TERRA, GULLS AND DAFT

 

It's a marine club, must be.....seafaring? fishing, ship building, naval, holidays!

This is the Weymouth FC badge, a club  that I have been to with a teaching friend, when we used to take our sixth formers to the coast for an "Exeat" weekend...the students sacrificed their weekend slumming it at home, for a few days with their sixth form mates, boys and girls, and generous teachers at the seaside! Well, it was two us with 15 teenagers....what better than offering a footy match on the Saturday afternoon. Not everyone came, it wasn 't compulsory; the non-footy lovers were probably making mischief in the town. 

If only I could remember who The Terras played that afternoon...we had several visits over the years. Other visits included to the local HM Youth Offenders establishment, where we played a game of footy against some of the better behaved inmates! For the rest of the weekend it was coastal walks, fossils at Lyme Regis andB beautiful pebbles on Chesil Beach, eating ice creams....fish and chips......what fun!

I'm getting excited about Weymouth FC because they have just played a Conference League game  at home, against local rivals Torquay United, The Gulls. Torquay was a Football League club until 2007 and are fresh from thumping Conference rivals, Yeovil Town, 6-1 on Boxing Day. Today's game went 0-2 to Torquay, 1-2, 1-3, 2-3, 3-3, 3-4. The Gulls were top and Terras 22nd as play started today, a good "local rivals" game. The next time they meet will be April 10th 2021.

Weymouth FC, founded in 1890, is nick-named the Terras due to their terracotta team colours. The club was a founder member of the Dorset League (how many of you knew Weymouth was located in Dorset?). The club worked its way through the Western League, Southern League in the 1920s and then went "bust", reforming and losing their ground, the local recreation ground, to the Second World War effort. One way and another, the club got sorted and has made good progress in the National League. Their next fixture is home against "The Spitfires", Eastleigh FC, from Hampshire. They last drew 0-0 with Eastleigh away on the 28th December. Torquay play their return to Yeovil next.

Weymouth's first FA Cup run was in 1893-4 when they beat Cowes (Isle of Wight) 0-2 away in the QRd1, then in QRd2 beat Chesham after a 1-1 away, 4-3 at home in the replay. In QRd3 they were beaten by Swindon Town 0-4. 

Swindon then lost to Reading in the QRd4 0-2, Reading JUST lost to Preston NE 18-0 away in R1, Preston lost to Liverpool 3-2 in R2, Liverpool lost to Bolton W 2-0 in Rd3, Bolton W beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 in the Semi-final and then met Notts County and were well beaten 4-1 by the first Second Division club to win the Cup at Goodison Park. 

County of course, is the oldest league club 1862 and this remains their one major triumph.

This is Harry Butler Daft, educated at Trent College, he played for Notts County and helped them win the Cup that day. He played over a 100 games for Notts County as a winger and was influential in their Cup victory. With 5 caps for England at football and 3 goals, he also played cricket for England and lacrosse for the North. In his first class debut for Nottinghamshire v The MCC, he was bowled by W.G. Grace for 23. 

His father also played county cricket and Harry played 190 times for the county.