhall on 10th April 1886 in front of 2,000 spectators.
In on Friday 20th September 1889 the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported on an amalgamation of the football and cricket clubs in Mexborough. It was believed that funds would be forthcoming for much-needed ground improvements that would benefit both football and cricket sections. However, the cricket section retained the lease on the ground, which would cause problems further down the line.
By 1890/91 the clubbecame a member of the Sheffield & District League, a competition that had been founded the season before. The Football League itself had been founded in 1888, which quickly gave rise to a number of other national, regional, and local league competitions, such as those that appeared in the Sheffield district.
The Shefield League, in its various guises,improved in strength during the early 1890s, containing the likes future Football League teams Barnsley (St Peter’s), and Chesterfield, as well as the current Kiveton Park, and, later, several reserve teams from professional clubs. It was, in effect, a South Yorkshire League competition.
Mexborough was a leading light in the league, with a third-place finish in its first season in the competition. The title was very nearly won twelve months later, when, despite leading the league in its final stages, a 1-2 defeat at Chesterfield in front of 4,000 spectators in its final fixture allowed the Derbyshire club to take the 1891/92 title itself. The following season it was The Wednesday reserves who narrowly pipped Mexborough for the title.
For the season 1893/94 season, the Sheffield & District League had morphed into the Sheffield Challenge Cup League, and at last Mexborough won the title, thanks a 3-1 victory over Sheffield United Strollers in its final match. The team was afterwards driven through the town accompanied by a brass band. However, the Sheffield & District League did continue in a reduced format, with two groups of five teams. Mexborough achieved the double, defeating Sheffield Wednesday reserves 1-0 in the league’s play-off final.
The Sheffield & District Leagueran a single ‘top’ division called the ‘Wharncliffe Charity Cup League’ from the 1894/95 season, with ten others in a two division Shield competition. Mexborough regained the title, which made up somewhat for its failure to successfully defend the Sheffield Challenge Cup League title.
Mexborough’s final season in the Sheffield Leagues resulted in it regaining the Sheffield Challenge Cup League, winning 24 of its 28 matches and remaining unbeaten (The club’s first 22 league matches were all won). Although the Wharncliffe League title was not retained, the club, at least on the field, couldn’t have been in a better position to move up to the Midland League, which sat just one level below the Football League. The 1895/96 season was in fact the last time that the Sheffield Challenge Cup was organised on a league basis, reverting to a knock-out competition the following season. As a result, the Sheffield Association League was introduced for 1896/97.
Mexborough had been invited to apply for membership of the Midland League, and on Monday 4th May 1896 a special general meeting was held at the town’s Royal Oak, Bank Street, where that invitation was accepted. The club was just about breaking even at this stage, with a small financial deficit just about wiped out during the season.
Eventual champions Doncaster Rovers were visitors on Mexborough’s debut in the competition, winning 1-0, and the gulf between the Sheffield and Midland leagues was underlined when the club finished 13th in its first season. Just Worksop Town and Grantham finished below Mexborough in the final table.Adverse weather affected gates during the season, and the club, despite having paid its share on a new stand, was behind with its rent to the cricket club to the tune of £14. The club AGM on Monday 10th May 1897 passed a resolution that the team would be paid 7s per player for a loss, 8s for a draw and 10s for a victory, although it was accepted that results would have to improve if the club was to be able to sustain itself in the future.
Things could not have been more different the following season, as 1897/98 campaign was the most successful in the club’s history, winning the Midland League title as well as finishing runners-up in the Yorkshire League and reaching the 5th Qualifying Round of the FA Cup. In what was a decisive match, a 4-2 victory over Barnsley early in April saw the club climb to the top of the table, and by the season’s end just two points separated the new champions from Barnsley themselves. The reverse fixture in December had ended early due to fog with the score a 2-2, with the league committee ordering the final ten minutes to be played on 3rd February before a Yorkshire League fixture between the teams, with the score remaining unaltered.
The ten-team Yorkshire League was a new competition that lasted just three seasons. It brought together the best of the teams from what is now West Yorkshire, with the second teams of South Yorkshire clubs. The latter proved far too strong, Mexboroughfinishing runner-up behind Sheffield United reserves.In theory, this was a Mexborough first team, but precedence was given to Midland League fixtures.
However, the club’s finances were still of concern, and it was clear that wages and travelling expenses were not being met at the gate, despite the outstanding football on offer at Hampden Road. Several players moved on to other clubs during the summer as Mexborough FC looked to reduce its debts.
Unsurprisingly, in light of its financial woes,the club struggled during the 1898/99 season, although it was a surprise to see Mexborough finish at the foot of the table in the Midland League this time around. As well as the Yorkshire League team, a reserve team was entered into the South Yorkshire League, with only one league match being lost all season in that competition. By the season’s end, Mexborough AFC was over £99 in debt, and sufficient support through the turnstiles was still not forthcoming. With a working-class fan-base, many of whom were in the coal mining profession, money was tight and despite a successful football team there were few people who could invest in the club.The only bright spot during the season was victory in the Mexborough Montagu Charity Cup final – a competition which is still in existence today – when Tip Bennett captained the team to a 3-1 defeat of Wath in the final, played at Kilnhurst. Mexborough’s Montagu Cottage Hospital had been officially opened in January 1890 on Bank Street, Mexborough and the competition was organised initially to raise much needed funds for this.
Despite an initial intention to continue in the Midland League, the Mexborough club’s committee decided that there no other option but to revert to more local football in the summer of 1899, joining the Sheffield Association League,ultimately without success, and the Wharncliffe Charity League, in which it struggled at the foot of the table all season. (in addition, the Yorkshire League fell apart when the South Yorkshire Clubs withdrew en-masse). An end of season general meeting, held on Thursday 3rd May saw the reading of the statement of accounts for the club, and it was decided to find some way to wipe those debts before the club could be resuscitated. Debts by now totalled £113 11s, with £15 9s 9d incurred in the season just past. Rent arrears to the cricket club were £25 (rent was £20 per annum), and indeed the cricket club was threatening to form its own association team should Mexborough AFC not be in a position to pay off its debt. Players’ wages had been suspended in January 1900, which had saved the club around £70.
Sadly, those debts could not be wiped out before the following season, so therefore, the 1900/01 season began with the name of Mexborough AFC missing. All was not lost though, as the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported, on Thursday 3rd January 1901 that progress had been made, with the chief creditor having called together others owed money and an agreement being made whereby an agreement was made to accept half their accounts in full settlement. Furthermore, the cricket club reduced its debt to just £10, and a fund-raising archery tournament organised for Easter.
However, the club was not reformed during the summer of 1901, with junior side Mexborough St John’s representing the town in the FA Cup instead. It wasn’t until 1903 when a new Mexborough Town was formed, again playing at the cricket ground, and also going on to play in the Midland League. Mexborough West End also tried its luck in the FA Cup in the 1903/04 season, eventually bring knocked out in the second qualifying round by the new Mexborough Town. Town itself continued until 1936, ten years after having changed its name to Mexborough Athletic. Subsequent teams representing the town have also been based at the cricket club.
Mexborough in the FA Cup (1)
The club only featured in the First Round proper of the English Cup on one occasion, and that, in the absence of qualifying round ties, was in its first entry into the competition in the 1885/86 season. Following a 1-1 draw at Staveley, Mexborough scratched from the replay, although no reason was given for this in the local press
The club’s best performance was in the 1897/98 season, which included eight ties, four of them against Doncaster Rovers. Following three 2-1 victories over Leeds, Kilnhurst, and Barnsley, there were three drawn ties with Doncaster, before another 2-1 Mexborough victory in the third replay, played at Barnsley. Gainsborough Trinity ended the cup run in the Fifth Qualifying Round with a 1-0 win at Hampden Road.
A New Mexborough Town
South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times, Friday 14th August 1903
Mexboro’ Town Football Club
The resuscitation of the old Mexboro’ Town Football Club, which, one memorable season, won such high honours in the Midland League, and whose decadence was all too rapid, has given great satisfaction to local followers of the great winter game, who have some reason for their hopes that the club once again destined to win further honours in the football world. Mr E Mountford has been appointed secretary, and his energetic interest, together with the efforts of a strong working committee, should ensure the management success of the club, whilst the strong string of players signed on should see the team more often than not victorious on the field. The decline of the old club was namely due to the tremendous expense entailed in the long journeys to meet the then clubs of the Midland League, but the progress of time has been responsible for a considerable alteration in the constitution of that competition, which now includes such teams in the near locality as the United and Wednesday reserves of Sheffield, Rotherham, Thornhill, and Doncaster football clubs, giving the Mexboro’ Town Club every inducement to do so well this season as to next year be able to apply with success for admission once again to the Midland League. And to do this good and consistent form must be shown this winter. The competitions entered are the Sheffield Association League, the Sheffield Challenge Cup, the Mexboro’ Montagu Hospital Charity Cup, and, breathe it gently, the English Cup. Thus, the followers of the club are promised some rare, good games. The players engaged are as follows – C Tayles and J Wommack, goal; W Westwood, M Hobson and J Turner, backs; J E Shaw, C E Coates, W Scholey, T Darby, and J Hilton, half backs; W Biggs, J T Hakin, W Groves, Tim Roper, A McNeil, G E Groves. H Whiteley, H Whitworth, T Hall, W Newton, J Cronshaw, and W Whitham, forwards. That these players may top a league, and win a cup or two, is the desire of hundreds who want to see the name of Mexboro’ once again famous in football circles.
Now, lads!
‘Set the ball s-rolling
‘Play up’ the people call
Dribbling, kicking, shooting, tricking,
Always on the ball’
The club’s return turned out to be very successful, with the Sheffield Association League title won at the first attempt, ahead of some strong reserve teams from Midland League sides. In celebration, players and officials, as well as several enthusiastic supporters, enjoyed a dinner at the Bulls Head, when medals were also presented. It was suggested that Midland League football might return to the town the following season, but in the event, there was to be another season at local level first, one in which Mexborough Town just missed out on defending its league title. However, the 1904/05 season did see a good run in the FA Cup, with a run to the FifthQualifying Round before defeat at Gainsborough Trinity in a replay(there were two preliminary rounds and an intermediate round as well as six qualifying rounds that season, making ninequalifying rounds before the First Round proper!). That run did the club no harm in its application to the Midland League, which this time was successful. Thirty-one of the 52 fixtures played by the first teamwere won that season, and importantly, the club at this point had no debt, with over £79 in the bank.
Mexborough Town won the Montagu Cup in 1904 and 1905. Finals of the competition were usually staged at Hampden Road, but were switched when Town reached the final – as it had been in 1899 – in order not to give the club an unfair advantage. Rotherham Town reserves were defeated 4-1 at Denaby in a 1904 replay (following a 3-3 draw at Clifton), with South Kirkby defeated 1-0 in 1905, in a final staged at Bolton upon Dearne. With entry to the Midland League, Town’s first team did not enter the Montagu Cup competition again, although its reserve team reached the final in 1910, losing 0-2 to Hickleton Main at Bolton.
With Midland League football again on the horizon, the main point of discussion at Mexborough Town FC during the summer of 1905 was which venue would serve as club headquarters in the following years. The club was divided into two camps, ‘Bulls Headers’ and ‘Royal Oakites’, as the South Yorkshire Times put it, and it was this debate that dominated proceedings at the club AGM in May 1905 rather than club finances and other important matters. Both inns had helped the club a great deal since its revival, and there had been an informal understanding that each inn would serve as headquarters on alternative years. This was not acceptable to all, so an extra meeting was held the following month when the Bulls Head won the vote by 93 votes to 90 – subsequent votes being held each year, which meant that the landlords, Mr Venables and Mr Biggs, both of had contributed so much to the club during the years could both continue to do so. By 1908, the Montagu Arms Hotel was also being used. Meanwhile, and of importance to the battling innkeepers, keen to pull in the punters, the team had been elected to the Midland League.
Despite a fine first season in the Midland League – a fifth place finish – financial matters took another turn for the worse, with a loss of over £65 over the season reported at the 1906 AGM. The club had also performed reasonably well in the Wharncliffe Charity and Sheffield Association leagues, but it was recognised that it was unable to compete with some of the reserve teams of Football League sides in the Midland League that were able to pay players as professionals, as opposed to the semi-professional status of the Mexborough team. The arrears had risen slightly to £70 one year later.
The 1908 AGM was another fractious one that reflected a return to desperate times for the club, which seemed to lurch from boom (at least on the field) to bust, as once again the move upwards had proved financially challenging, and the fact that the club’s playing fortunes had taken a turn for the worst. With a new pavilion on the ground by 1910, finances were stretched, and by 1913 the club owed over £287, and although other clubs in the league owed just as much to its’ debtors, things were becoming more alarming. In fact, in 1913, local rivals Denaby United dropped out of the Midland League in order to regroup, after having also struggled financially.
In April 1914 Mexborough Town hosted a public meeting in the cricket pavilion, in order to ascertain whether there was a public desire for the club to continue. Support from local tradesmen as well as paying supporters was much needed, with the club by now almost £370 in the red, and a number of local gentlemen had lent the club money totalling £245 which could not possibly be paid back yet. Wages were owed to the tune of £4 and the club had struggled to provide train fares for away fixtures. Benefit performances to aid club funds were said to be in the pipeline, and there were hopes of a grant being obtained from the Football Association’s Benevolent Fund, but in the event there was an even bigger challenge facing the club, and indeed the local community, in the outbreak of War. One more season was completed, with Mexborough again in the lower reaches of the league, before activities were curtailed.
Very little football was played during the World War One, although match was played by a Mexborough Town XI and a Doncaster Army Veterans Corps XI at Hampden Road in October 1915. It was organised by Major Skinner, an army recruiting officer for the Mexborough district.
Mexborough in the FA Cup (2)
The club was back in the English Cup competition in the 1903/04 season, although its secretary forgot to send in the club’s entry for the 1906/07 season. Mexborough’s best performance was in the 1904/05 and 1909/10 seasons, when it reached the FifthQualifying Round.
The 1904/05 run began at home to Thornhill United, in a tie which was won 1-0, and that was followed by wins at Sheffield (in a replay), Denaby United, Doncaster Rovers (also after a replay), and Blackwell (6-2), before a 1-1 draw with Gainsborough Trinity. A crushing 0-7 defeat followed in the replay. There were two more qualifying rounds to negotiate that season before the first round could be reached.
The 1910/11 season cup run nearly ended in the Preliminary Round, when Allerton Bywater Colliery took Mexborough to a replay. Once a successful replay had been negotiated then Castleford Town (5-0), Grimsby Town (6-1), Denaby United (in a second replay) and Doncaster Rovers (in a replay) were overcome , before Mexborough went out in a replay to Carlisle United, just one stage prior to the First RoundProper.
Other notable FACup victories included a 9-0 rout of Leeds side Upper Armley Old Boys in a Second Qualifying Round tie in the 1905/06 season, and an 8-0 win at Acomb WMC (York) in the Preliminary Round in 1914/15.
*** On Sunday 9th March 1919, a well-attended meeting at the Royal Oak saw Mexborough AFC (minus the ‘Town’ part of the name)revived, with hopes of entering a team, hopefully with more success than the pre-War club, into the Midland League. It was proposed to use more local players, which would elicit more local support for the club, and arrangements were made with the cricket club to again use the field for home fixtures. The league readily accepted Mexborough back into the fold.
Sheffield Wednesday reserves were the first visitors to Hampden Road on 30th August 1919 as Mexborough resumed its Midland League career. A 3-0 victory for the home team couldn’t have been a better start, and the good form continued as the side finished the season in fifth place.
There was a spirit of optimism at the 1920 AGM, although there was talk whether the club should continue to operate from the cricket club or to find a new ground of its own – one on a field off Swinton Road being suggested. In the event, ground improvements were made at Hampden Road instead, with a Ground Improvement Committee formed from the members of football, cricket and bowling clubs based there.
In 1923 the cricket club handed over the Hampden Road property to the present Mexborough Athletic Club, which was formed to administer a grant of £5,500 from the Miners’ Welfare Fund.The South Yorkshire Times stated,‘It is possible but for the stimulus of this fund the Mexborough athletic ground, celebrated in the local annals of sport as it is,would have continued shabby, dilapidated and poverty-stricken to the end of time, for it cried out for so much improvement and the means were so scanty, that it seemed hardly worth-while to attempt anything.’
The football section of the new entity continued officially as Mexborough AFC until the summer of 1926 when it became ‘Mexborough Athletic’. The club, at the time, was on a high after becoming league champions for the first time since 1898, ahead of favourites Mansfield Town and local rivals Denaby United and Wath Athletic.
The championship trophy was handed to the Mexborough captain, Rob Hill by the league president at the conclusion of a rather dull, meaningless 1-0 home victory against Mansfield Town on Thursday 29th April - the match being a champions versus runners-up fixture. The title had been secured on the 21stof that month with a 2-2 draw at Loughborough Corinthians, after the team had won its previous ten fixtures.
Although undoubtedly one of the top non-leagues in the country, there was never any chance of the club applying to join the Football League, with the Athletic ground being nowhere near the standard required, and on top of the lack of finance, it was always going to be a battle to maintain the standard set in this particular season.
The following season, despite losing its grip on the title, finishing in fifth place again, Mexborough Athletic reached the First Round of the FA Cup for the only time as a reformed club, losing 1-2 at Chesterfield in controversial circumstances.
Sadly, the club was never able to achieve those heights again, as its nine remaining seasons in that company proved to be a struggle, with the team languishing in the lower reaches of the Midland League in each of those seasons. In seven of those seasons over 100 goals were conceded in total, and at the close of the 1935/36 season the team was left propping up the rest.
Mexborough Athletic had actually resigned from the league in April 1932, with liabilities of around £350. The guarantors who had seen the club through the previous three years had chosen not to undertake the responsibility further and it seemed that the club would not be able to continue. However, following a public appeal for assistance and a public meeting, the Mexborough committee withdrew that resignation and in June an entirely new management committee of 24 members was elected, with both Mr T Ford, president and Mr A Marklew, secretary, elected unanimously. The football club was now no longer associated with the Athletic Club, although it continued to carry its name.
Despite the will to carry on, the end came in May 1936, precisely ten years after the team had won the Midland League title. The new committee had come to a decision that it could no longer support a football team, and as such it was disbanded. It was announced in the local press that the football ground was up for rental for any suitable sporting event, gala, flower show or even band contest.
However, on Saturday 28th January 1939 the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported that there would be a new Mexborough Town club formed in time for the following season
‘Next season, after a lapse of four years, Mexborough will have its own football club, run under the title of Mexborough Town. The club will take over the fixtures of Barnsley ‘A’ (its third team) in the Yorkshire League, the whole of the Barnsley ‘A’ team players will be transferred to Mexborough Town, and the club will be administered by a local committee. This season Barnsley ‘A’ have operated on the Mexborough ground. The club, it is understood, will be maintained under a financial arrangement with Barnsley, and the Oakwell club will have first claim on the players.’
In the event, these plans never came to pass, as Barnsley ‘A’ itself began the aborted 1939/40 season, and the Hampden Road ground was also used by other teams such as Manvers Colliery FC until the onset of World War Two. The town would have to wait until 1962 for a new ‘Mexborough Town’, a team that would also achieve Midland League status before folding in 1993. Since then, several other less prominent teams have represented the town, all playing at the same Hampden Road ground, the latest being Mexborough Athletic, who have joined the Sheffield & Hallamshire County Senior League for the 2021/22 season.
Mexborough in the FA Cup (3)
The 1926/27 cup run, alluded to earlier, brought an initial tie with Methley Perseverance in the Preliminary Round, and a 7-2 victory. Liversedge (4-0), Denaby United (2-0, in a replay), Wath Athletic 2-0, and Brodsworth Main Colliery (2-1, following a 4-4 draw) were overcome in further qualifying rounds, before the narrow defeat at Chesterfield, of Division Three North, on Wednesday 1st December 1926, in the First Round. Mexborough had led 1-0 at one point, but the match was marred by events that followed Chesterfield’s winning goal. The referee, C M Overton, had sent off Mexborough’s R Hill for laying out the Chesterfield player Shirley Abbott. In the melee that followed, the Mexborough trainer Matt Morallee was also ordered from the field after remonstrating with the official. When he refused to leave, a police officer was summoned from the touchline. The referee then insisted that Morallee was escorted out of the ground, and was forcibly removed by two police officers.
At the end of the month, The Football Association suspended Hill for two months, but Morallee was suspended from all football until the end of the season.
The 1929/30 season saw Mexborough score seven in two consecutive rounds, against Altofts and Methley Perseverance but made it no further than the ThirdQualifying Round. This was the last time that the club progressed past the First Qualifying Round.
Sources include: The FA Cup Complete Results, Tony Brown, 1999; League tables: nonleaguematters.co.uk; Statistical information: fchd.info; http://www.montagucup.com/
Of all the teams that applied unsuccessfully to join the Football League – before the days of automatic promotion – few, if any, will have had such a poor record on the field of play as Wakefield City. This was a then an ambitious Yorkshire League club that neither caused a stir before, or after, its failed bid, but one which seized an opportunity to be one of a number of new clubs that would join an expanding Football League in 1921. The Wakefield Trinity Football Club was founded in 1873, moving to its current ground at Belle Vue in 1879, the same year that the Yorkshire Challenge Cup was won for the first time. The T’Owd Tin Pot would be won three more times by 1887, and since then no other sporting club has really challenged its dominance in the city. Several Wakefield association football teams have tried, and failed to attract the attention of the local sporting public, without any degree of success, and Wakefield remains one of the largest urban areas not to have a team in the higher echelons of the national league system. When the nearby Barnsley Football Union was founded in April 1891, the first Wakefield AFC, one of the earliest in the county to be affiliated to the English FA, expressed interest in joining despite no delegates attending the meeting. In the event, it passed on the opportunity for competitive football and gradually faded away, failing to generate any interest in the sport Wakefield itself. The club did at least have the use of Belle Vue at the time, and its results there included a 3-1 victory over Huddersfield, who turned up a man short, on 18th January 1890. That original association club appears to have folded by around 1892, withdrawing from a First Qualifying Round match in the FA Cup at Port Clarence. As Trinity followed a new path in the Northern Union following the great rugby schism of 1895 which led to the formation what is now known as Rugby League, another Wakefield AFC emerged in December 1896. This followed a meeting at the Graziers’ Hotel, where R G L Anderson, of the York Street Academy, presided. The team played in chocolate and amber shirts and blue ‘knickerbockers’ and was based on the ground of the former Thornes rugby club. The club joined the West Yorkshire League in January 1897 (half-way through the season) before resigning from the competition – and presumably disbanding – only twelve months later. The first Wakefield City AFC appeared in the 1899/1900 season, initially playing friendly fixtures against other teams. The following season, despite having fulfilled all twelve of their away fixtures, the club bemoaned the fact that half of its twelve home fixtures were cancelled through the non-appearance of their opponents, four of which occurred after the City team had finally affiliated to the County FA in order to ensure that such matters would not arise. Saying that, the club’s opponents were very much minor it status (for example, a 1-1 draw was played away from home at Silcoates School on Saturday 17th November 1900). The club was, like its predecessor, lucky enough to be able to make use of the Wakefield Trinity rugby ground at Belle Vue, which enabled it to join the established Leeds & District League for the 1901/02 season. However, the club was expelled from the league prior to the start of the following season due to the non-payment of fines and that was the end of another failed football venture. A new Wakefield City was founded in 1907, following an initial meeting at the Woolpack Hotel on 27th February. The meeting was chaired by E Dacre Makin (late captain of the previous club), and the club was elected to the West Yorkshire League for the 1907/08 season. The new club planned to take the Elm Tree ground of the Belle Vue Association club, opposite the ground of Wakefield Trinity – although some West Yorkshire League games were played at the Belle Vue stadium itself. Club shirts were green, with red neck-band, cuffs and trim, with white shorts (the reserve team kit had the green and red colours reversed), and from the outset the club adopted professionalism. E A Brotherton the local MP, agreed to be its first president, and according to the local press a number of influential gentlemen had signified their willingness to be vice presidents. However, the Athletic News reported early in January 1908 that both the West Yorkshire League and the Leeds & District League (where their reserves played) had allowed them ‘to discharge their obligations’ as the club was unable to meet the costs of running teams in each league. Support for the club was obviously not forthcoming, and neither, it would seem, were performances on the field, with the club’s one appearance in the FA Cup resulting in a 0-13 home defeat to Denaby United. This was now the fourth unsuccessful attempt to establish a senior team in Wakefield, and a fifth would not come until over a decade later, following the end of World War One. It is perhaps no surprise that several years passed before the next attempt, as Wakefield Trinity at this time experienced something of a purple patch, winning the Challenge Cup in the 1908/09 season, the Yorkshire League title in 1909/10 and 1910/11 (a competition that ran alongside the Northern Union championship), and also the Yorkshire Cup in the latter season. Ironically, just ten miles or so down the road, Barnsley was by now an association stronghold, along with the whole of the Sheffield district. None of this fervour for the round-ball game managed to infiltrate Wakefield, just up the road. The name of Wakefield City was again revived as a professional club in 1920, playing at Thornes Lane, and elected straight into the newly formed Yorkshire League. Some seventy enthusiasts convened at a meeting on Wednesday 17th March at the George Hotel, Wakefield in order to get the ball rolling, although the original intention had been to enter either the Midland League or Lancashire Combination. However, with the Yorkshire League being founded that summer then the Lancashire league idea was quickly shelved. The new club had the support of other local teams in its application, nearby Castleford Town for example, and there were applications from over 100 players to play for the club. Early home matches were played on an established football ground on Coach Road in Outwood. This site still exists, although the ground’s perimeter fence was removed many years ago, and it is hard to imagine the site being able to hold up to 10,000 spectators, which were the claims at the time. On 17th April 1920, the club’s first match was played, a friendly, against a ‘Mr Maley’s XI’. Tom Maley was the secretary/manager of Bradford Park Avenue, and he included several players from his own club in his team, which won 4-1 in front of a crowd of 1,300. Friendly fixtures were also played against Leeds United and Huddersfield Town, both also ending in defeat. Despite having announced that Coach Road would be its home ground the following season, it wasn’t to be, possibly due to its distance from the centre of Wakefield. The 1920/21 season would be first full season for Wakefield City. The Wakefield Advertiser & Gazette ran a very positive story on Tuesday 31st August 1920, ‘WAKEFIELD’S ‘SOCCER’ CLUB. It is not given to any person or Association to command success, but certainly the efforts put forth by the promoters of the newly formed Wakefield City Association Football Club have deserved it. The Club is in the Yorkshire League and played its opening match with Dewsbury on Saturday, and everything seems to indicate that the venture will prove a success, strong support having been secured, and a fine set of players. Thornes Lane, the ground, is situate five minutes from Kirkgate Station, and only eight minutes from the top of Westgate. The post of player-manager has been accepted by Harry Tufnell, the famous Barnsley player, and amongst a large number of promising lads who have signed on may be mentioned: White, a left half-back who played for Barnsley last season; Bedford, a left-outside winger, who played for Leeds United last season; Mitchell, a promising centre half-back from Darton; Senior (Thornhill), goalkeeper; William Taylor, an experienced right half from Leeds; and Silvester (Ossett), who is looked upon as one of the finest backs in the district.’ Given the description of the location of the ground, this could well have been the cricket ground adjacent to the railway, not far off Thorn Lane and accessed via what was then Mark Lane (now part of New Brunswick Street). Fox /Turner Way now covers the exact site of the cricket ground. Bradford Park Avenue’s second team won the inaugural Yorkshire League season, while Wakefield held its own in the competition, leading the table early in the season, and finally finishing sixth in the 13-team division. The club became a limited company in October 1921, with a capital of £3000, and 6,000 shares on offer at 10 shillings each. This was intended to put Wakefield City on a sound financial footing for its foray into a higher league
The team, along with Wombwell, Wath and Harrogate (Second, third, and fourth, in the Yorkshire League) moved up to the Midland League for the 1921/22 season, but not before having made its audacious bid to join the Football League . It had been decided to create a Division Three (North) to complement Division Three (South), which had been formed the previous year. The Football League Management Committee proposed 14 clubs for consideration. These attended a meeting in March 1921, and were all elected after having stated their cases. They were: Lincoln City, Accrington Stanley, Rochdale, Walsall, Chesterfield Town, Crewe Alexandra, Nelson, Tranmere Rovers, Ashington, Hartlepools United, Darlington, Durham City, Barrow, Wrexham
The division was to have twenty clubs, so at the Football League AGM, Grimsby Town was transferred to the northern section, and a relegated club – Stockport County – took another place. This left four places available: Those elected were: Wigan Borough 34, Halifax Town25, Southport 25, Stalybridge Celtic 25, Those not elected were: Castleford Town 18, Rotherham Town 13, Blyth Spartans 9, Gainsborough Trinity 8, Doncaster Rovers 6, West Stanley 6, Wakefield City 4, Lancaster Town 3, Scunthorpe & Lindsey United 3, South Liverpool 1. Wakefield City only ever had an outside chance of gaining entry to the league, although it had received support from the Football League itself in 1921, given that the league wished to attract clubs from the Northern Union heartlands. But following that failed venture, there was no chance that another application could be made given the club’s subsequent complete lack of success. The 1921/22 Midland League campaign was disastrous, with only Lincoln City reserves below Wakefield, who conceded over 100 goals in its 42 league matches, at the end of the season. With such a lack of success on the field, and a succession of disappointing crowds then there was little choice but to drop back into the county league, where costs – including players wages – would be far less, and hopefully more sustainable. Wakefield City’s reserve team had replaced its first team in the Yorkshire League for the 1921/22 the season, avoiding the wooden spoon thanks to the form of York YMCA, a club which was way out of its depth for the second successive season in the semiprofessional competition. City had been put in a difficult position when its resignation from the Yorkshire League in 1921 was not accepted by the league’s management committee – possibly because the club had agreed to stay in the competition for more than one season – and so, in order to avoid any further problems, it had been decided to place a second team there instead. By May 1923, the club was reported to have wiped out £200 of its liabilities, and that the past season it had at least paid its way. The Wakefield City team was managed by Harry Tufnell during the 1920/21 season. Tufnell had appeared 199 times for Barnsley, scoring 61 goals for the club, including the winner in the 1912 FA Cup final, so his appointment as manager was certainly met with enthusiasm. Sadly, he left at the end of that first season to manage Doncaster Rovers. Two renowned Wakefield City FC managers, Harry Tufnell , and Jimmy McDonald
McDonald, who had played over 200 times for Bradford City (including the 1911 FA Cup final) and captained the team before World War One, was brought in to replace Tufnell as coach, but he failed in his bid to create a winning team, no doubt due to the lack of finance available. He did not last long at the club, and by the following season he was with the Keighley Parkwood club. Wakefield City’s only foray into the FA Cup came during its Midland League season. Bradford team Apperley Bridge was defeated 3-1 at Thornes Lane in a Preliminary Round tie, followed by a 3-0 defeat of Rothwell Athletic in the next round. The mini run was ended in a Second Qualifying Round replay at home to Castleford & Allerton United, 0-2, following a 1-1 draw. A further move to Westgate Common for the 1926/27 season followed, but by now the club was receiving very little coverage in the local press and was attracting very few spectators. The club struggled on until folding in the summer of 1928 after finishing bottom of the Yorkshire League for the second successive season. In its final two seasons in the competition, only one match was won, and over 250 goals were conceded. Even at county league standard, Wakefield City AFC was clearly out of its depth. The final mention of the club came in the Yorkshire Post on Thursday 30th August 1928, ‘The Wakefield City Association Football Club, which came into existence soon after the war, playing in the Yorkshire League, have this season arranged no fixtures.’ Wakefield has still never had a team that has come close to Football League status. Emley’s rebrand into Wakefield & Emley, and then Wakefield AFC between 2002-2014 ultimately failed, and until the current Wakefield team (now in the Northern Counties East League) was founded, West Yorkshire League and, latterly, Sheffield County Senior League football was the best that the city had been able to achieve.
The first ever Hunslet AFC existed between 1877-1883. It is said to have been founded by Sam Gilbert, a Sheffield cricketer by the bringing together two junior clubs, Hunslet Excelsior and Hunslet Albion, under the auspices of the Woodhouse Hill cricket club in Leeds. The two clubs had played friendly fixtures under rugby rules before this, and in fact continued to do so afterwards, so it seems that the Hunslet Association club was a separate entity, made up on players who played for the two rugby teams rather than being a merger of the two. Hunslet AFC played its first-ever home match against a team called Holmes, from Kimberworth, near Rotherham, on Christmas Eve, 1887 at the Woodhouse Hill ground. A report appeared in the Leeds Mercury two days later, ‘The first half of the game was exceedingly good, but a little in favour of Hunslet, who obtained one goal, which was disputed on account of the offside rule. The second half was in favour of Holmes, whoobtained one goal. Ogden, Mills and Frith played exceedingly well for Hunslet, Holmes proving victorious by one goal to nil.’ The Hunslet team that day was: J Coates, J Clarke, A Mills, W Hill, F Hinde, W H Stacey, J B Ogden, F Firth, C Shaw, R Hudson, and W Gilston. Two days earlier, on Saturday 22nd December, a Hunslet team defeated Holbeck by three ‘goals’ to one, although little else is known about this fixture, which was played at Holbeck. It may well have been played under rugby rules. Three days after the Holmes match, on Boxing Day 1877, the club hosted a match that had been organised by Fred Sanderson, president of the Sheffield New Football Association, under Sheffield Rules. The match was advertised as ‘Whites v Blues’, according to the Leeds Times, although other sources indicate that, in reality, this this was a fixture between Hallam FC and Hunslet. However, the Sheffield Independent reported the match as being between two teams made up of representative players of the Sheffield New Association, which had been founded earlier in the year as a breakaway of the Sheffield FA. The Hallam / New Association team was happy to bring a ball, umpires, and even its own set of posts for the occasion, which was switched to the Holbeck Recreation Ground, one assumes due to the interest shown in the game. However, despite an entertaining match, takings were disappointing, as the ground was deep in snow, and the wind made it difficult to both play and watch the game. On top of that, the majority of those present to see the game were Holbeck Football Club season ticket holders who had got in without paying. For the record, the ‘Whites’ won 4-3. Team names were not always as important as the event itself in this day, and age. The same day as the match at Holbeck, Sheffield Alliance FC played ‘A Nottingham team’ at the Forest ground, Nottingham. The Hunslet club, with its headquarters at the George IV, in the absence of any governing body in West Yorkshire, affiliated with the Sheffield FA. Sadly, there was a complete lack of support and finance available to sustain a successful Association club in Leeds at the time, and the first Hunslet AFC faded away quietly around 1883, by which time other local teams such as Hunslet Wesleyans had begun to play the game in the immediate vicinity. The name would be revived when employees at Leeds Steelworks formed a club in 1889, rechristened as Hunslet AFC when it joined the newly formed West Yorkshire League in 1894 (although the name of Leeds Steelworks would re-appear in local football in later years). Hunslet, known locally as ‘The Twinklers’, initially played at the Laburnum Grounds, which was shared with the West Hunslet Cricket Club. The man behind the club, W Nicholson went on to donate a trophy to the Leeds League, which was used for its league competition. Hunslet became West Yorkshire’s first ‘super’ club, winning the West Yorkshire Cup four times and reaching the FA Amateur Cup Quarter-Final twice, including one celebrated victory over the mighty past winners and six-time finalists, Old Etonians. Yet it could not compete with the best of the teams from the Sheffield district, despite its prominence locally. It is this particular Hunslet club that eventually morphed into the Football League club, Leeds City. The Old Etonians match came during a wonderful cup run which saw Hunslet defeat West Hartlepool, Loftus, and Buxton to earn a home tie with the famous club in the Second Round proper of the Amateur Cup on 15th February 1896. There were few who gave Hunslet any chance of progressing, and when they fell 2-0 behind within seven minutes it looked like a heavy defeat would follow. However, the Yorkshiremen fought back with an inspiring display to earn a shock 3-2 victory, with one of the goals coming from ‘Tipper’ Heffron, a winger who went on to play for Leeds City. Hunslet sadly lost to Darlington in the next round and ended the season with a loss of £35, which demonstrated the size of the financial challenge facing football in Yorkshire. The club’s first West Yorkshire League season saw the club finish 6th of the eleven finishers (Castleford Albion having dropped out early in the season following some heavy defeats), before finishing joint top of the table with Bradford at the end of the 1895/96 season. The teams were declared joint champions. The league fell apart in the summer of 1896 as the West Yorkshire FA felt it was unable to organise a competition for its best sides, although it had no problem organising a West Yorkshire Junior League. Instead, a West Yorkshire Cup was organised for the 1896/97 season for the district’s senior teams, and at this point Hunslet began its domination of the game in the district. After a number of designs were considered, the one chosen for the winners of the competition was that from Messrs. Fattorini and Sons from Bradford. Hallmarked silver, the cup weighed 75oz and was of a ‘bold Grecian design, without lid’. One side of the trophy featured the West Yorkshire Arms and bore the inscription ‘West Yorkshire Association Challenge Cup. Established 1896.’ The reverse showed a group of footballers representing the five named teams who had sponsored the cup, namely Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford, Halifax and Hunslet. The base of the cup featured a white rose of Yorkshire and the arms of the five clubs. The cup was also ‘decorated with raised flutings and acanthus leaves in bold relief, and presents a very handsome appearance.’ according to the Leeds Mercury. Hunslet defeated Halifax 4-2 in the first final, on 10th April 1897, with the game played in fine conditions at Valley Parade, Bradford. According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Hunslet winning the game was due in large measure to their forwards, who ‘played with far greater dash and combination than their opponents’. Two weeks later The Twinklers, defeated the same opposition 4-1 in the Leeds Hospitals Cup final at the same venue. Hunslet might well have won the 1900/01 competition had it entered, preferring to let another team get its hands on the cup. The first four West Yorkshire Cup competitions were won by Hunslet, the finals being; 1896/97: Hunslet…4 Halifax…2, at Valley Parade, Bradford 1897/98: Hunslet…1 Harrogate…0, at Elland Road, Leeds 1898/99: Hunslet…3 Huddersfield…1, at The Victoria Ground, Savile Town, Dewsbury 1899/1900: Hunslet…5 Altofts…2, at Elland Road, Leeds Hunslet dominated the Leeds Hospital Cup also, achieving four wins on the bounce in what was the area’s most prestigious competition before the introduction of the West Yorkshire Cup. Hunslet’s 1897/98 replay win over Leeds in front of a crowd of around 4,000 was dwarfed by the massive crowd of 7,000 for their initial drawn game. Their fourth and final victory in the competition was a much harder effort and it needed three games before Huddersfield were defeated 2-1 at the Leeds Parish Church rugby ground (this following 1-1 and 0-0 draws). The replayed 1901/02 final between Hunslet and Altofts was to be held over to the start of the following season due to a suitable date not being found, but unfortunately Hunslet had folded in the meantime, and the cup was withheld for twelve months. Leeds Hospital Cup finals featuring Hunslet were as follows: 1896/97: Hunslet…4 Halifax… 1 1897/98: Hunslet…4 Leeds…1, in a replay 1898/99: Hunslet…1 Huddersfield…0 1899/1900: Hunslet…2 Huddersfield…1, in a second replay 1901/02 Cup withheld. Altofts & Hunslet drew twice. In 1897, Hunslet was among the leading local clubs which formed the Yorkshire League. Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield and Halifax, were the other West Yorkshire clubs. The club finished in 6th place in both of its first two seasons, well clear of the other West Yorkshire teams, but well adrift of the South Yorkshire clubs with which it could not compete. The league more or less broke up in the summer of 1899 when the latter clubs withdrew due to the lack of competition the league was providing, leaving just five West Yorkshire clubs in the competition. Hunslet tied with Huddersfield at the top of the table, and moved into the Sheffield & Hallamshire League in 1900. The club was by now receiving substantial attention in the local press. The Leeds Mercury on 12th August 1898 had this to say: ‘When the Association game was first introduced at Hunslet, and only a moderate exhibition of football was provided, the attendances at the matches were very small, and there was but little encouragement for the promoters to continue their venture. However, they stuck to their task, and have been so far rewarded as to be able to boast of a team that is qualified to hold its own against the best of amateur combinations, and not to be disgraced when opposed by professionals. ‘ As the new century dawned, Hunslet was undisputedly the leading side in West Yorkshire. Many of the side’s players were said to have learnt the game outside the district, although the pick of the players in Leeds were keen to join in the success the club was having. The team was formidable when faced with local opposition, and good enough to hold a Blackburn Rovers XI to a 1-1 draw on Easter Tuesday 1900. Hunslet’s team included Harold Lemoine, who became one of the best goalkeepers in the country, winning three amateur caps for England between 1908 and 1910. As powerful a club as Hunslet was, however, it had no ground of its own and as a result its very existence was a precarious one. The club had moved from the Wellington Ground in Low Road back to the Laburnum Ground at Parkside, just off Dewsbury Road, and with only a narrow strip of land separating the pitch from the Hunslet rugby club’s pitch, the facilities on the site were shared. Hunslet’s final home was at the Nelson Ground in Low Road. The club was all ready to join the reformed West Yorkshire League in 1902 – following an unsuccessful two seasons in the Sheffield league – but it lost the lease on the ground, and, as the committee could not find an alternative base in time, sadly disbanded. However, a ‘Hunslet’ team did defeat Upper Armley Christ Church, a strong local club, in April 1903, with no other intention than to keep the name alive should there be a need to revive it at a time in the near future. However, that didn’t happen, and it seemed that Leeds would, once again, fail in its attempts to create an association club that could fly the flag for the city. But all was not lost. Following Bradford City’s elevation to the Football League in 1903, officials linked to the Hunslet club were at the forefront of a new attempt to form a team to represent the city of Leeds, and it was then that Leeds City AFC was born. Between 1882 and 1898 there had been no less than four failed Leeds AFC clubs and, given that Bradford City was elected straight into the Football League in 1903, it only served to reinforce the growing divide between the industrial rivals.
Leeds City AFC However, the former officials and supporters of Hunslet AFC had not simply given up the ghost and walked away, and it was they that were behind the formation of Leeds City AFC in the summer of 1904. The sports pages of the local newspapers were full of encouragement for the venture, convinced that a Leeds team could, and should, be playing in the Football League sooner rather than later. The first meeting, of what would become the new club’s committee, under the presidency of Frederick Waterhouse, was held at the Royal Exchange Hotel, Hunslet on 17th June, and its formation was rubberstamped following a further meeting at the Griffin Hotel, Boar Lane on 30th August 1904, with the club already admitted to the West Yorkshire League for the 1904/05 season. Norris R Hepworth would succeed Waterhouse as club president in November. Old Ebor, writing in his column for the Manchester-based Athletic News on 4th September that year, was all too aware of the need for a Leeds team to be formed, ‘In my opinion, there is not only room but an actual necessity for a representative Association club in Leeds. Within the past few years Leeds Parish Church, Wortley, Kirkstall and now Holbeck – all Northern Union clubs with a good following of the public – have become defunct, and it is certain that all who used to support them do not follow the Leeds and Hunslet clubs, the only two Northern Union clubs of note that remain in Leeds.’ He continued, ‘The Leeds City Association club…ought to ‘go’ and its promoters have not only my good wishes but a willingness to render the movement all the assistance in my power. There is room for two – even three – codes of football in Leeds with its unrivalled means of communication with all parts of the kingdom, and its greater contiguity to large centres of population than any other town in the North possesses.’ Old Ebor was able to put his words of support into action not long later. Flaneur, of the Leeds Mercury, was far more guarded, ‘I have no antipathy to the Association game, but I cannot imagine anyone brought up to the Rugby code forsaking his original love for socker, provided he gets the best class of Rugby’. By the end of the decade, Flaneur had been completely won over by the round-ball game. Despite a lowly position of 11th out of fourteen clubs in that first season (Bradford City reserves won the title), there was much to be happy about for the club. Several prestigious friendly fixtures against Football League clubs were played, which resulted in Leeds City fielding under-strength teams for some league games, and a suitable ground was procured for the early weeks of the season, namely the old Wellington Ground on Low Lane where Hunslet AFC had previously played. One wonders why Hunslet was denied the use of this ground in 1902 because this was virtually the same organisation making use of Low Lane as the defunct club. One explanation for this is that Low Lane had been secured by another club at the time of Hunslet’s demise. Leeds City’s first fixture was away at Morley on 1st September 1904, less than 48 hours after the Griffin Hotel meeting (the result, a 2-2 draw), and the following month a move was made to the Elland Road enclosure that had just been vacated by Holbeck FC. The annual rent was set at £75, with an option to buy the ground for no more than £5,000 the following April. To make the pitch large enough for association football, an embankment needed to be removed before any games could be played there. This is surprising, as the ground had been used for association football prior to that, with amateur team Leeds Woodville playing on it on alternate weeks to Holbeck. The ground was just a one penny tram ride from the city centre, closer than the Headingley stadium, and was easily accessible from the south. Ironically, the club’s first ever opponents, Morley, would fold less than a decade later, citing the popularity of Leeds City in that town as the main reason for its financial problems. There were many complaints regarding the conduct of City, however, with its apparent undermining of league fixtures, and had the club not been elected to the Football League one wonders whether it would have been able to continue in the county league in future years. A move to the Midland Counties League would have been a probable outcome had it suffered expulsion from the West Yorkshire League. There was no cup success that first season, with South Yorkshire side Rockingham Colliery denying Leeds City in the FA Cup, Bradford City’s reserve team the West Yorkshire Cup, an Upper Armley Christ Church the Leeds Hospitals Cup. While disappointing, the club committee was working hard behind the scenes to improve the club’s standing with those it would depend on at the end of the season. And how things would change within the space of a few months.
Following twelve months of trying to win over its member clubs, Leeds City was elected in May 1905 to an expanding Football League. It topped the poll with 25 votes, ahead of Burslem Port Vale (21 votes), Chelsea (20) and Hull City (18), proving its efforts successful. In addition, a reserve team was formed, and entered into the Midland Counties League for the 1905/06 season, a competition in which it remained until 1915. In preparation for its move into the professional game, the club became a limited company on 5th June 1905, with 1,000 x £1 shares on offer. The first chairman of the new company was the club president, Hepworth, an established local clothier, with Ralph Younger, landlord of the nearby Peacock Hotel and AW Pullin, ‘Old Ebor’, joining Hepworth as the main shareholders. Meanwhile, the pitch was extended further to 115 yards in length and 72 in width and a new 75-yard stand erected on the Elland Road side of the ground. Terracing replaced the old stand on the north side of the ground, with a special ‘sod laying ceremony’ held in May 1906 to celebrate the relaying of the playing area itself. Season tickets were charged at 10s for entry to the ground only, or a guinea for entry to the stand. Leeds City AFC had not been elected to the Football League due to its prowess, nor was this a result of the abandonment of Northern Union at Elland Road (Holbeck Football Club‘s folding merely provided an opportunity for ‘socker’ to take over at the ground), but in the first instance, it did mirror the franchising element of providing new clubs to the national league. Leeds was, at the time, the largest city in the country without a Football League team. The financial rewards to the Football League and its clubs were considerably higher with a team from Leeds in it. Under the tutelage of secretarymanager Gilbert Gillies, the attendance for City’s first Football League home game was 6,802 for the visit of West Bromwich Albion, but only 3,000 were present two days later when Lincoln City arrived in town. But attendances improved considerably after that as the locals bought into the new club, with 22,000 attending for the derby with Bradford City in late December eclipsing the 20,000 for the Chelsea game the previous month. Interestingly the gates at Headingley, for Leeds Northern Union games, slumped from an average of just over 9,000 during the 1904/05 season to 5,632 the following season, City’s first in the Football League. By now there was no doubt which was the biggest sport in the city. But it was proving expensive to run a competitive, professional team. A Leeds City Emergency General Meeting in April 1912 saw the club at breaking point due to its increasing financial problems. With liabilities of nearly £16,000, the club was close to going out of business, kept afloat only due to the generosity of Hepworth, who ploughed in some £15,000 of his own money. Ironically, Leeds Cricket, Football & Athletics Club offered to take on the ailing club and relocate it to Headingley. Fourteen years had passed since the old Leeds AFC had been more or less forced to fold by the Headingley club, who cancelled its tenancy of the ground, but now that Association Football had outgrown both codes of rugby and COULD be made to pay, then the situation had clearly changed. City finished second bottom of the Second Division that year, having previously established itself as a mid-table second-tier club, but it was easily re-elected by member clubs. In the meantime, Tom Coombes was placed as the club’s receiver, and he would run the club for the near future.
After being saved, the club, under new manager Herbert Chapman, made great strides over the next two seasons, with finishing positions of 6th, and then 4th in the 1913/14 season – just two points away from promotion. In August that summer the club was finally taken over by a consortium of Leeds sportsmen led by Joseph Connor, the then President of the West Riding Football Association. Despite a lowly 15th place the following season, there was optimism within the club that promotion to the First Division would be secured sooner rather than later, which would then put the club at the same level as Bradford’s two professional clubs. Alas, the Leeds City story would end just eight games after normal League operations were resumed in 1919 when the club was expelled from the League for illegal payments to players during the war. Charlie Copeland, who had been with Leeds City since 1912, fell out with the club over the issue of a pay rise. As a result, he made allegations about illegal payments made to guest players during the war. Although this practice was widespread, it had been simply ignored by the Football Association and the Football League, but Copeland’s allegations now made it impossible for the authorities to simply sweep the matter under the carpet. Officials of the club were summoned to a meeting of an FA Commission at Manchester on 26th September 1919, chaired by the Football Association Chairman John Charles Clegg, where they were ordered to turn over their books. Officials of Leeds City replied they were not in a power to do so, but were nevertheless ordered to produce the documents by 6th October. Two days before the Commission’s deadline, Leeds City won 4-2 at Wolves, ironically giving a lift home on the team coach to none other than Charlie Copeland. The Wolves fixture proved to be Leeds City’s last ever game, with the documents failing to be produced. The team’s next fixture against South Shields was suspended as the enquiry team later met at the Russell Hotel in London. The result, Leeds City were expelled from the Football League. There was no firm evidence that Leeds City had actually done anything wrong, but it is believed that with the club failing to produce the documents then this was an admission of guilt. Port Vale replaced Leeds City in the league and went on to finish in 13th position after inheriting Leeds City’s points that had been accumulated to date.
Leeds United There had been two previous Leeds United clubs in existence before the current club was formed from the ashes of Leeds City. Neither of them completed its first season. The first Leeds United appeared in the 1898/99 season, playing on the well-established Cardigan Fields site at Kirkstall, and it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, dropping out of the West Yorkshire League in mid-January 1899 after claiming that it had been treated badly by other clubs in the league. The Yorkshire Evening Post reported that, ‘difficulties and dissensions’ had cropped up, with several of the team having already signed for other clubs. The club was in second place in the league at the time, albeit having played more games than most of its rivals, so its folding affected the final positions in a marked way. A second Leeds United, with lofty ambitions, was founded in May 1911, and immediately applied for membership of the West Riding Football Association, the FA Cup (its’ one tie in the competition resulted in a 1-3 loss at Morley in the Preliminary Round) and the FA Amateur Cup (withdrawing from its Second Qualifying Round tie at Hull St. George’s), as well as the Yorkshire Combination league. Like the previous club of that name, this club also played home games at Cardigan Fields. A reserve team was also formed, playing in the Leeds & District League’s Senior Division. Sadly, both teams failed to complete their fixtures. For the first team, a 0-15 home defeat to Bradford Park Avenue’s reserve team in September, and 1-7 defeat at home to York City the following month, reflected the fact that the newly formed club was out of its depth at this standard of competition. By March the club had officially disbanded.
A New Leeds City A new Leeds City appeared in 1924, but this was not a new club, it was through a name change of the well-established Leeds Harehills AFC, which had been in existence for over twenty years and had achieved success at a local level before stepping up to the Yorkshire League. In September 1903, the Yorkshire Evening Post was carrying an advert for ‘Leeds Harehills AFC (affiliated)’, which had a few open dates for friendly fixtures. Those interested should apply to a Mr Powell, Darfield Street, Leeds. In the 1904/05 season, Leeds Harehills amicably shared a ground on Foundry Lane with another junior club, Cameron Trinity although, with both teams enjoying success, Harehills, playing in the Leeds & District League’s Junior A Division (winning the divisional title), was forced to play some home games on alternative grounds instead. The following season, Harehills appear to have been in the short-lived Leeds Central League. Harehills played regular friendly fixtures during the latter half of the 1906/07 season and for the 1907/08 season was accepted into the Leeds League. However, during the summer the club became a founder member of the Leeds Amateur League instead, later moving from its current open Military Field ground at Roundhay to Avenue Road, Roundhay Road in the summer of 1913. The club stayed in the Amateur League until the summer of 1922, by which time it was playing on a ground off Harehills Avenue. Harehills was then a founder member of the West Yorkshire Amateur League, alongside the likes of Knaresborough Town, Guiseley, Yeadon Celtic, East End Park WMC, several clubs having broken away from the Leeds Amateur League to become members. Armley AFC withdrew prior to the league’s first season after having lost its Pasture Hills Ground, but the new competition proved a success. However, the 1922/23 campaign was the club’s only season in this company. After having lost out to Leeds Malvern in the final table, the team lost 0-2 to Yeadon Celtic in the league’s ‘Shield’ play-off final, before successfully applying to move up to the Yorkshire League. The club had been successful through the years, having won the Leeds Amateur League title in the 1911/12 season, and finishing runner-up in the 1910/11 and 1912/13 seasons, the latter of which saw the team defeated 1-0 in a replay in a play-off for the title by Royal Horse Artillery. Some consolation that season was a 3-1 defeat of Silver Royd Hill in the Leeds Amateur Cup final. The opening of the club’s new home ground, at Bracken Edge (now the home of Yorkshire Amateurs, who at this time were playing at Harehills Avenue) was on Saturday 22nd September 1923, with a crowd of 3,000 witnessing an exciting 2-2 draw with York City reserves in the Yorkshire League. Eighth place in an 18-strong division in 1923/24 was a really good start to Yorkshire League life for the Harehills club, which, with the higher standard of football being offered, chose to change its name to Leeds City in June 1924. Three more seasons were spent in the Yorkshire League as Leeds City, the club finishing 6th out of 16 in the 1924/25 season, 4th out of 15 in 1925/26, and then 11th out of 16 in 1926/27, by which time it was playing on a new ground at Hunslet Nelson, having lost the use of its Bracken Edge home. The Nelson cricket club was located on Low Road, and the football field could well have been the same used by Hunslet AFC in the late 1800s/very early 1900s. The team folded in the summer of 1927, and its passing was hardly noticed. Its demise could by no means be put down to its playing record, as the club did not struggle on the pitch, and is likely to be down to finance, which could have explained the ground move twelve months earlier. There were no reports of the club’s passing in the local press, although Bracken Edge has of course continued to be used as a football ground. Of course, the name of Leeds City has been revived more than once in recent times, and the current – entirely unrelated club – plays in the Yorkshire Amateur League, following several successful years in the West Yorkshire League.
Sources include:
The FA Cup Complete Results, Tony Brown, 1999 & Statistical information: fchd.info
What is likely to be my final book has just been published this week. ‘Gone! – Yorkshire’s Long Lost Football Teams’.
The book covers over 50 teams that have existed over the years – ranging from former football league teams Leeds City and Middlesbrough Ironopolis down to local and county level teams such as Oakworth and Bradford Rovers, as well as the long gone colliery teams from the likes of Wombwell, Grimethorpe and Mexborough in South Yorkshire.
At the same time, two of my previously published books have been reissued in hardback format, including ‘Anorak on the Pennine Way’, which details my fund-raising efforts along Britain’s best known long distance footpath. It was originally published in kindle format in 2013, but due to popular demand was eventually published in paperback three years later. Steady sales since then have prompted the printing of a limited edition hardback edition in time for Christmas.
My first book was published as far back as 1998, and in the ensuing years I’ve progressed from concentrating solely on local sport to other subjects too. In 2007 ‘Anoraknophobia’ – a book about people obsessed with sport was a best-seller in the amazon sports book charts (kept off the number one spot by a biography of Brian Clough), and in 2016 only Bruce Springsteen managed to prevent ‘Is That The 12” Remix’ from hitting top spot in the UK Music book chart (it did top charts around Europe, however). That book was perhaps my most fulfilling to write, having enlisted the help of several 80’s pop stars in compiling the book, and indeed to promote it afterwards.
One of the funniest moments over all these years was walking into a bookshop several years ago and picking up a book by a prominent sports writer. A few seconds later, that same sports writer walked into the shop and picked up a book written by me. And there we were, having a natter while holding copies of each other’s books.
It’s been nothing short of an adventure over the past quarter of a century. I’ve written 16 books, met some fabulous people, made plenty of mistakes along the way, and enjoyed every minute of it, even if the books haven’t quite sold as many as those books about a teenage wizard called Harry Potter.
Details of all my books are available at www.robgrillo.co.uk and they available from all good bookshops as well as the usual online sources.
The Story of Fairbank United’s 2016/17 season by Akif Waseem
Senior men’s Grassroots football across the country seems to be dying out. That’s no more evident in the Bradford district by the fact that not only are there less teams playing on a Saturday and Sunday than perhaps any time since WW2, but the number of leagues itself is also falling sharply. On a Saturday, local teams would, until recent times, play in the Bradford (Red Triangle/Grattan) or Spen Valley Leagues, or, if they were a bit better, the West Riding County Amateur League. The former two leagues are now no longer in existence, and the latter will no longer exist at the end of this season.
On a Sunday, there’s only the Wharfedale Triangle (hanging in there with 2 divisions) and Bradford Sunday Alliance, which haemorrhages a full division each season.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but one affecting all manner of other sports too. Local cricket and Rugby League are experiencing a similar decline as organised sports and pastimes are replaced by more sedentary forms of exercise that don’t have to put up with rising costs of pitch hire, insurance and conflicting interests of retail therapy, computer games and Premier League footy on the box.
There are a good deal of people – dwindling in number, I know – who are swimming against that tide. They might not be part of well oiled football league machine that attracts thousands of paying fans a year, but they part of the same thing. They will go that extra mile (and further) to keep their own teams battling along, the purely amateur ones that rent the local parks pitches and keep going through the paying of weekly subs, the ones that play week in, week out in front of the proverbial man and his dog, as well as a handful of WAGs who can be bothered to brave the weather , and yet provide an immense sense of satisfaction in that it’s THEIR team – the one THEY play for, the one THEY pay subs to, the one THEY run: THEIR team.
In recent years, Bradford’s very own Fairbank United have switched to the Yorkshire Amateur League, which, since renaming itself (from the ‘Yorkshire Old Boys League’) has mopped up many of the teams left over from the defunct leagues and consists of half a dozen or so divisions. This is the world of Norristhorpe FC, East Ardsley Wanderers, Churwell Lions and Leeds Medics & Dentists’ fourth team. Teams like this might not be front page news in the national press but they are the lifeblood of the game.
Akif Waseem is a player, secretary, supporter and mainstay of Fairbank. Nobody can say he doesn’t go that extra mile. Somehow, and despite a very busy job, he found time to pen his account of what turned out to be a rather eventful 2016-17 season for himself and his team-mates at Fairbank. It’s a hugely readable, passionate and often hilarious subjective account, written from his perspective as club secretary as well as second string goalkeeper and occasional outfield player. Fairbank are up for promotion. It’s overdue, but as with the very best footballing tales there are trials and tribulations a-plenty, dramatic last gasp equalisers, controversial offside winners, the odd car crash (quite literally), suspicious poaching of players, and – hopefully- a happy happy ending.
I had the advantage of knowing what the outcome was, I had a week-by-week blow of the highlights of each game on a Monday morning. The story in print is every bit as intriguing. Akif admittedly might not be as agile in goal as he once was, maybe a yard or two slower than he was in his prime, but he has lost none of his enthusiasm for the game. His well illustrated book is a testament to all the hard work he and his contempories put in for up to nine months a year. A photograph that depicts a dramatic late equaliser for Farnley Sports reserves is notable for the fact that it shows the wide open spaces of local league football, no sign of a huge cantilever stand or imposing Kop in sight. Or spectators come to think of it. And yet, to every one of the players in the photograph, this is what football is about as they play out their very own six-pointers, cup finals and local derbies with the same passion as those in an Old Firm of Manchester derby.
If nothing else, the book represents a dying breed of club, and club official, and amateur player, aspects of the nation’s favourite sport that we have always taken for granted, but that which we see less and less of every year.
Akif can be contacted at akif26@hotmail.com if you’re interested in a copy.
ROB GRILLO 'The anorak' 