WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S A GOALKEEPER

Simon Armitage has written a well known poem about a goalkeeper. Not the Premier League or other professional custodian that we see theatrically conducting his defence and sometimes the whole team. It's about a man who stands out as different from the rest by his jersey, who sometimes leading the home crowd or agitates the opposition mob from his safe area....the six yard box. He can't be touched there you know. Hmmm!

So Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in Huddersfield and lived his early years in nearby Marsden.
He went to Colne Valley High School and studied Geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic (hence his broad education), did post graduate work at Manchester Uni earning an MS in social work and lectured at Leeds University, Iowa and Manchester Met.
He became Professor of Poetry at Sheffield and then at Leeds.

He wrote this football poem and it has an audio link too. I'm afraid it has a couple of naughty words in it, but ignoring these, every young footballer should enjoy the vivid description in the stanzas and maybe recognise that this standard of goalie may be somebody that their dad or grandfather might have come across from their past. Anyone recognise this keeper! Might be an inspiration for an English project.
https://fromwhereyouare-en.systime.dk/index.php?id=190

Armitage lives in the Holme Valley and supports "Town", making references to the club in his book "All Points North". He is also lead singer of the "Scaremongers" and is well decorated, including a CBE.
https://www.simonarmitage.com/the-scaremongers/

Arsene Wenger used to smoke in the dug out...he blamed stress. Arsene grew up in his family owned bar in Duttlenheim called the Croix d'Or, so he lived amongst smokers. Wenger also worked as a cigarette salesman before his fame in football.
His loyal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny was fined £20,000 for lighting up in the dressing room! There are many other moments, particularly in the non-league clubs.

Of course smoking has played an important part is Football History. Here is a link that might prove useful in a school project or quiz!
https://spartacus-educational.com/Ftobacco.htm

FOLLOW THE BALL

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/the_last_pass
This wonderful link from the BBC covers a huge amount of First World War history. The Footballers' Battalion, Walter Tull, The Corinthians, the Christmas Truce and Jimmy Seed from Sunderland is a footballing case study, following his life before and during the Great War.

It is a thorough piece and really needs a read. Stick with it because it covers a very important period in the history of the game and of course Britain.

THE CORINTHIANS, INVINCIBLES AND FILM STARS

I nearly did an article on amputee football, then I got excited by "Rooney's Law", you know the one that involves England FA, Gareth Southgate and Wayne's Charity BUT as the Daily Telegraph unravelled this morning, I found myself locked on to the Sports section and Alan Tyers' article on the "Corinthian Spirit". Anybody who knows anything about football history will know all about the Corinthians, whether the English club, the Corinthian Casuals, or the Brazilian club, Corinthians.
The article warns us of the upcoming documentary on BT Sports, Saturday 9pm. Many don't subscribe to BT but you really should get hold of the film. The link is with the First World War, in which many Corinthian footballers joined in.

One member of the English Corinthians club was Charles Aubrey Smith, one of three polymaths (people of much learning); the other two were C.B.Fry and Max Woosnam. If you know nothing of these two then look them up.

Charles Aubrey Smith was one of the Old Carthusians team that met Preston North End in the FA Cup Quarter-final Round in 1887. North End were at the time the country's most successful team, later being Double winners in 1888-9, when they won the First Division without losing a game and won the cup without conceding a goal.

Smith was born in Brighton in July 1863 and he was a boy at the London Charterhouse, before St John's College, Cambridge. He played cricket for the university and then Sussex CCC, captaining the first England XI to play in South Africa in 1888-9. As a left winger he gave the "Invincibles" a fright at the Kennington Oval but it was to no avail as the professionals won the tie after extra time 2-1. In the OC team that day were the well known AM and PM Walters as "backs", Charles Wreford Brown, who first used the word "Soccer" in goal and several other English internationals, all true amateurs.
It was the last serious attempt at the FA Cup by a truly amateur club. Preston met West Bromwich Albion next who beat them in the semi-final.

Aubrey Smith became a star of film appearing in "A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer All Talking Picture". He appeared in 76 films including "Tarzan and Ape Man", "Lives of a Bengal Lancer", Prisoner of Zenda" and "Sixty Glorious Years".
He brought cricket to Hollywood and founded a Club there. In 1938 he was awarded the CBE and was Knighted in 1944.
Would you like to meet him on a dark night?

BURYING THE COFFIN OF RELEGATION

This weekend had seen another famous name mentioned on the global media, Dave Whelan! As chairman of Wigan Athletic, he and his family have seen some heady days with the Lancashire club. Dave played for Blackburn Rovers and Crewe in the 1960s and broke his leg in the 1960 FA Cup Final when Wolves ran out winners 3-0 playing against 10 men-no subs in those days.

Not one of the historic clubs (being founded only in 1932), Wigan, playing in red and white by the way, joined local leagues, eg the Cheshire County League, playing their first official game v Port Vale Reserves in August 1932, climbing to the the National Premier League. The club was successful in the NPL and applied for election to the Football League and after suffering rejections 34 times, joining the Football League from 1978!

The club was taken over in 1995 by the Whelan family and since then the Latics' fans have experienced many good times, including life at the very top.
and rising to the top and the Premier League in 2005 through to 2013. The club won the FA Cup in 2013 beating Manchester City 1-0 with a goal from Ben Watson

Whelan's grandson is standing down as club owner with a £22 million take over from Hong Kong based International Enterprise Corporation.

This weekend, from a mid-table position, Wigan hosted a "rampant" Leeds United and unfortunately could not get victory for the Whelans, losing 1-2.

Bradford born, Dave Whelan has hosted soccer and Rugby League at the DW Stadium. His "spare" money has come from his success in various businesses, including JJB Sports and later DW Sports, hence the name of the stadium.

AND FINALLY Burying the Coffin of relegation appears to be a tradition held in Blackburn and Preston. When the local league club, firstly Blackburn Rovers was relegated in 1948, a coffin full of vegetables (meant to the be players) was carried to the local Trades Hall cellar in Bamber Bridge and left there "until the raising". These days a "dummy" called Chucky is in the coffin!

TREBILCOCK SCORES TWO

The Cornish Fish Producers' Organisation was the star of Radio 4 this morning when quotas and Brexit were discussed. Not very footy oriented I agree but the representative from CFPO was surnamed Trebilcock. I perked up, at that time of the morning, a miracle, because I know of one other Trebilcock who was Cornish, and that is Mike. May be a relation?

It's strange surnames or places that often stick in the memory and sure enough Mike Trebilcock reminded me of the 1966 FA Cup Final, when he scored twice in Everton's victory over Sheffield Wednesday at Wembley. Wednesday were 2-0 up after an hour and looked dead cert winners, but within five minutes Trebilcock notched two and with ten minutes left Derek Temple pilfered the winner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p71DzBVSmcI  NOTE
The old Wembley, an orange ball and various rugby tackles!

The Lad from Cornwall was born in Gunnislake and was the first black player to score in a Wembley Cup Final. He first played for Tavistock and signed for Plymouth Argyle in 1962, for whom he scored 27 goals in 71 appearances. So he caught the eye of the Toffees and signed for them in 1965 for £23,000. His debt was against Aston Villa, but he was injured in that game and he only played four reserve games and seven first team games including one cup tie, through the season but was picked for the final ahead of stalwart Fred Pickering, a cunning plan by manager Harry Catterick. He wasn't even in the match day programme line up.
Everton had not conceded a goal in any of the qualifying rounds, something not done since Bury in 1903 and Preston NE did the same in 1889.

In 1968, Trebilcock went to Portsmouth where he made a hundred or so appearances till 1972, then he was Torquay (heading west!), Weymouth and then the Western Suburbs and Darwin in Australia in 1976 where he nestled down. Mike is now 73 years old. Jack Taylor reffed the Final and some may remember a pitch invasion by an over excited Toffee.

UPS AND DOWNS OF THE TERRIERS

On November 2nd 1946 Huddersfield Town, playing in the old First Division (the top one), beat Charlton Athletic 5-1 at home. Nothing special about that, well no, but the Terriers had been on a losing streak prior to that losing in sequence to:
Leeds away 0-5 on October 5th, Wolves a 1-6, Liverpool h 1-4 and Middlesbrough 1-4 over the following three Saturdays, leaving them in the danger zone for relegation. Having lost their first three matches of the season in late August and the next two weeks in September, they were struggling to survive.

The win against Charlton was short lived with a defeat to Grimsby Town away 0-1.
The next matches against Leeds were won 1-0, Wolves 0-1 loss, Liverpool 0-1 loss and Middlesbrough 3-1 win.

By May 26th with a defeat at home to Wolves 0-1, Huddersfield ended up 20th out of 22, third from bottom and safe with 33 points. Brentford (8 points fewer) and Leeds (17 points fewer) were dropped to Division Two.

Town won 13 (11 at home), drew 7 (4 at home) and lost 22 (16 away) scoring 34 at home and 19 goals away, conceding 24 at home and 55 away.

In the next season Town came 19/22, in 1948/9 they came 20/22 and in 1949/50 they climbed to 15th. 1951-2 eventually saw their relegation with Fulham, but they bounced back the following season coming second and were promoted. In 1954 they came 3rd in the First Division and in 1956 they were relegated again.

Here's Jimmy Glazzard leaping high to head one of his four goals against Everton in April 1953, a Division Two game and eventually The Terriers were promoted. Next season, Glazzard became the First Division's top scorer with 29 goals. He scored 142 goals in 299 Town league games.

PLAY UP CORINTH

It was on the 1st of November 1882 that the very famous Corinthian Football Club played its second match ever against the Royal Military College (RMC) at Sandhurst. They lost 1-4 to the Army lads. Prior to this they played St Thomas' Hospital in London winning 2-1 and after the Sandhurst game they visited Brighton College (a school) and lost 1-3.

This was the relatively modest beginning of the club that was soon to become the most famous one in soccer history and even had the honour of "founding" the Brazilian Corinthians. The tour match below:

Much of their history will be found David Bauckham's amazing BLOG, see this link.
https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxvzLNhfvgMlcLsJwmwFrrMjJMZB
There may have been a hint of religion in the name since many of the founding players were wealthy and educated, thus probably "God fearing" or Elite.

The city of Corinth was founded in 600BC by Corinthos, the descendant of the sun god Helios and matched Athens in terms of wealth. Not everyone was able to live or indeed go to Corinth because it was so expensive. There was also a seedier side to the city, inhabited by the prostitutes of Aphrodite in her temple. Corinth has another meaning-"man of fashion and pleasure". Only read this link if you are old enough!!
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20161017-it-was-an-ancient-form-of-sex-tourism
The temple of Aphrodite- earth may have moved!!
The Corinthian Club in England was formed by "select" membership based on high standards on and off the field, which captured the essence of a sporting ideology.
Even in the modern day I knew a Corinthian-Casuals player who had been sent off for an indiscretion on the field. By the time he got to the changing room he was met by the club committee and "dismissed".
So if you don't know anything about the Corinthian Club  and later the joint club, the Corinthian-Casuals FC, then have a look at David's wonderful BLOG and you will be entertained and educated.