Forest v Barnes 1863

Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle- 19.12.63

The Forest Club was founded by CW and JF Alcock.  JF Alcock was a delegate at the 6  Football Association meetings held in October-December 1863 and was elected onto the first FA Committee in 1864. 
The cutting contains an early reference to the Football Association's ideal of seeing their new rules adopted universally.

Football publications of the 1860s

The Laws of the Game

Shortly after the Football Association formulated The Laws of the Game in 1863 they were published by John Lillywhite of Seymour Street in a booklet that cost a shilling and sixpence.

Kicking the ball- simply explained with the aid of annotated diagrams(!)

Beeton's Football

In 1866 cricket writer Frederick Wood produced Beeton's Football. The Beeton's series covered a wide range of subjects, and was an offshoot of the legendary Beeton's Book of Household Management.
The book contained hints on diet and preparation (avoid foods and habits which are injurious to the wind and general powers of endurance), and illustrated guidance on how to best kick the ball. 
the 98 page octavo book cost a shilling .

Sporting Life 07.02.66

Routledge's Handbook of Football

The next publisher to respond to the growing popularity of football was G. Routledge and Sons. Their 60 page Handbook of Football appeared in 1867.

The quality of the advice, which might, to modern ears, sound quite naive, is indicative of the rudimentary state of the game at this point in time: 

For excellent fellows at football the prettiest costume is a coloured velvet cap with tassel, a tight striped jersey and white flannel trousers. It is a good plan, if it can be previously so arranged, to have one side with striped jerseys of one colour, say red, and the other with another, say blue. This prevents confusion and wild attempts to run after and wrest the ball from your neighbour. 
If you have the good fortune to own a copy you could expect to get £500 for it at auction. 


The Football Annual

The Lillywhite family had been publishing cricket books since 1848. 
The first John Lilywhite's Football Annual appeared in 1868. It was edited by  Charles Alcock, and was called The Football Annual from 1869 to 1908 .  The annuals are exceedingly rare and are commonly known as Charles Alcock's Football Annual. 
'Published with the sanction of the Football Association', the annual was a combination of rule book, instruction manual, and club directory. It contained advertisements for sports goods. 
The 85 page 1868 edition covered both Association and Rugby codes. 

Dubious Histories

Let me say at the outset that I have got absolutely nothing against Stoke City or its supporters.
It's just that their claimed foundation date of 1863 has always struck me as being somewhat spurious. In identifying 1863 as the foundation date historians have contrived to assimilate 2 events separated by 5 years.
I will further anger Stoke fans by presenting evidence that the club formed as Stoke Ramblers in 1868 ceased to exist in 1908 and an entirely new club was formed in its place,



1863

It is an historical fact that football was played in Stoke on February 17th, 1863. It was Shrove Tuesday, and it was reputedly the first time such a spectacle had occured in the town. It was a hybrid  Pre Association version of the game, overseen by Mr John Whitta Thomas, the 37-year-old headmaster of St Peter’s School.
It was Liverpool born Mr Thomas and The Right Reverend Sir Lovelace Tomlinson Stamer who were responsible for introducing football to The Potteries.
Rt.Rev. Stamer was an archetypal Good Victorian, founding schools and other charitable organizations (including a hostel for female ex prisoners). He was also keen on promoting sports.
Accounts published in 1963 suggest that Mr Thomas and other schoolmasters were then responsible for founding a football club.

1868 

The notion that a Charterhouse pupil would be apprenticed to a Staffordshire railway company at the age of 13 is beyond belief. 

In The Book of Football (1906) W.W. Cockbill wrote: Modern football can truly be said to have commenced in 1863, and one of the first clubs that sprang into existence was Stoke, founded by some Old Carthusians – Armand (sic), Bell, Matthews and Philpott.

Armand was In fact, Henry John Almond. Almond, aged 13 in 1863, did not even feature in Charterhouse football until 1867. It was in 1868 that he began his apprenticeship at North Staffordshire Railway Works.

The Field reported in September 1868 : A new club has been formed (in Stoke) for the practice of the Association rules under the charge of H.J. Almond, one of the most prominent performers of the Charterhouse School XI last year.
 Note that they were referred to as a new club. There is no reference to them having being in existence for 5 years in any other guise. The football they were playing in 1868 was still of the most casual nature. 
The connection between 1863 and Almond's club of 1868 is Mr Thomas, who was Stoke Ramblers' first secretary. 
I am not aware of any documentary evidence that John Whitta Thomas had maintained a regular football club in the town between 1863 and 1868.

Stoke dropped the Ramblers from their name and were founding members of the Football League in 1888. 

1908
On 27.03.08 6,000 people saw Stoke lose 1-0 to Leicester Fosse at The Victoria Ground. This was the last League match for the original Stoke club. They finished 10th in Division 2 but resigned from the League due to financial problems. 
An extraordinary meeting on 11.09.08 unanimously carried the proposal that the club be wound up. 
Contemporary press reports consistently refer to the club that was subsequently founded as the new organization. There are also references to the two clubs as separate entities- for example, when the directors of the 'old' club donated £50 to the 'new' club. 
Also the 'new' club would have commenced their Birmingham and District League season before the winding up of the 'old' club was proposed on 11.09.08.
Incidentally, the XI who had faced Fosse in April were all at different clubs when September came around:

	September 1908	Played for ‘new’ Stoke?
Arthur Box	Birmingham
Charlie Burgess	Manchester City
Billy Cope	Oldham Athletic
George Baddeley	West Bromwich Albion
Louis Williams	Bradford City
Albert Sturgess	Sheffield United
Billy Williamson	Crewe Alexandra	1911
Freddie Brown	West Bromwich Albion
Jackie Chalmers	Bristol Rovers
Syd Owen	Burslem Port Vale/ Leicester Fosse	1912
Amos Baddeley	Blackpool	1909

Nottingham Evening Post - 30.07.08

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - 18.07.08

Nottingham Evening Post- 04.09.08

Press reports form 1908 consistently make it clear that the Stoke FC formed that year after the collapse of 'the old club' was considered to be a separate entity. 

De Bal van Cyril Bernard Morrogh

College Melle

Royal Antwerp were formed in about 1880 by British expatriates and the Koninklijke Belgische Voetbalbond was established in 1895. Football had first arrived in Belgium in 1863. One football, a leather ball, a luxury item, was taken to The College of the Josephite Fathers at Melle by Cyril Bernard Morrogh . Morrogh was a young student from Ireland. Apparently it was his English classmates who showed most enthusiasm for the game. How closely their activities adhered to the Association Laws of the Game we will never know. Very little, I suspect. 
The information, illustration and post title are taken from Kroniek van het Belgisch Voetball (Fraiponts & Willcox, 2003)

Not the actual ball. This one dates from the 1880s

The matches that shaped Association football- pre 1870

The earliest games in our list of influential matches predate the establishment of the Association.
Before 1863 there was no Association football, and throughout the 1860s the game was fluid in nature as experimental rules came and went, Spectators (and there were few) witnessed a change from an 'everyone behind the ball' game in which catches and handling played a significant role, as did touchdowns for a while, into something more akin to modern soccer, Having said that by 1870 Association football was still far from being the finished article. There were still no corner kicks or crossbars, ends were changed after every score, and the goalkeeper was not a recognised position

Football at Harrow - played with a pudding shaped ball...

Harrow- 1850s
The Football Association's  Laws of the Game were developed in order to unify existing codes that were in use in various schools and colleges. The Harrow rules were one such code. Given the later importance of Charles Alcock in the development and promotion of the Association game, we must acknowledge the importance of Alcock's earliest footballing experiences.  Alcock attended Harrow from 1855 to 1859 ; he was in Drury's House. The Houses played each other for the honour of being 'Cock House'. It was the format of these knockout competitions that inspired the FA Cup.
The press (in particular Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle) carried reports on football matches played at all the leading public schools. I have only been able to find one contemporary press report of Alcock playing football at Harrow- Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (12.12.58) has an account of a match between Rev. B.H Drury's and Rev. Dr. Vaughan's (the Houses took the names of the leading masters). Drury's won by 1 base to 0 (base was the Harrovian term for a goal)- the base was obtained by 'a capital kick by Mr Alcock'. The result confirmed Drury's as Cock House for the season.

Sheffield FC v 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment of Foot- 1858
It is impossible to overlook the importance of Sheffield's contribution to the development of the Association game. The Sheffield Rules predated the Football Association by 6 years, and were adopted by many clubs and associations in the midlands. Sheffield was a frequent source of inspiration as the Laws of the Game evolved during the 1860s and 70s. During the early years of its exsitence the Sheffield club played scratch matches between its members. 
Sheffiled versus Hallam in 1860 is often referred to as the earliest club football match, however, there are references to Sheffield FC playing a team from the 58th (Rutlandshire) Regiment of Foot in 1858. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any accounts of this match.

Barnes v Richmond 1863
The Presidents side v The Secretary's side, played at Battersea Park on 9th January 1864 was scheduled to be the first encounter under the newly drafted Football Association Laws of the Game.  However, EC Morley et al were keen to get on with it, and on December 19th 1863 the very first game of football played under Football Association rules took place at Limes Field, Mortlake, between Barnes FC and Richmond FC.
 The 15 a side game, ' distinguished by no disputes about the rules' , ended in a 0-0 draw.


The Association game continued to be played on an informal basis throughout the decade, mainly by clubs in the metropolitan area. Sheffield football also flourished, and both sets of rules underwent gradual changes and slowly a spectacle bearing a closer resemblance to modern football emerged, as handling, fair catches and touchdowns were eradicated. 


London v Sheffield 1866 
The first representative match under the auspices of the FA.  Sheffield FC had initially asked the FA for a match with one of the FA member clubs. The FA however selected a Football Association XI, drawn from 4 metropolitan clubs- Wanderers, Barnes, NN's and Civil Service. 

The Youdan Cup 1867
February 16th 1867 saw first round of the first ever knockout football tournament. It was played under Sheffield Rules during a period where the 4 yard goal and the rouge were in use (thus distancing it somewhat from modern soccer). The eventual winners, Hallam, defeated Heeley 2-0 (and 2 rouges to 1) in their first round match. 

Middlesex v Kent-1867
Another venture masterminded by CW Alcock to stimulate interest in the Association game was an attempt to introduce inter county matches.
The first of this sporadic series was due to take place on November 2nd at Beaufort House, but Lord Ranelagh, being in dispute with the Amatuer Athletic Club, in whose name the ground was leased, withdrew his permission for his land to be used, and the game was played 'in the wilds' of Battersea Park. The match ended in a 0-0 draw.
The ground was described as being 'in wretched order' but the match itself ('a most stubbornly contested game') was given a good write up.
In these days in which the FA were working hard to spread the appeal of the game it is worth remembering when reading enthusiastic and glowing reports of 0-0 draws played in unfavourable conditions that the author might well have been none other than C.W Alcock! 


Queen's Park v Thistle- 1868
I'm not going to turn these posts into a catalogue of the first games of all significant clubs, but i'll make an exception in the case of Queen's Park. Queen's Park assumed the status of an institution within the Scottish game in its earliest days, and fulfilled the functions of a national association. As with Sheffield (above) the earliest games were between scratch sides drawn from club members. 
On 1st August 1868 Queen's Park had their first fixture against outside opposition: Played at the Recreation Ground (South Side Park?) fellow Glaswegians,Thistle FC were beaten by  'two goals within an hour'.
Having kept a clean sheet in their debut match Queen's Park didn't concede a goal until March 1875 and their unbeaten run went on until 1876.

Wanderers v West Kent 1869
 In the 1860s London's football was played in public parks such as Clapham Common and Battersea Park. There were no enclosed football grounds. 
On Saturday October 9th 1869 The Wanderers v West Kent was played at the Kennington Oval, the home of Surrey Cricket Club. This arose from CW Alcock's involvement with Surrey Cricket Club.
As well as generating (negligible) income for the cricket club in the winter months, it meant that the Football Association now had access to a large enclosed venue capable of accommodating thousands of paying spectators. During the course of the following decade The Oval became a regular venue for club fixtures and hosted big events such as FA Cup Finals and semi finals, internationals, and The Varsity match.

Sheffield FC and the Football Association, 1863

Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle 05.12.63

The above is a letter from W. Chesterman, the Hon, Sec. of Sheffield Football Club which was read to the meeting of the Football Association held on December 1st 1863.  Mr Chesterman makes observations and suggestions. The Sheffield Rules had been in operation since 1857, and, as was to be the case with the Association Laws of the Game, were evolving on a year by year basis.
By 1877 the Sheffield and Association rules had converged completely.

Royal Engineers v Wanderers

In the 1870s there were few serious competitors aside from Wanderers and the Royal Engineers for the title of the best club in England. It was fitting that these 2 sides contested the first FA Cup Final, and there was a period from 1871 -1875 when the Royal Engineers won just about every game that they played other than FA Cup Finals. Wanderers of course won the FA Cup 5 times in 7 seasons. In the previous decade matches between the 2 had been far more casual in nature. Here's an account of an early meeting in which the military metaphors are done to death, Note that the mention of the after match hospitality was almost obligatory in football journalism during the 18th century. Its a curious team list as well...

Kentish Chronicle-19.11.64

Four years later the Wanderers don't come across as one of the leading clubs, managing to muster only 8 players for a home fixture and failing to ensure that there was a football available! The thoughts of the Engineers on travelling up from Chatham for a 35 minute game are unrecorded. As Charles Alcock may (or may not) have said, its a funny old game... 

Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle - 05.12.68

“Wanderers” Football Club Season 1865-1866

Forest FC of Leytonstone, formed in 1859 and adherents of the Harrow Rules, relocated to London in 1864 and adopted the name Wanderers (although their 'home' ground was Battersea Park).
Copied this from The Code War: English Football Under the Historical Spotlight  by Graham Williams. Not sure of the original source...

“WANDERERS” FOOTBALL CLUB

SEASON 1865-1866

LIST OF MEMBERS.

                      Alcock, J.F                Green, F           Pember, A

                      Alcock, C.W              Green, J.F         Phipps, H.G

                      Allfrey, W.M              Gaillemaid, A.G   Prior, J.T

                      Baker, A                   Hall, C.H            Reid, C.F

                      Baker, W.F                Harper, Syd.       Richardson, H

                      Bowen, E.E                Head, H            Sparks, T.H

                      Butler, C.F                 Howlett, W.O       Smyly, W.C

                      Burnett, E.W              Jackson, C.D       Tayloe, J.E

                      Crompton, A               Lucas, F            Tebbut, A.M

                      Cruikshank, J.A           Lucas, J             Tebbut, C.M

                      Cutbill, W.J.C              Ludlam, J.W       Thompson, A

                      Elliot, J                      MacKenzie, A.W  Thompson, W

                      Gillespie, E.W             Martin, J.B          Thornton, P.M

                      Green, A                    Morley, J.L          Tupper,C.H

                                                            Weber, C.L

LIST OF MATCHES

ALREADY ARRANGED

1865

Saturday, 28^th October, Civil Service, at Battersea Park

Wednesday, 8^th November, Charterhouse School, at Charterhouse

Saturday , 11^th      ”      Crystal Palace Club, at Penge

  ”       18^th      ”      Westminster School, at Westminster

  ”       25^th      ”      Forest School, at Walthamstow

  ”     2^nd   December,  “N.N.s” at Kilburn

  ”     9^th        ”       Harrow School, at Harrow

  ”    16^th       ”       Reigate Club, at Reigate

1866

Saturday, 6^th January, Crystal Palace Club, at Penge

    ”    13^th   ”    Civil Service, at Battersea Park

    ”     20^th   ”     “N.N.s” at Kilburn

    ”    24^th February, Civil Service, at Battersea Park

All Communications respecting Matches &c, to be addressed to C.W ALCOCK, 155, Fenchurch Street

Uniform Flannel can be obtained of Gann, Jones & Co, 171, Fenchurch Street

Fixtures 1869-70

A fixture list of metropolitan matches from Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (27.11. 1869). No distinction is made between the codes. In an exoticism sadly lost from the Association game,  Wasps, Owls and Flamingoes  feature alongside Pirates, Gipsies and Gitanoes.
Several of these clubs featured in the early years of the FA Cup. The legendary Wanderers were playing their home fixtures at The Oval cricket ground ( courtesy of Mr Alcock). CCC (Civil Service), Barnes and Royal Engineers still play. The Crystal Palace name survives, but it is an entirely different club. 

Sheffield v Newark, 1869

Nottinghamshire Guardian 10.12.69

Further evidence of the rather shambolic state of football in the 1860s. Newark short handed, unscientific in their play and a lack of clarity regarding the code.
We were somewhat surprised to find them not playing the Football Association Rules, inasmuch as the Sheffield Club are members of the Association... this comment by the (Nottingham) reporter reveals the confusion that persisted 6 years after the FA had set out to standardise the laws of the game. Sheffield, of course, was something of a special case- the Sheffield Association observed their own code of rules as they converged with those of the Football Association, eventually unifying  in 1878.
Newark Town, currently of the Central Midlands Football League: North Division proudly display the foundation year of 1868 on their club crest. 

Saturday and Sunday...

On March 5th 1899 Old Boys Basel were due to play Lausanne Football and Cricket Club in the finals of the Swiss National Championship. Lausanne had scored 10 goals to 2 against in their 2 group matches, whereas Old Boys had required a replay to get past their local rivals Basel. 
Lausanne, however, withdrew from the game, presenting Old Boys with a walkover. March the 5th was a Sunday. Lausanne's membership was largely made up of Englishmen, and Englishmen did not play football on Sundays...
In the United Kingdom football was always a Saturday game. Saturday and football, almost synonymous. In fact the very first game played using the newly drafted Association Rules, the goalless draw between Barnes and Richmond, took place on a Saturday- 19th December 1863.
As early as 1869 the Roman Catholic bishop of Liverpool had supported the view that playing football on a Sunday should be allowed as preferable to spending time in the pub, but it  was not until  111 years after the foundation of the Football Association that a Football match was held on a Sunday in the UK.
Saturday afternoon was enshrined as the leisure preserve of the working man by the Factory Act of  1856, which stated that all work must stop at 2pm on a Saturday. Even though the originators of  organized football were not working men, they would have been connected to this five and a half day pattern of work by their business or professional interests.
Despite the widespread adoption of  la semaine anglaise other countries tended not to associate Saturday as being football day and Sunday a sacred day of rest. So when did countries around the world tend to play their football?


U.S.A  -The practice of playing on Saturdays was copied in the USA ( the matches of the 1884-85 American Cup providing the earliest example).

South America-Sunday was the favoured day. Internationals between Argentina  and Uruguay were played on Sundays (sometimes on a weekday). In the amateur era Argentine league matches were played on any day of the week.

Austria-Hungary- In Hungary league matches were played on a Sunday from the outset. International matches seem to have been played on occasion in midweek, but generally on a Sunday.

Germany- Germany played international matches on a Sunday (with the exception of an early game against England amateurs) and the matches in the domestic club competitions also took part on Sundays.

France- Sunday was the day for football. 

Italy- matches were played on a Sunday from the earliest times (the most extreme example being the 1898 championship all being decided on one day).

Spain- the early fixtures of Barcelona seem to have taken place on just about any day of the week, and weekday football appears to have been the norm in the early days of the Copa del Rey. When La Liga came into being in 1929 Sunday was football day.

Sheffield v Manchester 1868

Sheffield Daily Telegraph -  04.04.68

As we can see from the result (2 rouges to nothing) this was a game played under the Sheffield Rules. Whilst acknowledging the importance of the Sheffield Rules I avoid devoting too much space on this blog to Sheffield Football in the 1850s and 60s. As the subtitle says- Association Football around the world.

However, I found this brief snippet of interest for 2 reasons:

1-Manchester. We have seen how football really took hold in Lancashire in the 1870s and 80s, (50% of the original 12 League clubs were from Lancashire) and yet Manchester itself was not  represented until the emergence of Newton Heath and Ardwick, and then they did not consistently command high positions. 
2- Sheffield FC joined the Football Association in 1863, even though they retained their own code until the 'merger' of 1877. The Football Association was formed with the intention of unifying the various football codes. And here, 5 years on, a Sheffield journalist rues the absence of a general code of rules.

Charterhouse v Westminster

London City Press 26.11.1864

It would appear that the writer of the above report hadn't grasped the terminology of the game.

The Morning Post 24.11.1865

Charterhouse and Westminster were 2 of the 'public' schools in which Association Football was the winter game of choice. In fact the Association rules and modes of play owed much to the brands of football played at these schools before the 1863 rules were drafted. The first ever inter-school match under Association rules was between Charterhouse and Westminster.

Some 20 years after the above matches were played the 'old boys' of each school had formed prominent clubs which supplied England with a number of internationals, and in the case of Charterhouse,won the FA Cup in 1880-81.

Both schools followed rules that allowed passing forward. The Football Association adopted this in 1867 , a key move in the creation of the game that we have today, opening up the possibilities for strategic interpassing rather than the headlong rushes that resulted from a rule whereby, as in Rugby, anyone in front of the ball was 'off his side'.

As you would imagine, with the scholars of both institutions being drawn from the upper echelons of Victorian society, there are a number of noteworthy names in the team lists. In footballing terms there are Charles Nepean (aged  14) and Montague Muir Mackenzie (18), both of whom featured in the Alcock Internationals of 1870-72 (representing Scotland). Nepean was an FA Cup winner with Oxford University in 1874. Photographs of these young men are scarce, however, here is H.H Cameron (Charterhouse, 1864).

Born in 1852, he was the son of of the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.

Egg Chasers

This illustration appears in many soccer history books, but  the roses on the jerseys tell us it is in fact a Rugby match- England vs Scotland at the Oval, 1872. 

In the early days, of course, an interest and proficiency in more than one code was unsurprising.  The rules of engagement were often a mishmash and would change from week to week according to the opposition and the mutual agreement of the captains. This, of course, was the very situation that the Football Association set out to counter. 

The very first encounter played under the 1863 rules was between two clubs, Barnes and Richmond, who later decided to follow the Rugby Union route. 
Several of the northern clubs converted (no pun intended) from Rugby to Association (notably Preston North End, Burnley and Manningham). Clapham Rovers alternated- Association one week, Rugby the next.

Some individuals excelled in both codes. Here are just a few examples:

Robert Barker kept goal for England during much of the first ever international match. In the absence of the preferred goalkeeper he was chosen due to his Rugby experience.

Henry Renny-Tailyour of the Royal Engineers represented Scotland (as a forward) in the second ever international Rugby Union match at the Oval in 1872. In fact it is on record that he was unavailable for subsequent Association matches due to an injury sustained in this match. In 1873 he played in the second international football match for Scotland, against England, again at the Oval, getting onto the score sheet. Scotland lost both these matches.  Renny-Tailyour won the FA Cup with Royal Engineers at the third attempt in 1875.

Reg Birkett was the scorer of the first try in international Rugby- for England vs Scotland in 1871. A dual-coder with Clapham Rovers, Birkett was on the original RFU committee and played for England 4 times.
Birkett was also an FA Cup winner with Rovers in 1880, his second Cup-Final appearance.
He kept goal for England in their 1879 5-4 win over Scotland at the Oval.

Dr. John Smith- as an Association player Dr Smith played in both the English and Scottish FA Cup finals. He was the first man to score 3 goals in  a Scottish Cup Final. He represented his country 10 times (1877-84), scoring 10 goals. His clubs were  Mauchline, Edinburgh University and Queen's Park. His football career was ended by the stringent anti professionalism laws of the Scottish FA (the Dr played as an amateur for Corinthians in a match against a team that included a professional, enough to get him banned!)
Playing Rugby for Edinburgh University, in 1888 Dr Smith was selected for the British Isles antipodean tour.

John Willie Sutcliffe - Rugby in the north of England was blighted by witch hunts against professionalism. In 1889  Sutcliffe represented England against New Zealand Natives, but later that year, his club, Heckmondwike, were thrown out of the RFU for professionalism.
Remarkably, Sutcliffe was then able to join Bolton Wanderers. His original role in Association had been as a forward, but he switched to goalkeeper and went on to make over 300 League appearances for Bolton before joining firstly Millwall Athletic and then Manchester United. In 1905 Sutcliffe joined Plymouth Argyle, for whom he made a further 200 plus League appearances. He ended his playing
 days at Southend, having been 24 years in professional soccer. He later went to the Netherlands and managed Vitesse Arnhem.
Sutcliffe was capped 5 times by England (1893–1903) as a goalkeeper.

Dai Davies was a half back with Llanelli. He joined Northern Union side Swinton in 1899. In the summer of 1902 Davies, who had only ever seen one soccer match and never played the game before, joined Bolton Wanderers as a goalkeeper (maybe Wanderers were inspired by the precedent of  Sutcliffe). He was a notoriously courageous 'keeper. He played in the 1904 FA Cup Final (completing an unique double, having played in the 1900 Northern Union Challenge Cup Final).
Davies spent 8 years at Bolton and was capped 3 times by Wales. He returned to Northern Union in 1910.