NON-LEAGUE WEEKEND

After exciting you with David Jack yesterday, today I read in this week's Non-League Paper that on Saturday, John Stead, aged 36, had come on as a sub for his new club Harrogate Town in the National League. Playing away against Yeovil Town, Harrogate snatched a 2-1 win and Stead came on with minutes to go, no doubt in an attempt to manage the game with his team 2-0 up. Yeovil managed to score their consolation goal after 90+3 mins, when Stead was on the pitch!! Fat lot if good that did then,  but 3pts are 3pts.

Stead, a bit of a local hero in West Yorkshire, has played at Huddersfield T, Blackburn R, Sunderland, Derby, Sheffield United, Ipswich T, Coventry C, Bristol City, Huddersfield again, Oldham A, Bradford C, Notts County and now Harrogate. He did feature in an odd England u21 international.

The Non-League Paper also featured photographer David Bauckham, who specialises in Non-League Football and his "website" is worth having a look at. The paper's centre-spread included some of his snaps particularly a familiar scene of football (OR soccer as it sometimes to referred to...an OC first used the abbreviation of Association Football to distinguish it from Rugby, or rugger!) being played at Charterhouse School. The photo below showed the school's main pitch, Big Ground, where football has been played since 1872.


 Big Ground 21st Century. Not the NLP photo!
If you happen to get the NLP, the photo was taken last year and used for the backdrop. The match shown was of last year's early round tie in the Arthur Dunn Cup, the old boys version of the FA Cup! which the OCs won. AND by the way, the OCs were not in blue! They wear pink, magenta and navy!
A view from Big Ground, OCs v The School. 1892.

The Old Carthusians won in the FA Cup in 1881 beating the Old Etonians at the Oval 3-0. The next year, Blackburn Rovers featured in the cup and this saw the arrival of the professionals in the competition and demise of the amateurs! The OCs and OEs eventually bowed out of the "professionals' cup" and joined the newly formed  FA Amateur Cup,  which the OCs won twice in the 1890s, a success the OEs never managed.

Bear in mind then, that both the Old Carthusians and the Old Etonians have been FA Cup winners, so the tradition goes on, they play each other still but at a much lower tier!!