Midland League 1890-91

My dad has been writing the Midland League Champions chapter today. It's a good story. The Midland League was a strong league that Fred played in for Gainsborough Trinity. He won it with them the season before he left to join The Wednesday.

My dad has just got to the point in the season where Fred agrees to join Wednesday. He still played out the rest of the season with Trinity.

The transfer to Wednesday is a story that has been told many many times. We have got Fred's version, which is much more detailed than other versions. He tells it in his 1920 autobiography.

The Midland League could be considered the 2nd division of football at that time as there was only one league for the Football League at the time. The next rung of football down was spread across two leagues, The Midland League and the Alliance. Many consider the Alliance to be the stronger of the two, and in truth I think it did contain a higher proportion of strong teams, including The Wednesday and Nottingham Forest. However, the top few of the Midland would probably be as good as the top teams in the Alliance and therefore the Midland should not be considered a 3rd division.