THE OLD DAYS AT STAVELEY
— Ernest Needham | 30/11/1912 —

It must have been as a very little lad that I started to play football. I cannot remember the time when I didn't play. It was the same with most of the lads in the Staveley district, for the doings of the old team roused a great enthusiasm for the game, and we were passionately fond of it, and would play from morning till night. An old tin can or a bundle of paper made a passable ball, while a soft rubber ball was quite a treat.

Since those happy days, the game has lifted me up into some high places. I have seen a great many things, have had some wonderful experiences, and have gained verious honours. Of these I am surely proud. But what gives me the greatest satisfaction, as I took away over the years, right back to the beginning, is that I feel I can say I played fair.

One doesn't wish to pose as a football angel. The game is a hot one, and it tries the temper sometimes, however hard one tights it down. Although I always tried to play the game clean, I am not going to say I succeeded from everybody's point of view, or that I haven't done a shady trick or two which afterwards I was sorry for. But I never tried to lame a man, and it is nice to think you have gone through a fair long football career without being pulled up for misconduct or dirty play or even sent off the field. With my own directors and the officers of the Football Association I believe I have a clean slate. I hope I am not seeming to boast. I was asked to say what I am proudest of, and that is it.

OLD STAVELEY STARS.

I was born on January 21, 1873, at Newbold Moor, near Chesterfield — not Whittington Moor as some of the records say, though it's not far of. When I was six years old my parents removed to Staveley, and there I have resided ever since. I can just remember the old Staveley team, which won the Sheffield Challenge Cup in 1880. Staveley in those days was reckoned to have the finest village team in the country; they met the best in the land, and could always give Sheffield Wednesday and the other big Sheffield clubs a good game, with often a beating as well. They had such players as R. G. Barlow, the cricket umpire and famous old Lancashire stone-waller, whose father was secretary of the Staveley cricket club; poor Jack Hay, who got killed in the pit; James, Kenyon, Young, Doughty, and the two Marples.

There is a photograph now of that old team, and although it was taken something like 30 years ago, every man on it is living now, except poor Jack. It doesn't look as though football did them much harm! And yet it was a fierce game in those times, as can just remember, and the forwards were mostly individualists, the great thing being to bang the goalkeeper into the net. Jack Hay played centre-forward, and he was very special at that sort of thing. In fact, that was his game rather than keeping his forward line going, as we should say now.

No doubt I got many of my first ideas of real football from watching Staveley and their opponents, though the best place of all to learn on is the football field itself. It is when you are playing against better men that you notice the things to do, and you soon pick them up them. The more you play the more you learn. Somehow I always had a pretty fair idea.

THE GREAT NICK ROSS.

As I say, we saw some of the best footballers in England in Staveley at that time. There was Preston North End came, when they were approaching the height of their glory. They came on tour as teams were wont to go then. There was Nick Ross, Russell, Goodall, Dewhurst, Drummond, Gordon, Howarth, and Jimmy Ross, who may have played his first match for North End at Staveley. Nick Ross I remember in particular. A grand back he was, and a terror, too; at Staveley he scored a goal. He was a great tackler, and had a tremendous kick. To-day his rearest approach would be Bob Crompton. 

Bolton Wanderers, Derby County, the Notts teams, and Blackburn Rovers were others that came to the village. I remember some of the old players from Nottingham very well, particularly the cricketers. Mordecai Sherwin, Gunn, and Daft, with Dr. Tinsley Lindley, the centre-forward, and especially a right half-back named McCree — a very fine dribbler, and a feeder of his forwards.

I believe it was in 1884 that the old Staveley team won the first Derbyshire Cup, and in 1885 they won it again, but the next year Heeley beat them in the final. Staveley won it again two years in succession, just before I became a player with the team, which was in season 1889-90 Staveley were then holders of four cups: two Derbyshire Cups, and the Wharncliffe Cup, and the Hallamshire Cup, which, however, they gave to the runners-up; while they ran up for the Sheffield Challenge Cup. No wonder we were keen on the game in Staveley!

Well, coming to myself. I started to work as a lad on the pit banks, at the age of 13. I never worked in the pit itself. My first football team was Staveley Wanderers, a boys's team, for whom I began to play about that time. Our pitch was a bit of spare ground at the foot of the Staveley playing field.

SUSPENDED!

In the summer of 1889, as a lad of sixteen, I got into my only trouble with football authorities. I played in some six-a-side contest, and as these were illegal in Derbyshire (though not in Sheffield). I was suspended, the result being that I was ineligible for some time afterwards to play in the English or Derbyshire Cups, yet I could play for the Sheffield Cups. I don't think this suspension blots my copy-book for good conduct, though, for I was but a lad at the time, and what trouble there was came only through my being too keen on the game.

It was in October, 1889, that I played my first match with Staveley, gladly accepting an invitation to assist them at inside right against Derby Junction. During that first season there were such men in the Staveley team as Joe Lievesley, the father of the present Sheffield United goalkeeper; J. W. Lilley, H. E. Lilley, Joe Cooke, A. Booth, J. Rice (the captain), Billy Marshall, Jack Hay (the "old man"). Sammy Wilshaw, Bob Meakin, Bill Thorpe, Ike Potter, Arthur Rodgers, with my brother Wright, whose lad is in the United Reserve team now, and occasionally my brother Jack, a useful left winger. My brother Wright is older than I am, and it was from him, perhaps, as much as anybody that I picked up my earliest and most important wrinkles about the game. He taught me a lot, and it was a pity for the team that he had to give up the game when he did, owing to an accident in the pit.

WHEN "LAMBIE'S" KNEE CAME OUT.

I mustn't forget my old friend, "Lambie" Hay, who also played at that time. He was a most extraordinary chap, for he had a loose cartilage in his knee, and this would often come out of place in a game. That is an injury which has ended the career of many a fine young footballer, but "Lambie" would, just sit there, and work the cartilage back again, and then go on playing. There were people who said that cartilage had a habit of coming out just when the other team was pressing, and it is right enough that he couldn't proceed till the brandy flask had been brought to him. But he was a good player, and a good sort.

That season, 1889-90, was the first of the Midland League, when Lincoln City (first team) were the winners, and such teams took part as Rotherham Town, Gainsborough Trinity, Burton Wanderers Derby Junction, Derby Midland, Warwick County, Notts Rangers, Leek, and Sheffield Club. Staveley would finish about fifth or sixth. When I started with them Billy Marshall played with me on the right wing, Jack Hay being in the centre, and S. Wilshaw and my brother Wright on the left. At inside right I remained for most of that season.

That same season we played Sheffield United, then a very young club, in the semi-finals of the Sheffield Challenge Cup and the Wharncliffe Cup. The first of these was decided at Bramall Lane, and Mr. J. C. Clegg refereed. We lost 2—0, but when the other was played at Chester- field, we had our revenge, beating United by 2—1. Staveley also played in the English and Derbyshire Cups.

EARLY HONOURS.

The next season saw big changes at Staveley, several of the old players, including Arthur Booth and my brother Wright retiring, while others migrated to different clubs — J. Cooke, for instance, going to Ardwick (better known nowadays as Manchester City), and Harry Lilley to United. But Billy Madin came back to us from United, and J. Bladen, who had been to Hyde for a short time, also returned. At that time of day matters in the Midland League were very different from what they are now, of course. We often dressed for the matches at inns, and walked to the grounds, while as for baths — well, all 22 of us sometimes shared in the same bucketful of water!

We had rather a bad time in the Midland League that year, which was Staveley's last in connection with the competition. I shifted about a lot in the team, sometimes playing forward, then back, and at other times half-back-in fact, it was generally half-back. During the season of 1890-1 I was chosen to play for the Sheffield Association at right half-back against Berks and Bucks, and also against Cheshire, but this time it was centre-forward, with such players on either side of me as the old Wednesday men, Winterbottom, Ingram, Woolhouse, and Mumford.

A RARE ROTHERHAM TUSSLE.

Our proudest performancein this season was to beat Rotherham Town for the Wharncliffe Charity Cup. But we had to fight hard for it! We had three gruelling games with them in the final, and, as a matter of fact, if they hadn't been good sportsmen they cpuld have claimed it themselves. We played them one draw at Bramall Lane and one at Olive Grove, and the second time we should have played extra time. Butt it was no joke getting to Staveley by train in those days, and if we had stayed to play the extra half-hour we should have missed our train and couldn't have got home till midnight, so we refused to go on.

Rotherham were sporting enough to say that they didn't want the Cup unless they could win it, so things were left over for another match on Wednesday's ground, and then we beat them by 3—0. Some of the old Rotherham players will still be well remembered. Wharton was a gine player in goal, so was Rogerrs at centre-half, while the Town had a very big back in Turner, and their outside left was McCormick, the uncle of the former United half, who is now doing well with Plymouth Argyle.

The following season, at the age of 18, I joined the ranks of Sheffield United.