this week

WEll, I went to Sheffield Library and printed off the final match reports needed for Sheffield Wednesday. One was for an 1898 match where Fred missed a penalty in the last minute in a 2-1 defeat against Blackburn.

Fred seemed to forget this penalty in his autobiography. He had told a story of a previous miss much earlier in his Wednesday career and claimed that he never took any more penalties. Ambrose Langley rememebered this miss and that's why I looked it out.

It is unusual for Fred to have forgotten something, becasue out ofthe hundreds of stories he documented this is probably one of only 3/4 that are not exactly how he stated. And out of 20 years of stories I think we can forgive him a couple of facts. Especially as he was writing some of them 30/35 years after the event.

So I did all that work. My dad is getting closer to finishing the 1890-91 Midland League Triumph season chapter. Probably still a couple of weeks off.

Some nice Sheffield United cigarette cards have gone on ebay this week, they are from about 1901/02 and I have certainly not seen them before. Shame they are Shefield United. I like cigarette cards like these becasue they picture players that I will have read about or got a story about.

I recently found one of the Burnley player who broke Fred's ribs in 1893. Hopefully I'll be able to get copywrite passed to include as many cards in the book as possible.



I had to buy an extra potfolio for the photo's/illustrations for the book this week. I think we are close to 350 different illustrations for our book. But how many we manage to pass copywrite on is anyone guess. I'm working hard to get as many original source images as possible. But I think we will have to pay something at some point.

Anyone wondering if there will be any new stuff on Sheffield Wednesday in the book - I promise you that you will be amazed with some of the images that I have that have NEVER been published. (Well some of them were published in the 1890's but good luck finding them.) My greatest find is possibly 4 live action shots of the 1896 FA cup final, or the 5 live action shots inside Olive Grove. There are plenty of treats to be seen!