Bert Bliss

Tottenham Hotspur's Bert Bliss with an overhead kick in the 1921 FA Cup Final. Bliss was an inside forward who made 215 appearances for Tottenham (106 goals). He later played for Clapton Orient and Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic. His one appearance for England (vs Scotland) came 2 weeks before this FA Cup Final.
Tottenham's opponents in the final at Stamford bridge were Wolverhampton Wanderers. 20 year old winger Jimmy Dimmock scored the winner in the 55th minute.

FA Cup Final, 1889

Here is a programme for the 1889 FA Cup Final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Preston North End's Invincibles (the Cup version, with Mills- Roberts in the place of Trainer).
Major Marindin would undoubtedly have been rooting for Wolves' English XI (including 7 internationals).  Wolves had finished 3rd in the League,  conceding 9 goals across the 2 meetings with Preston.
Dewhurst, Ross and Thomson were the scorers as Preston won 3-0 to secure the Double. 

St Luke's, Blakenhall

John Baynton and John Brodie were pupils of St Luke's school in Blakenhall when the headmaster, Harry Barcroft, presented the lads with a football. They were inspired to form a club.
 The proposed Goldthorn Football Club actually chose the name St Luke's. 
They played their first matches in 1877.
In 1879 St Luke's merged with football enthusiasts from a local cricket club, The Wanderers, and adopted the name Wolverhampton Wanderers. 

West Midlands

We cannot overlook the importance of what is now known as The West Midlands conurbation in the development of association football in Britain.
The Birmingham County Football Association was formed in December 1875. The original members were:  Calthorpe, Aston Unity, Wednesbury Town, Wednesbury Old Athletic, Stafford Road, Birmingham FC*, Saltley College, Aston Villa, Tipton, St George’s, and  West Bromwich (Dartmouth).

Aston Villa, in the person of William McGregor, were the leaders of the movement to form the Football League.
Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion were also founder members. Interestingly both clubs were also almost exclusively 'English' in the era when Scotch Professors were to the fore.

West Bromwich Albion 1888. Goalkeeper Roberts in England jersey.

Aston Villa in 1888 with the Birmingham Senior Cup

Wolverhampton Wanderers 1888- red and white stripes.

Here is a head-to head table from the 13 seasons that all 3 teams were in the top flight.

	P	W	D	L	F	A	p
Aston Villa	52	26	12	14	104	73	64
Wolverhampton Wanderers	52	19	15	18	85	87	53
West Bromwich Albion	52	15	9	28	78	105	39

Aston Villa were champions in the seasons 1893–94, 1895–96, 1896–97, 1898–99, and 1899–1900.

A look at the FA Cup Finals from the 1880s and 1890s is also revealing:

Season	Winners	Runners Up
1885–86		West Bromwich Albion
1886–87	Aston Villa	West Bromwich Albion
1887–88	West Bromwich Albion
1888–89		Wolverhampton Wanderers
1889–90
1890–91
1891–92	West Bromwich Albion	Aston Villa
1892–93	Wolverhampton Wanderers
1893–94
1894–95	Aston Villa	West Bromwich Albion
1895–96		Wolverhampton Wanderers
1896–97	Aston Villa

West Bromwich Albion were the first of the 3 to experience relegation at the end of the  1900-01 season. 

Wolverhampton Wanderers were in the top flight until 1905/06, and Aston Villa remained until 1935-36.


* Birmingham Football and Cricket Club existed from 1869-1884 and have no connection with the present Birmingham City or their predecessors, Small Heath. 

He Banged The Leather For Goal

I'm pretty sure that neither Charles Darwin nor Florence Nightingale had much interest in football. So here's one for your pub quiz. Who is the only football fan to appear on an British banknote? Bonus- what team did he support?

Most of you probably know that it was Sir Edward Elgar, arguably the greatest British composer and a supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers.  Elgar celebrated his enthusiasm for Wanderers in a piece of music.

Elgar first went to see Wolves playing in the company of a local girl, Dora Penny, with whom he developed quite an attachment. He would later cycle the 70 km from Malvern to Wolverhampton to accompany her to Molineux. She recalled: 

It all delighted him.
The dense crowd flowing down the road like a river; the roar of welcome as the rival teams came on to the ground; the shouts of men calling to their player-friends by their Christian names – usually considerably shortened; the staccato ‘Aw!’ at a mishap (a most remarkable sound from a crowd of 60,000); and the deafening roar that greeted a goal.
Mrs Richard Powell (nee Dora Penny) Edward Elgar: Memories of a Variation

According to Dora this first game was a Birmingham League match between Wolves and Singers FC (later Coventry City) so her memory or estimate of a 60,000 crowd is a bit amiss.

In February 1898 Wolves beat Stoke 4-2 in a Football League fixture. At Elgar’s request, Dora sent him a local press report of the match. The report, in covering a move involving Billy Malpass, used the phrase 'he banged the leather for goal'. Victorian writers frequently employed terms such as 'the leather'  'the globe' or 'the sphere' when writing about the ball.  This phrase captured Elgar's imagination, and he set it to music. The 'score' was included in a letter he sent to Dora in March 1898.  

Billy Malpass

 Billy Malpass played at right back in the Stoke match, though he was generally a center half.
Born in  Wednesbury, he  was a one club man,  joining  Wolverhampton Wanderers  in 1891. He was in the Cup winning XI in 1893 and was captain of the side that lost in the 1896 final. Malpass  made 155 appearances for Wolves and scored 9 goals. His career was ended by a knee injury in 1899.

Blades

Present day Sheffield Wednesday fans might be alarmed to see their team referred to as The Blades, but The Wednesday did go by that name. United were, in fact, referred to in the press of the 1890s as the Junior Blades.

The Wednesday became The Owls at the turn of the last century- they moved from Olive Grove to new venue in the Owlerton district of Sheffield- a site now known as Hillsborough. 

The illustration above shows scenes from the 1896 FA Cup Final in which The Wednesday beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 at Crystal Palace. All 3 goals came in the first 18 minutes. Reportedly the Wolverhampton goalkeeper Billy Tennant was under the impression that the game was 1-1 at the final whistle. He had been stunned during the build up to Fred Spikesley's second goal. Spikesley's shot hit the net with such force that it cannoned back into the field of play. Allegedly Tennant, in his confusion, didn't notice the goal being awarded or his teammates re starting the game. 

The Wednesday Cup winning team: top (l-r): Martin Earp, Ambrose Langley, Lawrence Bell, Fred Spiksley; middle (l-r):Harold Brandon, James Massey, Bob Petrie; bottom (l-r): Tom Crawshaw, Bert Brash, Arthur Brady, Henry Davis.

The FA Cup Final 1893

Wolverhampton Wanderers

The ball

Perhaps the greatest concession made by the Football Association to the fact that football  was becoming essentially a workingman's game was the staging of the FA Cup final in the northwest of England for 2 seasons.
With the exception of the replay in 1886 the Cup Finals had all been played in London, and all bar one at The Oval. This cricket ground was, however, becoming unfit for purpose as the game grew in popularity. 25,000 had watched the 1892 final. As yet there were no big clubs in London, so there was no suitable venue in the capital. 
And so it was that in 1893 the Fallowfield Stadium (also known as Manchester Athletics Stadium) hosted the FA cup final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Everton.
45,000 paid to get in but it is estimated that 60,000 were in attendance. 192 police officers were deployed to deal with this crowd.

Contemporary accounts describe the crowd as having a direct influence on the game, with the wingers being hampered by encroaching fans. Both sides protested against the game being played as a competitive fixture before the kick off.  Everton later appealed again that the game had been played in unfit conditions.The referee Mr C.J Hughes overruled the protest stating that, In his opinion, that there had not been sufficient interference with play to justify another match. The Everton protest was then withdrawn  A contemporary report in the describes some conflict between the police and spectators and liberal use of the baton, but rather dubiously commends the way the crowd  stayed behind the ropes.

The scene at Fallowfield on Saturday beggars description. The ground, it was theoretically estimated, was capable of  holding 60, 000 but as a matter of fact the exact number present was 68, 211 - far too large a crowd to be comfortably accommodated. The fact is there were thousands who could not get a sight of the game and naturally they pressed to the front. Up to half passed two the barriers held firm but they were not constructed to stand prolonged pressure and a quarter of an hour later there was an ominous crash and hundreds rushed through the opening and immediately filled the space between the reporters and the touchline. Some of the pencillers stuck to their posts as long as it was possible, but when the crowd behind began to fling sods, drainpipes and stones, they fled to the pavilion and their places were taken by a howling mob who quickly smashed the desks by using them to stand on.
Northern Daily Telegraph, 21.3.1893.

Everton were expected to win. They fielded a reserve team against Wolverhampton's first XI the week before the final and had won . Wanderers, however, provided a shock, winning the chaotic final 1-0 with a long range effort from Harry Allen.
Public sympathy lay with Wolverhampton. There were a number of reasons for this- Manchester Merseyside rivalry existed even then, so many  locals would have plumped for Wolves, who could also depend on neutrals to support them on account of their position as underdogs. There was also the matter of nationalism- the illustrations above and contemporary accounts of the match refer to  'play up England ' favours being worn by some spectators: Wolverhampton  fielded an English born XI whilst Everton had 6 Scotsmen on the park. 

The Goodall Brothers

John and Archie Goodall were brothers. They spent their youth in Kilmarnock, in Scotland. However, John played international football for England and Archie for Ireland, despite the fact that their parents were Scots.
John was born in London in 1863 (their father was a soldier) and Archie was born in Belfast the following year. Surprisingly, given that they were born only a year apart, their international careers didn't overlap; John got the last of his 14 caps in 1898 and Archie the first of his 10 in 1899.

 John

Archie

John was a member of the Preston North End 'Invincibles' that won the double in 1888-89. The brothers appeared together for Derby County in the 1898 FA Cup Final.
Both brothers moved into management and hold records for 'oldest player appearing for club', John for Watford (44) and Archie for Wolverhampton Wanderers (41).
John kept tame foxes, which he would sometimes walk around Preston's ground on a leash during half time. Archie, on retiring from football, became a professional strongman.

	John		Archie
Season	Club	Caps	Club	Caps
Unknown	Kilmarnock Burns(Sco) Kilmarnock Athletic                (Sco) Great Lever		St. Jude’s Liverpool Stanley Everton
1885-86	Preston North End
1886-87
1887-88		2	Preston North End
1888-89		2	Aston Villa
1889-90	Derby County		Derby County
1890-91		2
1891-92		1
1892-93		1
1893-94		1
1894-95		2
1895-96		2
1896-97
1897-98		1
1898-99				2
1899-00				2
1900-01	New Brighton Tower			1
	Glossop North End
1901-02				1
1902-03				2
1903-04	Watford *		Plymouth Argyle	2
1904-05			Glossop North End * Wolverhampton Wanderers
1905-06
1906-07
1907-08
1908-09
1909-10
1910-11	FC Roubaix* (Fra)
1911-12
1912-13	Mardy* (Wal)

·         *Player manager