This weekend my daughter gets married,
on Cup Final Day!! I tried to introduce football to her from an early
age and even took her to an FA Cup Final, Arsenal v Sheffield
Wednesday on May 15th 1993, she was 14. Clearly it had
little effect. The available date for the wedding took
precedence-fair enough??
Whilst indulging in the Sunday Times,
last Sunday,my wife (keeping it in the family) read the “Where was
I?” competition and told me about Gladstone Adams, one of the
clues to the eventual answer which was Whitley Bay.
Gladstone made a name for himself
inventing the windscreen wiper. HOW?
On April 25th 1908 he drove to
the Crystal Palace ground in a 1904 Daracq-Caron motorcar to see
Newcastle United play Wolverhampton Wanderers in the FA Cup Final.
The car drew much attention that it was left in a car showroom while
Gladstone was at the match. Nearly 75,000 people watched the game.
On the way back, it snowed and
Gladstone had to keep stopping the car to clear the windscreen. On
April 1911 he patented the windscreen wiper which was never
manufactured but the prototype can been seen in the Newcastle's
Discovery Museum.
As well as being a photographer, he
invented with his brother the sliding rowing seat and the
trafficator, a car indicator.
Wolves won 3-1 and their first goal was
scored by the Reverend Kenneth Hunt and Corinthian. Hedley and
Harrison scored the other two.
Below is Adams and a photograph of a Newcastle player taken by him.
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