Watford

Lots of work being done towards writing the Watford Chapter. The Southern United one has just about been done. Both are good stories with suprising detail. Southern united is a very interesting one. Purchased 3 more cigarette cards and planning what nespapers to read this summer in London.

The Journey

So, I’ve found a little time to add some more to the blog. So I thought I’d give a bit of background about how this all started and the journey.

I’m pretty sure that it all started off around 1990, I would have been 9 or 10 at the time and was in Gainsborough at my grandparents (Spicksley) house. For some reason, that year I was shown 2 medals and told that they belonged to an old relative and that they were the FA Cup Winners medal and the League Championship winners medal. These medals have long since been sold, infact nothing original remains of Fred’s in the family. Of course this would have not been the case had it come my way!

The Spicksley side of the family were never into football and I quickly worked out that one of the medals was not the FA Cup winners medal at all, but an English League Representative medal V Scotland in 1895. I should say here that the name Spicksley is not miss-spelt, nor does it mean that I am unrelated. As detailed in our book there were a few spellings of Spicksley through some illiterate famil members back in the Victorian times, well, namely Freds dad. Fred was a Spiksley and his brother was a Spicksley, I’m from Fred’s brothers side. There are no direct decentants of Fred as his son Fred Jnr had no children.

That day I took some rubbings of the medals and the research started soon after. Back then I was only 9 years old. I looked in some basic books and got the basic facts. Mainly the Newspaper reproduction style books that were all the vogue at that time and a couple of large books by Bryon Butler. I still have them and the medal rubbings.

I soon discovered Fred had played for England and Scored the winning goals in the FA Cup final. For a 9 year old I didn’t think I’d be able to find much more out but was obviously delighted with what I had found.

I think my uncle phoned Sheffield Wednesday around this time and for some reason ended up speaking the manager at the time – Million Pound Man Trevor Francis. I don’t think he liked Trevor as he was not very helpful. If I was Trevor I don’t think I would have cared either!

Anyway, they sent me some poor photocopies out of Farnsworth’s book. This gave me the first ever picture that I ever saw of Fred. It was distorted and poor quality. Still, I loved it at the time. It was the first one of Fred in a Wednesday Line-up in 1891. I have a lovely reproduction of it now.

With a these few bits of information I wrote my first article about Fred at the age of 11. It was for a school English project. I still have it and it is full of mistakes due to assumptions I made at the time. I think I had Fred winning the League title twice, not knowing that he left Wednesday after their first championship victory.

Some time later I realised that you could order books to be sent to your local library. So I spent some time filling in these little postcards with a list of football books. A few on the FA Cup but mostly Sheffield Wednesday History books by Keith Farnsworth. Gradually the books started to arrive, they took a month or so for the library to find and get to the small Uttoxeter library. If only I had asked my dad to take me to Sheffield Library at the time!

There have been some significant moments along the way. Reading the pen picture in Farnsworths Complete Record book. It was then that I realised that Fred was not just a decent Victorian footballer who won a few things. This was obviously a special player. I think I bored some of my schoolmates to death back then.

After reading all the Wednesday books and meeting Jason Dickinson the information did start to dry up a little as I progressed through school. I’d done well for a youngster, probably having 2 or 3 ring binders of info and pictures by the age of 16.

Through A’Levels and University not a lot got done. I thought I’d got everything I would ever find and I gradually got interested in other things. Mainly music and my artwork. It was Music that ultimately led to possibly the biggest most important discovery that would influence the book.

In 2001 I visited Glastonbury Festival for the 2^nd time, mainly to celebrate the end of University. Whilst looking through the market stalls with friends we came across a second hand book stall. It wasn’t anything particularly special, but art students like 2^nd hand books. I honestly would have left the stall within one minute, it just so happened that I opened the long line of books up to a book called ‘To the Palace for the Cup’. I obviously know what is was and what may be in it.

Flicking to 1896 as soon as possible I discovered a double page that was almost entirely covered by an etching of Fred scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup Final. The £8 or £10 the book cost was found very quickly I can tell you.

So after a good 6 years of assuming nothing more would come my way all of a sudden was this picture. Not only that, but the picture was referenced to a newspaper, the Illustrated News. Also the Author was easy to get in touch with and he directed me to Andy, a brilliant guy who’s passion for Victorian football and in particular the Crystal Palace FA Cup Finals is just wonderful.

I soon realised that there were hundreds of newspapers to look in and my contact list of grew. I was in the Newspaper Library in London for hours on end. I spent a fortune on reprographics. I’ve travelled up and down the UK researching the story and amassed 14 hefty volumes, 4 of which contain all the photographs and illustrations for the book. I think we are looking at 350 pictures at the moment. Over 50 of which are photo’s of Fred.

The biggest moment so far for me had to be finding the Video of Fred on Craven Cottage in 1931. It took nearly a week from knowing it existed to actually being able to play it. Technology on websites in 2002 was not what it is now! The video is now on Youtube and was featured in the Guardian newspaper. It has been one long adventure really, with some years where little has happened for various reasons and then years of mega activity. It is all starting to come together now and I can’t wait for the final volume to come out.

Been a while

Well, it's been a long time since my last post and inevitably gives the impression that not much has happened. This isn't the case. Since Christmas the book has come on at greater pace. The aim is to have a fully completed draft for December and this is starting to look realistic.

The writing has inevitably led to little to report on here as all the information is nolonger new to me and I get less excited by it than if I have just found it. There are occassional realisations and being reminded of things that I'd forgotten.

I know this book has taken too long to write. Most other people would be able to knock the thing together in a year or two. But the truth is that there is so much information that we need to do justice to Fred and Victorian football.

I should be doing a final trip to London during the summer to complete a little bit of research. I have also been bulding up my collection of Cigarette cards for the book. The intention has always been to heavily illustrate the book and to put as many faces to names as possible. People seem to like cigarette cards so hopefully they will enjoy seeing them in the book. I was really pleased to get hold of a card of Nicol, the Bradford player who broke 2 of Freds ribs with a diliberately poor challenge.

My most recent purchase was a card of Jack Earp, the Wednesday captain in 1896 FA Cup Final. It is a very rare card printed in 1897. I have never seen a card from this set ever before. Catalogue price was £85 but you can pick cards up cheaper these days with ebay so I got it a lot cheaper than this.

I also bought my first Baines card. I have always wanted one, although I have never seen one for sale for any of the teams that Fred Played for. Actually, this isn't quite true. The Glossop one went for too much money and the Sheffield Wednesday one wasn't that good and dated after Fred had left the club, picturing a player Fred never played with. Gainsborough Trinity is the one I am after. The one I bought was for Lincoln City. During Fred's time at Gainsborough Trinity there were many local battles with City and this Baines Card will slot in nicely there.

With regards to the writing. All England International chapters have been written now with the excelption of the Billy Meradith Wales match in 1898. All the FA Cup 1896 run has been written apart from the Final. The final is a massive task, far too much research that needs sifting through.

Leeds City Cahpter is written and Southern United is nearly complete pending final research in the summer. Most of Gainsborough Trinity and early days is written. Left to do is the 2nd Division Championship winning season, some of 1903, Most of Fred's coaching carear, English League Representative matches, And then finally, his later life. Obviously the coaching and later life research is thinner and shouldn't take as long as what has already been wirtten.

There will also be a section about significant people fred played with, a reference section at the back where pen pictures will be for the players that we have come to love whilst reading about Fred, as mentioned in previous posts.