Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Just in from my friends at COPA

Earlier this year we launched a football shirt in collaboration with the ultimate Number 10; Jari Litmanen. He also signed a shirt, and we can give that special piece away to one of our followers on social media.

For a chance to win, go to our Instagram, Facebook or Twitter page and follow further instructions there. We will announce the winner via our social media channels next week!

Good luck!

Social Media Celebrity Simon AKA as “Man Behaving Dadly” wrote today of a fantastic initiative that apparently the Premier League has turned down.

” In their infinite wisdom, the Premier League has decided to block an idea from top-flight clubs to all wear away kits on Boxing Day and raise money for Shelter, a homelessness and housing support charity.

The #NoHomeKit initiative would have generated an absolute fortune for this very worthy cause, so I guess we will all just have to do something about it online instead and hopefully make them see sense!”

So, in inimitable Simon style he has set a donation link on his Facebook page to raise money for shelter. For those who don’t know Simon he is despised by Nigel Farage and other half-lives for his outstanding work for good causes including raising more than £100,000 for the RNLI. Despite the fact that Simon is an Arsenal fan, I am delighted to support him and I have offered him an Arsenal shirt to raffle to raise funds.

Please check his Facebook page to see the whole story .

Around The World In 95 Games

The amazing story of Islington Corinthians 1937-38 World Tour

A season-long round the world tour through Europe, India, China, Japan and the United States with 95 football matches along the way surely every footballer’s ultimate fantasy? And yet this extraordinary journey was actually undertaken, not by one of today’s super teams but more than seventy years ago by a party of British amateur footballers espousing Corinthian ideals.

Here for the first time is a full account of that astonishing enterprise, an event of real significance in the history of the sport which only now receives the recognition it deserves. Drawing on the reminiscences of members of the touring party and on contemporary press reports, this book invites a thorough re-evaluation of what was undoubtedly the greatest of the so-called ‘missionary’ tours.

But this is far more than a bare record of teams, dates and scores. The text and illustrations together form a snapshot of a different world, one which was about to be engulfed in war and disappear for ever. The players’ observations, sometimes startlingly candid, are very much of their time and provide an evocative and frequently amusing commentary on the progress of this unique odyssey.

Interesting facts about the Islington Corinthians

The Islington Corinthians’ are the only football team to be attacked by the British Army in the Khyber Pass.The Islington Corinthians’ are the only football team to be taken on an Opium Den raid by the Hong Kong Police.The Islington Corinthians’ are the only football team to be arrested for curfew violation in Japanese occupied Shanghai in 1938.The Islington Corinthians’ were entertained in Hollywood by the most famous movie stars of the 1930’s including David Niven, Victor McLagen and Hedy Lamarr.  

To learn more and/or order the book please visit  www.dognduck.net

Football Shirt Friday is back on Friday 19 November 2021

Join Harry Kane, Amy Christophers and Harry Pinero and support the Bobby Moore Fund this Football Shirt Friday.

Sign up and get your workplace, school or friends and family to wear a football shirt, share a selfie on social media using #FootballShirtFriday and donate to help tackle bowel cancer. 

Wear, share, donate.

Register here ….. full details here

Donate to Football Shirt Friday

The best way to raise money to tackle bowel cancer is to sign up to join the Football Shirt Friday squad, but if you don’t have a football shirt, don’t worry! You can still donate to help tackle bowel cancer. 

A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words

When the Covid-19 lockdown started in March 2020 it forced many of us to finally sort out the plethora of boxes littered around our houses. For Manny Hawks that meant finding space for his childhood football sticker albums that he had never brought himself to get rid of. Without the regular captive audiences of his secondary school history classes he thought why not turn some of these snapshots into something else? With a bad pun, a picture of Wimbledon man Peter Fear and a blank Word document ‘A Sticker’s Worth 500 Words’ was born.

Within a month close friends Richard Allinson and Emlyn Jones began contributing their stories and the team was complete when Mat Jolin-Beech added his first post in May. 211 posts and over 60,000 views since the blog went live we’re still reminiscing on the greats of the game, the unsung heroes and just about anyone else who happened to turn out for Crystal Palace, Grimsby Town, Reading or Manchester United since the late 1980s. For every Roberto Baggio there’s a James Harper, for every Eric Cantona there’s an Ivano Bonetti. Whoever it might be there’s an old football sticker and a story or two for good measure.

We’re happy to do requests, particularly about any former star with an exceptional haircut, and are always up for a bit of friendly back and forth on our social media platforms of Twitter and Instagram as long as we can find a suitably classic adhesive image of the players of your choice.

All of our posts can be found here: https://astickersworth500words.blogspot.com/

Join us on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/Sticker500

Check our our Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/sticker500/?hl=en

Some of our most popular posts can be found here:

Roberto Baggio: https://astickersworth500words.blogspot.com/2020/03/252-roberto-baggio-italy-panini-england.html

Neville Southall: https://astickersworth500words.blogspot.com/2020/04/163-neville-southall-everton-merlins.html

David Batty: https://astickersworth500words.blogspot.com/2020/10/197-david-batty-leeds-united-merlins-fa.html

Tony Yeboah: https://astickersworth500words.blogspot.com/2020/04/127-tony-yeboah-leeds-united-merlins.html

Charles Alcock & The Little Tin Idol

150 YEARS OF THE FA CUP 1871-72 TO 2021-22

The first FA Cup known as ‘The Little Tin Idol’

On the 26th February 1867, the London Football Association held their Annual General Meeting at the Freemasons Tavern in Covent Garden and were in complete disarray. There were just six attendees representing four clubs, all sat around the giant oak table. Arthur Pember, Ebenezer Cobb Morley and Robert Graham were attending on behalf of Barnes Football Club. Charles Alcock was there representing the Wanderers Club; Walter Cutbill was present on behalf of the Crystal Palace Club and William Chesterman had made the long journey south from Yorkshire on behalf of the Sheffield Football Club. This was probably the lowest point of the London FA’s short existence and to make matters worse Arthur Pember proceeded to resign as President.

Having created the thirteen original rules of Association Football in 1863, it seemed the FA’s work was done. Ebenezer Cobb Morley, the FA’s newly elected President, suggested the members should consider dissolving the Association forthwith. However, there was one gentleman sat at the table who was having none of this. This was to be a new beginning for the Association and the new winter sport of football was set to become the most popular sport in the land. The gentleman’s name was: ‘CHARLES WILLIAM ALCOCK’

Charles Alcock was just twenty-five years of age. He had learnt to play football on the muddy fields of Harrow School scoring the winning goal in the ‘Cock House Cup’ Final in 1859. Upon leaving school, he formed one of the first football clubs, ‘The Forest Club’, with his brother John Forster Alcock and another Harrovian, the Reverend John Pardoe. Despite now being married, Charles was playing football two or three times a week either for his own Wanderers Club or for other local sides. He was also a sports journalist working for ‘The Sportsman’ newspaper and was aware of the success of a knockout tournament, ‘The Youdan Cup’, which had taken place in Sheffield.

Eager to ensure that the London Football Association remained the ‘top dog’ when administering the English game and, conscious of the threat of the newly formed Rugby Football Union in January 1871, Charles Alcock announced:

“It is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association for which all clubs belonging to the Association should be invited to compete.”

So, on the 23rd October 1871, the first ever FA Cup draw took place. The competition would eventually feature just fifteen teams:
The Wanderers v. Harrow Chequers
Barnes v. Civil Service
Crystal Palace v. Hitchin
Donington Grammar School v. Queen’s Park
Royal Engineers v. Reigate Priory
Upton Park v. Clapham Rovers
Maidenhead v. Great Marlow
Hampstead Heathens (a bye)

The first ties took place on the 11th November 1871 and here we are, 150 years later, ready to celebrate the most famous Cup competition in the world. What happened in this tournament? Who would get through to the first-ever FA Cup Final? What were the rules? How did a team from Scotland and also a small school team from Lincolnshire, come to enter the competition?

And so, the inaugural FA Cup competition kicked off 150 years ago. It featured disallowed goals, late kick-offs, extra-time, replays, disputed decisions, cup-tied players and teams playing ‘ringers.’ This ensured it would become the most famous domestic Cup competition in the world.

To find out more read my new book:
‘Charles Alcock & The Little Tin Idol’
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently published (3 Oct. 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 330 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8479058967
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 2.11 x 20.32 cm
Price : £8.99 plus £2.99 postage and packing

Now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. For direct orders and signed copies, please email Ian Chester at: ianchesteri@btinternet.com

About the Author

Ian Chester is an independently published author whose writing experience was developed in the world of football fanzines, local non-league football programmes and magazines about living in France. Ian is also a keen historian and has had articles published in local history magazines.

Ian’s first book was entitled ‘The Green Toothed Witch and the Yellow Canary’ and told the story of his 5,560km journey around France following the 1919 Tour de France on the 100th anniversary of the yellow jersey.

His second book ‘Charles Alcock and The Little Tin Idol’ is a fitting tribute to the man who created the first-ever FA Cup 150 years ago.

A History Of Clapham Rovers Association Football Club 1869-1914

The Clapham Rovers were the fifth club to lift the F.A. Cup, yet little is known about them, including the fact that they actually existed for 45 years. An elite club for over a decade, their decline was even quicker.

For the first time, the story of the Rovers (association club) is now told from their first match under F.A. rules at Hitchin, through to World War One when the club suspended operations and never re-emerged at the end of the hostilities.

This book charts the fortunes of the club with the pinnacle being in 1880 when they lifted the F.A. Cup and later its failed attempts to re-establish itself via the Mid-Surrey League and the A.F.A. The mystery of the Rovers various home grounds is addressed and the exact location on Wandsworth Common is identified for the first time, along with many later grounds as the club embarked on a semi-nomadic existence.

There are biographies of some of the clubs leading lights and the players who lost their lives in
World War One.
The Book includes:
· 200+ Pages
· Photographs
· Full statistics of results and appearances
· Profiles of 20+ players
Only available to pre-order via www.dognduck.net and you will receive a discounted price and your name at the back of the book.

Author

This is Rob Cavallini’s twelfth book having previously published books about the Corinthian-Casuals,
Barnet, the Wanderers and Islington Corinthians world tour, which were largely a result of his love of
pre-World War Two amateur football history. The lockdown period provided the author with
opportunity to develop a number of projects of which Clapham Rovers is the first to be completed.

Simon Ellinas has been a friend of mine for more years than probably either of us care to remember. He is a well-know caricaturist and has also been a huge supporter of the whole TheShirt project all the way back to 2009 capturing both Bjørn Heidenstrøm (above) and myself (below)

He is currently working on a huge project attributing a caricature to every London underground station. Obviously London is not only football and his characters come from the world of TV and cinema, the arts and literature, royalty and politics. There are however more than a team of the greats of London football over the past 60 years from Sir Alf Ramsey through Sir Trevor Brooking right up to modern day stars such as Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling.

Simon is available for commissions and is able to attend all events corporate or private. You can make contact through his main website.

Here are the makings of a title challenging team. Southgate, Wenger or Sir Alf for manager?

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The Stories of the First Black Players to Represent the 92 League Clubs

By Bill Hern & David Gleave

Ninety-two chapters tell the unique stories of the first black players to represent each of the Football League clubs.

A new perspective on the lives, careers and experiences of groundbreaking black footballers in England.

Four years of original research have not only identified these history makers but have also uncovered a wealth of fascinating and often eye-opening personal tales. This collection of rich and hugely varied stories spans the period from Arthur Wharton’s debut for Sheffield United in 1895 right up to the present day, covering over 130 years of social history. They include personal interviews with many of the players – including Viv Anderson MBE, Chris Kamara, Tony Ford MBE, Neville Chamberlain and Roland Butcher – and family members of stars from the more distant past.

Football’s Black Pioneers features an incredible variety of emotive human stories and forgotten characters, together with a powerful theme of struggle against now-unthinkable attitudes, and the revelation of many unexpected historical facts.

Read Football’s Black Pioneers and you will discover:
 The first black player to represent England at any level (and it isn’t Anderson, Cunningham or Odeje)
 The player who was picked for England, then dropped when the selectors discovered he was black
 The only black Busby Babe
 The footballer/psychologist who served 12 years in a US jail for acid attacks on his wife and her attorney
 The first black player to play for Wales – 50 years before Viv Anderson appeared for England
 The clubs that went over 100 years before fielding a black player
 The first black player to play cricket for England, as well as a Football League side
 The first Jamaican to play in the First Division, who became a TV personality in the Caribbean
 The player attributed as the first Australian to play in the Football League – who has no connection whatsoever with that country
 The player who went on to become the first black manager in England
 The player who went on to become a comedian and showbiz personality
 The player who made over 1,000 League appearances (second only to Peter Shilton)
 The player whose career was ended when he was run over by team-mates
 The family whose origins we have traced back to enslavement in Jamaica that has provided one past and one current England international

What they say:

• “The human stories are pretty unbelievable. Really, really fascinating to read.” (Nick Hatton, BBC Radio Leeds)
• “There are always stories that crop up that make you scratch your head and think, really? Is that what was going on back in the day?” (Jules Bellerby, BBC Radio York)
• “Learn about the unsung black trailblazers of the game. ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ profiles the first black player at each of the 92 league clubs.” (Kick it Out)
  
  ….and
  
  “Bill Hern and David Gleave, authors of Football’s Black Pioneers, say they set out four years ago to write a dip-in-dip-out tome that would appeal to sports fans. Yet the result is only ostensibly about the (not always) beautiful game. Rather, what emerges over 92 wildly different mini-biographies, is a far wider social history about the black British experience over the last 130 years, touching on everything from slavery to Windrush and black lives mattering.  Here, writ large in often agonising detail, is racism, prejudice, isolation and the loneliness of going where others have not yet been.” The Independent
  

The book is available through
https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/shop/ and Amazon

The authors

Bill Hern and David Gleave are two of the historians behind the Historycal Roots project, centring on black British history.

Bill and David are lifelong followers of Sunderland and Crystal Palace, respectively. Their tribute to football’s black pioneers is a celebration of the courage of those young men whose suffering and ritual humiliation played a part in eventually changing attitudes, paving the way for the black players that would follow.

Paperback: 228 pages Publisher: Conker Editions (31 August 2020)
ISBN-13: 978-1999900854 Size: 148 x 210mm RRP: £16
Website: https://footballs-black-pioneers.com/

Please contact: books@conkereditions.co.uk – 07947 634535
Conker Editions Ltd. 22 Cosby Road, Littlethorpe, Leicester LE19 2HF

Gillingham Legends

Anbody who has stood within 100 yards of me since 1964 (yes almost 60 years ago!) will know that I have been a Gillingham fan all my life. My first ever game was a 1-1 draw against Doncaster Rovers in Division 4 (now League 2) in February 1964 … a season when we won the league for the first time ever. We were unbeaten at home and only conceded 10 goals all season at the Theatre of Farce that is Priestfield Stadium. Away we were equally tight with only 20 against. We actually only won it because we beat second place Carlisle United at home. Not that I was such a statto then but our goal average was 1.967 and theirs was 1.948. We finished equal on 60 points and even though we had scored 59 to their 113 (!) our minisculy better average gave us the title. Fifty seven years later we have climbed approximatley 6 places as we are just above the drop zone in League One. In between more pain than gain with the infamous Wembley play-off defeat against Manchester City and then the six glory years in the Championship. In all that time we have never ever once played Manchester United!

So, as a lifetime fan, you can imagine how excited I was to hear from fellow Gillingham fan James Norley with his Gillingham Legends business. He was kind enough to tell me more ……

FOOTBALL IS A WORK OF ART

What started out as a hobby, has now turned into one of the most sought after gifts for Gillingham football club fans throughout the world – artwork of GFC’s legendary players throughout its time! Created by Football Digital Illustrator Jim Norley, who first started to drawing distinctive digital illustrations of former Gillingham players a few years back, has now launched his debut book ‘Gillingham Legends’ which consists of 175 players and staff to date. 

“I’ve been a Gills fan since the age of 8”, says Jim “I’ve experienced both the darkest and most triumphant days in the club’s history. When I first started the posting the pictures, it became an outlet for fans to reminisce about the old days and share their personal stories and memories. It then soon progressed into the ‘legends’ themselves interacting with me and providing their own personal stories and memories too – which then in turn encouraged me to publish the book. Who knew little old  Gillingham would have such an array of great players over the years!”

The A5 hardback ‘Gillingham Legends’ book containing original digital illustrations of 175 of Gills greatest ever players and staff costs £15. And as well as the book, an Andy Hessenthaler gold plated, soft enamel pin badge which comes with an A7 artwork card is now available and costs £5.

So, what’s next for football fans? In honour of one of the country’s most captivating performances at the UEFA Euros 2020, Jim has now launched his second book, ‘England Legends’ which is dedicated to all the England players and fans capturing all the heroes past and present. 

All the above products and more are available from https://gillinghamlegends.company.site 

You can also follow the Gillingham Legends social media platforms: –

https://www.instagram.com/gillingham_legends/

https://www.facebook.com/GillsLegends

 and Twitter

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