ORGAN TUNING ON A WEDNESDAY

I was in the Penistone library this afternoon looking for a history of my local village church, which probably only dates back to the mid 19^th century. A friend of mine who is a leading expert on church organs, was assessing the worth of the local Carlecotes organ and this led me to want to find out more about the church, the Hall and the village. The organ, a James Conacher creation, is not to be sniffed at. It's a beauty, I am told by Mr Wood.

Rooting around in the Penistone library, I was shown the Danesfield collection, left by a local family, and this was not catalogued, so it was with luck that I came across a scrapbook showing a couple of line drawings of the captains of Thurlstone FC and Rotherham Wellgate FC who were competing in a local cup competition, the Clegg Challenge Shield.

J. Charles Clegg was a Sheffield “Wednesday “footballer in 1867 who stayed loyal to the developing league team and became club chairman and then FA chairman and president. Originally a cricket club, Wednesday CC (founded in 1820) used football to keep fit in the winter months and by 1868, Wednesday had formed a serious football club.

Clegg had been in the fifth "unofficial" international playing as a forward, versus Scotland at the Oval on February 24th 1872. He scored the only goal. He then played in the first official England international side against Scotland in Glasgow on November 30th, becoming Wednesday's first official international. It ended 0-0.

In 1876 the club acquired the services of Scot, James Lang, who was not paid directly but had a job at the club and therefore became, reputedly, the first ever professional footballer in England.

In the scrapbook, there were more line drawings of an FA Cup final played at the distinctive Kennington Oval (gas holder in sight) between the Wednesday and the then, very successful Blackburn Rovers. Wednesday had just won the 1889 Football Alliance league and in 1890 made the final but lost heavily to Rovers 1-6.

The club was elected to the Football League in 1892 and won the FA Cup in 1896 beating Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Originally playing at Bramall Lane, professionalism led the club to Olive Grove and then in 1899-1900 to Owlerton (the Owls) on the edge of the city, where the Hillsborough Stadium was built.