History of Sheffield Football 1857 – 1889

[Sean Thornton]

itsinyerblood , because of his advanced age, was chosen to take the minutes of that first meeting.

 

[Harry Thickett]

I think the point is that, once upon a time, there weren't any professionals. As soon as there were, amateur sides were finished. Look at the list of FA Cup winners around the time Blackburn Olympic won it. In Sheffield, the opposition to professionalism lasted longer than elsewhere.

I
In the book I make a great deal of the seismic moment when Blackburn Olympic broke the stranglehold of the London Amateur clubs who had won the FA cup non stop since it was launched. Not least because Olympic's success was masterminded by Sheffield's Jack Hunter (played for Heeley FC). He was a working man who had used the Zulu team to generate some appearance money but when the Sheffield FA came down hard on the players and started banning them for critical Sheffield cup ties he revolted and crossed the Pennines to become their player/coach. Within a year his team had won the FA Cup.

 

[itsinyerblood]

itsinyerblood , because of his advanced age, was chosen to take the minutes of that first meeting.

If I recall it was during an attack of mustard gas, small interruptions like that didn't help matters I can tell you.

 

[BladeFisher]

This, all day and every day.

Those cunts were actually The Barnsley Wednesday as far as I care. They chose not to associate themselves with the city until forty years after our establishment, so there was only one original team in Sheffield.

pommpey

Which is why I find it 'odd' that some Blades get right upset when some in the game call us 'Sheffield'.

Personally I'd treat it as a compliment. Seeing the other ..ckers aren't.

 

[United Aren't Back.]

Sheffield FC and the Sheffield Football Association were devoutly amateur and campaigned long and hard against the rise of professionalism coming from Lancashire fuelled by Scottish players. If they could have evolved into the professional game Sheffield FC could well have been a major Premier League team today.

I talk in the book about the input from Sheffield FC when the newly formed professional Sheffield United were formed. Of the 22 players who answered the advertisement to play eleven were former SFC players. Indeed a Sheffield press report in 1890 said that ‘ I believe that there was a proposal made to the players of the Sheffield Club to link them selves with a professional organisation in the early part of the season, but longer heads and wiser counsels prevailed, so that the old club, whose Sheffield football traditions can never fade remains, as I earnestly hope it never may , the Amateur Sheffield Club.’

Ever may rather than never may?

 

[Harry Thickett]

Ever may rather than never may?

Yes -good spot ! that quote is 'ever may'

 

[super_pig]

Don't really get the argument about aversion to professionalism being the major cause of Sheffield football's historic problems?

If so, why so much success early on in football's history (at a time when the amateur/professional divide would have been so much more important)?

Whatever the answer, your book looks great (& I'm certainly aiming to buy it).

P.S. Do you cover the Zulus, mentioned in that Blizzard article? Fascinating in terms of football's early relationship with Empire/what was going on in South Africa at the time, especially with Kops being called Kops (which I know relates to the battle of Spion Kop, but little more than that).

spion kop was a steep embankment in the boer war.. we took what we thought was the main hill but found there was a bigger one next to it.. the boers used it to pick off our lads., my great grandfather was shot there (but lived)