bluearmyfaction

So did Birmingham Transport - they were sometimes neutral venues for matches between each depot. Helenvale may have been used because it hit lots of sweet spots; the Glasgow Corporation was not as anti-Roman Catholic as some other institutions, so lots of tram workers were Celtic fans, it was already being used for sport (well, bowling), and the Corporation team played in green.

Explains why Rangers passed on Danny McGrain.

And Birmingham - also for works teams. One of which (the Corp. Transport team) reached the first round of the FA Cup proper - something which the Glasgow Corporation side managed in Scotland in 1970, losing at Brechin. There was even a national cup for all the local tramway/transport teams; a totally forgotten bit of British football history.

Association Football by A. H. Fabian and Geoffrey Green, published by Caxton in 1961. A nice four volume history. Right now there are a few sets on ebay, expect to pay £35-40, but there is an auction ending pretty soon that's at a low price.

Babcock & Wilcox then won that replay; the only time they beat a League side.

On the Sevco argument, weren't Hibs founded in 1893? Albeit that story does not reflect well on Celtic...

Is this a record for most sendings-off in a senior match? December 1905 and seven Thornliebank players "ordered to the pavilion" for dissent when 8-1 down to Alloa...no wonder they were expelled from the Scottish Combination.

You pretty much have to go through there to get to New Brighton though.

The pink was for League matches only; there was a regulation that clubs had to have different kits registered. Although I'm not sure how that worked with Bolton and PNE. But I did see a football card once that suggested Wanderers had halves for one season. Eventually the League dropped that regulation because they had too many clubs to make it work. Blackburn Rovers were utter b*****ds in the 1880s. They nakedly poached Suter, they pinched a load of other players, killed Blackburn Olympic by buying most of their team when professionalism was banned, constantly paying under the counter when professionalism was not legal...and campaigned against professionalism with the FA to stop anyone else from trying to do what they were doing. They even moved to Ewood Park to cut the ground from under Darwen's feet (the ground was much closer to Darwen than the old Leamington Rd one had been). Them, Preston, Bolton, Vile, Albion, and Birmingham St George's were all cheating the amateur rules massively. You'd've heard a lot more of St George's had it not been for MacGregor wanting to make the League a franchise, so vetoing any other Birmingham clubs from being in it (even though they were from Smethwick - but they had started off in Aston). By the time they were on the cusp of joining the League, the backer (Harry Mitchell, the brewer) was dying and therefore losing interest. But their demise meant the precarious survival of Small Heath Alliance, who could not afford their players, but who had one less distraction in the back yard.

McBain joined Ayr Utd before World War 1 started; there cannot be many professional careers that went from before that war until after the Second. New Brighton were the second club from the area to be in the League; New Brighton Tower had a couple of seasons in the 1900s, very well backed, but the crowds were not there. The idea was to have a winter entertainment in the seaside resort but frankly Birkenhead is worth avoiding at the best of times, let alone of a January afternoon.

There was an earlier side; United London Scottish, formed 1883, playing at Queen's Park (in West Kilburn, I wonder if there was something of a sentimental choice in using it), wearing navy blue jerseys with a thistle embroidered thereon, and who lasted until 1887. I assume they folded into the Caleys.

...on the basis that you no longer own your penalty area. The madness of Staines Town

Weird one I remember is us getting midfielder Ingi Højsted from the might of B36 of Tórshavn, when we were still top flight. I think I was nearer to a first team spot than him.

Sensational.

Looking at English clubs in the period, the captain was usually the goalkeeper. The main exceptions being the Wanderers (which were Charles Alcock's creation) and the Royal Engineers (which may be down Captain Marindin pulling rank over the lieutenants, although their normal goalie was of the same rank). Perhaps Gardner suggested QP follow suit...

This is way before professionalism was a thing, it might simply be that some players were not getting their place in the team (after all there were very few matches then) or not getting their mates in. This is back in 1872-3, professionalism in England was not permitted till 1885 and in Scotland till (I think) 1893. In practice, under-the-counter payments seem to start in England circa 1877, the Lancashire mill owners basically enticing players down to bring in crowds to their fields. In 1879 V***a entice Archie Hunter down with a £200 downpayment for a drapery shop (supplier: club secretary William Macgregor), which was higher than the record transfer fee for the next 15 years. Incidentally, I think the website is pushing it to say Queen's introduced half-time and free-kicks into the game, half-time came into Association rules in 1870 and the free-kick in 1872 (bizarrely it seems before then the only remedy for a foul was not to allow any goal that resulted), but both were pinched from the Sheffield rules; the half-time change-over was in there from 1862 and the free-kick for a foul from March 1867. No idea re the crossbar though. I had thought that was down to Nottm Forest. Funny, I never thought about contacting the club.

Couldn't see a subforum for history, so thought I'd give this a go. Was looking through the History of Queen's Park 1867-1917 and there are quite a few slightly snarky references to a number of players decamping from QP to the new Clydesdale club; the goalkeeper Gardner and the Wotherspoon brothers for instance. Clydesdale seem to have faded away by 1880, possibly because they were too late to get the south Glasgow support, having sold out their ground to Rangers and moved closer to Queen's Park, and maybe unable to recruit replacements. But was there some sort of falling out that saw players quit QP for Clydesdale? I got the impression there was something of an undercurrent there.

Macheda had ten starts with us a few years ago and finished our leading scorer... Wasn't Audley Harrison a very late starter in the pro ranks? I don't remember that much hype about him. In motor racing, Stefano Modena and Jan Magnussen had monstrously good records in the lower formulae, Magnussen beat Senna's record for most wins in F3, but both flopped hard in Grands Prix. Didn't have the dedication to go with the talent. Magnussen didn't even give up smoking, Modena gave up in his debut GP because it was hard work.

German drivers were banned right after World War 2. Hans Stuck, a Grand Prix winner pre-war, suddenly discovered he was Austrian... To be fair, he was married to a woman who was half-Jewish, so not your archetypal Third Reich acolyte.

Was Boris Onischenko in the building?

Chap with the cane is probably one of the two umpires.

Oh, and there was a form in each annual for club secretaries to complete and send off. The foreword was often a pitch for more details to be sent.

Yes. 6 was the club secretary. I am guessing that the clubs that put their details forward (this is the Charles Alcock Football Annual) were those looking for fixtures outside their locality, hence advertising where to write. Note Queen's Park had not yet got their details in the book. Later years would have the place for changing facilities (usually a pub or hotel) and a summary of results. The first couple had membership fees. As for the rules flex, Madras would later adopt association, but then vanished quickly afterwards. The United Rules were Sheffield rules as adopted by clubs in the Midlands. Probably identical other than handball which changed a lot in Sheffield (the Sheffield clubs liked the fair catches because their pitches were often on hillsides).

Scottish football teams in 1870: (what does N.B. mean?)

We used it at school in the eighties and the big ITV highlights prog in the Midlands was Star Soccer. I think soccer has only fallen into derision because of the encroachment of American football from the mid-eighties. So proper football fans have been more aggressive in insisting on the word football to show up the Septic farce for being the fraud that it is.