Good Ebay News

Yesterday I said that I had some news but didn't want to say until today. This was all because it was about an item that appeared on ebay and I was bidding on. Not that I would lose it to anyone reading this blog, but simply because I hadn't won it yet.

It was a Sports newspaper from 1892 containing a large interview (so I'm lead to believe) with Charlie Booth and a photograph of him too.

One of the best things about researching Fred is discovering other forgotten hero's of victorian football. I do find it facination stuff. They are far more intereting than any footballers around today, and in my biased opinion more interesting than nearly any set of plaers from any period of the game.

Chrlie Booth is one such Character.

He was the Gainsboough Trinity left winger before Fred. He used to train fred when Fred was 15/16 years old. He used to teach Fred in sprint racing but also spent many hours kicking long passes to eachother ona large field.

Fred used to steal eggs from the family hen coop to pay Charlie for his coaching, but he got caught by his parent! All was forgiven when fred started winning races and bringing back prize money.

Fred played against Charlie Booth for Gainsborough Wednedsday and with him on 3 occassions for Trinity.

This important mento of Fred is someone who got lost in history, but he went on to play league football for Wolves and then for Arsenal, which he was made captain. Unfortunately not much has ever been discovered about Charlie. And this magazine may well turn out to be the only thing that has ever been written at length on him.

Obviously I was keen to get hold of it. I can tell you that it took some very nifty ebay bidding to get hold of it within my budget. But I managed to stay cool and out thoght a very keen bidder, who would probably hve gone higher than me if he hd the opportunity.

I may well sell the article once I've finished with it though, as it was a little pricey for what it is. The going rate for these things is never over £10, but this was quite a bit more. Not sure why someone else would be so interested.