SHEFFIELD - THE HUB OF FOOTBALL?

I have been to Sheffield Central Library today...NOT to return a book or take one out, don't be silly. The Sheffield and Hallamshire FA, amongst others, were promoting a Football Exhibition to celebrate the remarkable history of the Sheffield and Hallam FCs (two separate and very old clubs). I am not going to bang on about the history of football, but safe to say that this part of the country was a hub of football development. Sheffield needs a football museum, like Manchester.

I came across a wonderful artist who had drawn many of the great players of his era and had all his portraits signed. One of Stanley Matthews was worth a few hundred pounds, so his complete collection needed better security I felt.

The Sheffield Football Club had its fixture card on show from 1884-5 and low and behold the Old Carthusians feature on one of their ventures north on April 9th. Other clubs playing the Sheffield lads included Notts County (the oldest professional club).Nottingham Forest, the Cambridge University Wanderers and a week or so before the OC game, Lincoln City.

A copy of The Sheffield Rules was on display where I met a couple of "southerners". One was a Hendon FC supporter and we had a chat about the great Hendon side that played in several post war FA Amateur Cup Finals and was especially successful between 1965 and 1974.

Then there was Jason Golder's mate from Surrey. Jason is a "retired" Old Carthusian footballer of some substance, his mate living north now and a fan of Hampton Borough. We had a nice chat and swapped numbers.

I came across the Sheffield Sunday Schools' Football Union Shield and several other trophies including the Youdan Cup (see previous blog) and one of Wednesday's goalkeeper Ron Springett's 33 England caps (1959-60), a record for a Sheffield Wednesday player until Nigel Worthington broke it 26 years later.
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Hallam FC was very much on show too, one of the oldest clubs and so was Tapton School, an early winners of the schools cup, Sebastian Coe's place of learning (Seb, of course, a father of an OC).

Local to me was a record of Thurlstone School (John Stones early school), the first winners of the Sheffield Elementary Schools' FA, Clegg Shield, presented by Alderman W.S.Clegg, first played for and won by the school in 1889. It is the oldest inter-school trophy.

By the way there was the FA Cup on show...though I suspect it was a replica, although there was a large security man on show.