YOU HAVE TO GO-BOOK NOW.

AN EXHIBITION OF FOOTBALL DESIGN

AT THE DESIGN MUSEUM, KENSINGTON HIGH STREET, LONDON

with reference to the Design Museum.

Until August 29th (other photos taken by MJB)

Discover the historic and present stories of the beautiful game. Perfect for sporting people and those interested in design, marketing, art work, photogaphy and more-or just a good day out.....

The history of books, boots and jazzy scarves, kits and whistles

tragedies and success

Fabulous football photography from all over the World

Historical events that made the game

This is Archibald Leitch 1924: the famous Scottish architect who was known as the...... 

"Grandfather of Football Design". 

Between 1899 and 1939 he grabbed the opportunity to design 20 football stadiums across Britain including the original stadia of Arsenal, Villa, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U, Preston NE, Glasgow Rangers, Sunderland, Tottenham H and Wolves. 

His early work focussed on the design of FACTORY buildings in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Glasgow, his home city. His landmark stadium, Ibrox was completed in 1899. 

and the origin of  this week's PLAY OFFS (from this blog)

Football League test matches were a series of post-season football play off matches organised by the Football League, to determine the membership of each division, between the worst finishers of the First Division and the best of the Second Division. These matches were first contested at the end of the 1892-3 season following the inaugural season of the Second Division, and were replaced with automatic promotion and relegation from 1898-9.

Unlike the modern-day England Football League SKY BET Play-offs, contested since 1987, which are only contested between the four teams below the automatic promotion places in each division, test matches involved the bottom teams of the First Division and the top teams of the Second Division going head-to-head. This meant that the Second Division champions were not guaranteed top-flight football, as was the case with Small Heath in 1893. On no occasion have all of the Second Division and First Division sides been either respectively promoted and relegated or remained in the same division in any season through this system.

From 1893 to 1895, six teams competed for three places in the top division. Below is the 1893 Test Match Series. Each team played one match against the corresponding team from the other division (Second Division champions versus the bottom First Division side, and so on) at a neutral venue, usually close to the designated home team. The winners of each game were considered for election for First Division membership for the following season, whilst the losers were invited to the Second Division. SO Newton Heath (now Manchester Utd) beat Small Heath (now Birmingham City) 5-2 after 1-1, Darwen (now AFC Darwen in Non-League) beat Notts County 3-2 and Sheffield Utd beat Accrington Stanley 1-0.

motto: Without Work Nothing!