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ABSTRACT
The Sheffield footballing subculture of the late 1850s and early 1860s was the first major example of its type in the world. However, just a few miles further south was an area called North East Derbyshire. Clearly because of its proximity to Sheffield, there was every chance that, in terms of a ‘nearest neighbour’ theory, the game would probably spread to that area of the country. Football first manifested itself in Chesterfield, the leading town of North East Derbyshire, and led to the formation of a town club and, later, to an organization based on a tobacco factory in the Chesterfield suburb of Spital. Both teams were successful and even helped each other out with players on a regular basis. However, in the next decade a first class side would rise in Staveley, a small village based around an iron and coal works. The team would have huge success over a 20-year period and would challenge even the well-established Sheffield clubs. However, this was not just a clash of footballing styles but became almost a class conflict. Sheffield teams, often though not exclusively, middle class in make-up, feared visiting Staveley as, it must be said, that the home team was particularly uncompromising. This article was written in the belief that Chesterfield, as one of the oldest clubs, would be the centre of the narrative. This author was wrong. Staveley took over and provided an insight into early working-class football in mid-to-late Victorian England.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 23 November 1861. Twelve of Sheffield FC played eighteen of the Norton Club at East Bank, Sheffield.
2. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 19 October 1867.
3. Derbyshire Courier, 26 October 1867.
5. Leatherdale, Book of Football, 215–6. The contents were not originally a book, but parts of a serialized magazine.
6. Played under Sheffield rules.
7. Perseverance was a temperance or teetotaller club.
8. The Farm was once part of the Duke of Norfolk’s estate in the city and had been attached to Norfolk Park.
9. Probably at Endcliffe Park, Hunter’s Bar, Sheffield.
10. Probably at the southeast edge of Norfolk Park.
11. Derbyshire Courier, 8 November 1873.
12. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 18 December 1875.
13. Ibid, 24 January 1874.
14. Basson, Chesterfield F.C., 5.
15. Ibid, 23 January 1875.
16. Ibid, 30 December 1871.
17. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 8 February 1886.
18. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 17 November 1874.
19. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 23 January 1875.
20. In the Sheffield Daily Telegraph (14 December 1875) report of this game, Spital played Sheffield Wednesday. Strictly speaking, the latter club did not change its name from The Wednesday until 1929. Accordingly, all references in the text relating specifically to events before that year note the club as The Wednesday.
21. Ibid, 14 December 1875.
22. Leslie had been born in Melton Mowbray and worked as an engine fitter and turner (1871 England Census). He was also something of a noted pedestrian (participant in walking races). Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 26 May 1877.
23. ‘Harry’ Charlwood was a cricket professional who played for Sussex and England. For the latter he was involved in the first two Test matches ever played, both of which took place in Australia when England toured there. It appears that he found love in Chesterfield in the form of Ann Oliver and lived there for some years in the late 1870s. He died in Scarborough in 1888 at the tragically young age of 41 (RD Hartley, Chesterfield Historical Society, January 2007).
24. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 26 November 1877.
25. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 18 January 1879.
26. Ibid, 13 October 1879.
27. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 11 October 1879.
28. Dates acquired from Stuart Basson’s ‘Sky is Blue’ website. These were converted into days of the week.
29. By 1881, Francis was Headmaster of People’s College in Nottingham. He lived in Lenton in the city before moving to the village of Ruddington where he died in 1918.
30. See letter from ‘A Lover of Football’ in Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 11 September 1880.
31. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 2 October 1880.
32. Ibid, 18 October 1879.
33. See Curry, ‘Football Spectatorship’.
34. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 25 October 1879.
35. Ibid, 11 September 1880.
36. Ibid, October 16 and 30, 1880, 6 November 1880.
37. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 18 March 1881.
38. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 3 February 1880.
39. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 1 October 1881.
40. Ibid, 15 October 1881.
41. Ibid, 25 October 1879.
42. Derbyshire Courier, 25 March 1876.
43. Sporting Chronicle, 15 March 1877.
44. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 24 November 1877.
45. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 26 October 1878.
46. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 24 November 1879.
47. Ibid, 12 April 1882.
48. Not to be confused with Albert W Smith who played for Forest and England but was not born until 1869.
49. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 19 February 1880.
50. Birmingham Mail, 28 February 1881.
51. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 19 February 1883.
52. Ibid, 19 December 1876.
53. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 20 December 1876.
54. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 19 December 1876.
55. Ibid, 21 December 1876.
56. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 6 October 1888.
57. Ibid, 30 December 1871.
58. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 21 February 1878. Barlow played seventeen times for England against Australia. His match-winning performance at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1883 included 28 and 24 with the bat plus one wicket for the cost of fifty-two runs in Australia’s first innings and seven for forty in the second.
59. Ibid, 22 March 1880.
60. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 20 January 1880.
61. Ibid, 2 May 1881.
62. Ibid, 12 October 1880.
63. Athletic News, 13 April 1881.
64. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 17 January 1881.
65. Ibid, 24 October 1881. This report says that only eight Staveley players walked off.
66. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 24 October 1881.
67. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 26 October 1881.
68. A local name for the Coal and Iron Company.
69. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 26 December 1882.
70. Ibid, 20 November 1882.
71. Derbyshire Courier, 1 December 1883.
72. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 20 March 1883.
73. Ibid, 20 March 1883.
74. Ibid, 31 March 1883.
75. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 31 December 1886.
76. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 26 January 1884.
77. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 25 September 1883.
78. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent.
79. Leigh Chronicle and Weekly District Advertiser, 28 September 1883.
80. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 16 October 1883.
81. Ibid, 4 December 1883.
82. Sporting Life, 21 January 1884.
83. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 1 November 1884.
84. Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 29 November 1884.
85. Nottingham Journal, 8 December 1884.
86. Derbyshire Courier, 21 April 1885.
87. Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald, 13 March 1886.
88. Ibid, 26 January 1889.
89. I am thinking here of the likes of Thomas Edward Vickers, the co-founder of Hallam FC and chairman of the family steel casting business and Thomas Heathcote Sorby who ran the family edge tool manufacturing business and played for Sheffield FC, making one appearance for England.
90. Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 20 November 1883.