Sometimes you discover things that throw other info out of the window. The internet (well perople who put things on it) has always suggested that Fred was in Ruhleben prisoner of war camp for a short time. This was obviously great for us as it was really easy to research and also quite an interesting place.
However, we have recently discovered that this is not the case. A journalist, called Mark Rowe, who keeps a blog discovered an interview with Fred in 1914, where he tells of his escape from Germany.Mark was helpful in getting back in touch with me and I have located the full article and it's a brilliant story.
If we had completed our book last year we would have got some fact wrong due to unreliable sources of info. Now we have the Fred account of what really happened to him and there can't be anything better than that.
Here's a link of Mark's blog on Fred. He didn't know about Fred before and just found this one story interesting. I'm very pleased he wrote about it.
http://www.sportsbooks.ltd.uk/blog/post_details/159_freds-amazing-german-fooling-knee
Saturday 30 June 2012
Friday 26 August 2011
New Cigarette Card
Hi,
I have just managed to secure this cigarette card of Fred and thought I would update the blog.
This is the first time I have seen this card, although it is of a fairly common photograph of Fred. Similar to the Wills cards, which came out at the same time and used the same photographs, however the Clarke's cards are much harder to come by.
A wills card will set you back between £5-£20 with some of the high profile players costing more. Billy Meredith went of around the £50 mark not so long ago.
The Clarke's cards start at £30.
For the most part ebay has reduced the cost of cigarette cards but there are still some that fetch big money. A Cohen and Weenan card of GO Smith went for £206 a couple of months ago.
I'm not 100% sure but I think the Cohen and Weenan cards may have been the first football cigarette cards. they appeared around 1897-98 time and I believe that there is one of Fred in the set. Part of me hopes that it never comes up on ebay as I'm not sure I want to spend that £150 on a cigarette card, maybe Fred isn't worth as much as that. I do own the Jack Earp card from the set and I didn't pay any where near that money for that, but have always considered it a lucky purchase.
There are only 6 cards of Fred (not including the Wednesday 1896 winners card, which is worth £1) I now own 3 out of the 6, with the Guinea Gold card as my 3rd. Guinea Gold cards are my favourite types and seem to go from anything from £1 to £100. The Archie Brash and Alec Brady cards are very nice cards.
Things are still moving with the book I'm pleased to report, but nothing much to report other than that.
If you are a Sheffield Wednesday supporter you may like to check out Jason Dickinson and John Brodie's new book 'The Complete Record'http://www.dbpublishing.co.uk/buy/sheffield-wednesday-the-complete-record_1105002501.htm
I have recently moved house and it's been sent to the wrong address, so I have not seen it yet. I have been reliably informed that it is a cracker, but that is what I have come to expect from these two. With '100 years at Hillsborough' and 'The Wednesday Boys' both being superb and unrivaled volumes.
Tuesday 5 April 2011
The Canadians
I have purchased a photograph of the 1891 Canadian team that toured England. Mainly to illustrate a story where a player called Dalton bit the ear of a Sheffield Wednesday player.
Dalton could not of been playing in the match that the photograph is from and is pictured stood at the side in a coat and bowler hat. He looks a bit brute! It's always nice to put a face to the names in the stories. Those of you who have read this blog will know that I have worked hard to make sure that key people do have a picture in the book.
Dalton remained in the uK and played for Sunderland. He is also recored as possibly being the first ever player to score a penalty kick in an 1891 match in Belfast.
Dalton could not of been playing in the match that the photograph is from and is pictured stood at the side in a coat and bowler hat. He looks a bit brute! It's always nice to put a face to the names in the stories. Those of you who have read this blog will know that I have worked hard to make sure that key people do have a picture in the book.
Dalton remained in the uK and played for Sunderland. He is also recored as possibly being the first ever player to score a penalty kick in an 1891 match in Belfast.
1894
I am excited to say that a photograph of the 1894 Scotland V England match has surfaced and will be included in our book. This is a highly significant image. Not only is it the oldest surviving photograph of Celtic Park but it is, to my knowledge, the oldest surviving photograph of an international football match!!! That is pretty special if true.
The photograph has surfaced from the Celtic historians and I have exchanged a few pictures with them in return. My photographs of Celtic park (which were all of the 1898 International match were described as breathtaking and groundbreaking!!! Well that is nice to know.
The photograph has surfaced from the Celtic historians and I have exchanged a few pictures with them in return. My photographs of Celtic park (which were all of the 1898 International match were described as breathtaking and groundbreaking!!! Well that is nice to know.
Friday 25 March 2011
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.
Thursday 17 March 2011
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 2nd 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 2nd 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.
Tuesday 15 March 2011
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.
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.
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