As we look forward to the cup final against Stourbridge at Villa Park, this is the first of a series of articles on the 1912-13 season when Leamington Town won the Birmingham Junior Cup at Villa Park.
Cups were also a challenge for Leamington Town in 1912. In fact it was evident that the obligation to
compete in the Birmingham Junior Cup caused some resentment among members of
the Coventry and North Warwickshire league.
The Courier noted, ‘Surprising
as the results of cup matches often are, one can hardly expect a Coventry and
North Warwickshire eleven to obtain much success in a competition open to
Birmingham Combination teams.’
Indeed, in the
preceding season Leamington Town had simply refused to turn up for ‘a match at
some out-of-the-way place near Birmingham’ – and if the destination was not
near a railway station, getting there would have been a real problem. However, ‘Looker On’ reported that ‘Leamington Town are going to make a bolder
bid for honours this year’.
They got off to a
good start by beating Newdigate Colliery 5-2, getting revenge for their recent
league defeat. Admittedly, the Colliers
lacked some of their regular players, but ‘they were smart on the ball, and
showed any amount of pluck and endurance’, not surprising when your working
life was spent down a mine.
These are extracts from a booklet I produced on the 1912-13 season. I will be pleased to send anyone interested the complete booklet free of charge.
No comments:
Post a Comment