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JJ Sefton

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Can anyone help me identify which Blade is in this picture (Jimmy Dunne?) and, if possible, what year it is?

The two Arsenal players are Eddie Hapgood and Herbert Roberts which narrows it down to 1927 to 1937. If its a league match then its narrowed down to 1929 to 1933 if its Dunne.
 

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  • 1927 - 1937 United against Arsenal (Eddie Hapgood and Herbert Roberts for Arsenal).jpg
    1927 - 1937 United against Arsenal (Eddie Hapgood and Herbert Roberts for Arsenal).jpg
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I don't know who it is but I think that picture is from the 1936 Cup final. Roberts and Hapgood both played in that game, and the stadium is definitely not Bramall Lane or Highbury as they looked then. The ends at Wembley were uncovered at that time, and of course Wembley curves round like that. The large crowd is further support for this.
 
I'm certain that is Highbury Rev. Look to the left of the head of the Arsenal player kicking the ball. You see the white frontage of the upper tier of one of the main stands at Highbury. Wembley was always single tier I believe, uncovered curves and covered seats yes.

No idea who United player is but a great picture
 
Dug around on the net a bit for pictures - I don't think that looks like either Highbury stand (one covered all the spectators at once, the other had glass panels at the end). Also there were houses/trees visible behind the goals at Highbury - no chimney in sight, whereas Wembley is next to factories.

Also Arsenal have white sleeved shirts, a change not brought in until 1933. This means it can only be one of 2 games - our game there in 1933-4 or the Cup Final in 1936. My money's on the latter
 
If it's the 1936 Cup Final then it isn't Jimmy Dunne as he didn't play, left in 1933.

Jack Pickering is my educated guess. Logic would say it would be the centre-forward, as Hapgood and Roberts were the centre-half pairing for Arsenal, but that isn't Jock Dodds!
 
Well, that rules out 1936. Still doesn't look like Highbury though...
 
Can anyone help me identify which Blade is in this picture (Jimmy Dunne?) and, if possible, what year it is?

The two Arsenal players are Eddie Hapgood and Herbert Roberts which narrows it down to 1927 to 1937. If its a league match then its narrowed down to 1929 to 1933 if its Dunne.

Bit of a radical departure, but are you sure it is even United Arsenal are playing? Those stripes look a bit too light to be the usual bright red United stripes (compare the Arsenal red shirts) and the kit doesn't look like any United kit I have seen from that era.

Unless you are definitely sure that the other team is United, I would say it is more likely to be Huddersfield or Wednesday.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more it looks like Wednesday from around 1930.
 
Bit of a radical departure, but are you sure it is even United Arsenal are playing? Those stripes look a bit too light to be the usual bright red United stripes (compare the Arsenal red shirts) and the kit doesn't look like any United kit I have seen from that era.

Unless you are definitely sure that the other team is United, I would say it is more likely to be Huddersfield or Wednesday.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more it looks like Wednesday from around 1930.

If it is United, then those socks would date it around 1935/36. However, Arsenal shirts had a badge on them at this time so it's not the cup final.
(Just noticed the picture of the cup final - above - so sorry to state the obvious)
 
Huddersfield at the time wore black socks with a blue foldover and two white bands so don't think it's them.

Other striped teams from 1933-5 who would have played Arsenal in a league game were:
Sunderland (solid red turnover to socks)
West Brom (white shorts normally, could be a change for that game)
Stoke (again white shorts, could be a change, but their socks only had one white band)
Grimsby (a check reveals that in 1935 they played in a plain white shirt)
Newcastle (black socks with a solid white turnover)
Blades (we wore kits with a striped collar, hard to tell but that pic looks to be a solid colour on the collar)
Weds (If 1932-33 the kit had dark blue shorts not black, if 1934-35 they changes to blue socks with a solid white turnover, they also had striped collars at the time)

The Arsenal socks in the pic make it definitely 1933-35, only time they wore that design sock. Unusually they changed kits mid-season 1932-33, going from March onwards with the white sleeves from a solid red shirt and different socks.
 



Admittedly there's no entry for Midweek for the 1933/4 season on the Historical Kits site, but if they changed their socks for that season, it would narrow the picture to the end of the 1932/3 season. During that time they played once, on Friday 14th April at Highbury, when Arsenal won 4-2.

That's assuming it was that Midweek. I'm inclined to think that it's more likely to be them, given the slight change in colour between the shorts and socks. During this period we had a red turnover with the white bands, but there is no discernible change in colour on the turnover in the picture.
 
Didn't the Utd shirt have the Sheffield crest on it for the cup final? For this reason I'd say it's not the final.
 
I've done some more checking and I stand corrected - it's definitely Highbury. The chimney is from a laundry that was behind one of the goals, and there's a "gap" in the terracing like in that picture. And that is the West Stand at Highbury, which was finished in December 1932.

Given that it's definitely Highbury and it must be after March 1933 because of the stripes on the sleeves, if it's a United game it's the last game of 1933-4 season, when already relegated United lost 2-0 to Arsenal, who were already champions. There were 25,000 odd there, though, and that looks like a bigger crowd...
 
I've done some more checking and I stand corrected - it's definitely Highbury. The chimney is from a laundry that was behind one of the goals, and there's a "gap" in the terracing like in that picture. And that is the West Stand at Highbury, which was finished in December 1932.

Given that it's definitely Highbury and it must be after March 1933 because of the stripes on the sleeves, if it's a United game it's the last game of 1933-4 season, when already relegated United lost 2-0 to Arsenal, who were already champions. There were 25,000 odd there, though, and that looks like a bigger crowd...

I'm glad you mentioned the background, because I've seen pictures with that odd 'train ticket clipping' type bit (if you get my meaning) before, and thought "Why?". I just never clicked with it being Highbury. Was that 'style of architecture' common?

As silly as it sounds, the socks make me think it's actually that lot. It could actually be the following season though. It should be remembered though that Arsenal were champions, but Midweek finished third that season, when they were beaten 4-2. Whether there were too many away fans in those days, I really don't know, and I would perhaps doubt that there would have been too many, but this would have been a major title clash in that season.

This is the table just before that match was played. Arsenal's win effectively sealed the title. Afterwards, only Newcastle could mathematically pip Arsenal for the title. Arsenal's win over Portsmouth the following day gave them the Championship anyway.
 

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