A Football Team

Football teams do seem to give us a problem at Market Lavington Museum. Here’s another photo where our only caption says ‘photograph, football players, Market Lavington, Wiltshire’. There’s no date, no place and no names.

A Football team postcard at Market Lavington Museum

Before we get into enlarged photos of the players, let’s just take a look at the back.

The message written on the card back

Someone has written a message on the back which reads ‘Terrible fat. More exercise needed you say.’ The man sitting second from left is marked with an X. Could he be the writer?

Let’s now zoom in on groups of men in the hope that someone out there can identify them.

As ever, we ask you to get in touch if you can identify any of these men.

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Football – 1955/56

Back in July 2012 we posted a photo of the 1949/50 football team who had clearly won a cup and along with it we had Bill Elisha’s notes. We couldn’t recognise the players so I’ll invite people to look again by clicking here and letting us know who is in that photo.

We have just been given another photo of a football team. Diane, who gave it to us, knows her father is in it. We think this photo could date from the 1955/56 season. It shows not only the team but also a crowd of supporters – men, women and children.

Market Lavington and Easterton United Football Club and supporters – 1955/56

The stand behind the people says T. T. Football Club. We guess this is Trowbridge Town.

The two people we can name on the photo are Lavington and Easterton Football Club chairman, Bill Elisha…

Bill Elisha

…and Diane’s father, Gilbert Jenks

Gilbert Jenks

Can anybody name any others? We’ll enlarge them a bit to help identification.

 

The Netball Team

Today’s photo of a school netball team dates from nearly 50 years ago. It was the members of the Market Lavington School team for 1964/65. If we look at that era in terms of number one records, then the Christmas 1964 record was ‘I Feel Fine’ by the Beatles. In January 1965 we find the Moody Blues at number one with ‘Go Now’. Tom Jones hit the big time in March with ‘It’s not Unusual’ and he was followed by The Rolling Stones with ‘The Last Time’.

But at Market Lavington School there was a netball team and here are the members.

Market Lavington School netball team 1964/65

In the back row we have from left to right, Pauline King, then two we haven’t identified and on the right is Fiona Carmichael.

In the front row we have not yet identified the girl on the left but in the middle, and probably the captain, we have Marilyn Baker and on the right it is J Hancock.

As is often the case, the original captioning is poor and we may have misplaced those names.

It is a sobering thought that these girls will now be approaching the age of 60. Most probably married and thus changed their surnames. Some of them may well be grandmothers by now.

If you can identify any of these young ladies then do get in touch. It would be good if we could get some oral histories about growing up in the 1960s, perhaps from some of the girls shown here.

Another football team mystery

Uncaptioned photos of footballers seem to be a speciality of Market Lavington Museum. It has to be said, the complete lack of knowledge regarding this photo makes it all but useless to us. We have to assume it has relevance because Peggy Gye, our founder, gifted it to the museum when we opened back in 1985.

Completely uncaptioned photo of footballers – perhaps Market Lavington and Easterton United

We now hand this to our readers. Please get in touch if you can identify any of these men or can suggest an approximate year. There are enlargements below.

We look forward to hearing from you.

A mystery football team

How we’d love to be able to tell you more about this group of young men who formed a football team.

Unknown football team in 1906/7. This postcard is at Market Lavington Museum

Our records just say, ‘Postcard: Market Lavington Football Club’

Well we can do better than that but we can also cast some doubt on the truth of the record.

There’s the ball. We are not certain whether the top line says ‘FSB’ or ‘F&B but the rest is clear. It’s a football club and the year was 1906-7.

Maybe the back of the card can give a little extra. It has a name on it.

Apart from the post card information and our museum code numbers, it has the name Mr C Coleman of Easterton written on.

At the time in question there were two Mr C Colemans living in Easterton – actually, both were Charles.

One was a baker on High Street born in about 1869 so in his late 30s when the photo was taken. The other was a tad older – in his early 40s in 1906/7. He was a carter on a farm.

Yet again, we appeal for help. Can anybody name any of the players? Can anybody tell us which Mr Coleman and how he was involved? Can anybody tell us which football club is shown?

 

Looking back at the cricket

For lovers of England and Test Match cricket it has been a grand summer with England beating the old rival – the Australians – by three matches to nil.

Perhaps the heyday for Market Lavington cricket was 100 years earlier.

Charles Awdry, who had bought the Manor and what was left of the estate had laid out a very fine cricket ground and built a pavilion on quite a lavish scale for a village ground. Wiltshire never had a first class team but it seems some quite prestigious matches were played at the ground. It is rumoured that a touring Australian side. The MCC have no record of a match but have suggested that the 9^th June 1909 was a likely date if such a match ever happened.

Today we look at cricketers and supporters a few years after that event – in 1914.

Players and supporters at Market Lavington Cricket Week in 1914

Lavington Cricket Week was probably having its last fling as a social event. The outbreak of war ended such frivolity and much of it never returned.

This picture was copied from an album still owned by members of the Awdry family.  Sadly we do not know who any of the men are but we hope they enjoyed their time as cricketers at Market Lavington.

A Market Lavington winner in the Summer of Sport

2012 and 13 both seem to have been regarded as great summers of sport here in the UK. But we are looking back to 1987. It possibly wasn’t a great year for British sport. No UK team won the rugby world cup. None won the cricket world cup although England did win an Ashes series in Australia.

But in Market Lavington a sports themed craft exhibit made by Market Lavington Darby and Joan Club was a winner in an Age Concern craft competition.

The competition piece was a cube with each of the six  23 centimetre square sides representing sports which might, back, then, have been seen on the Grandstand program.

1987 made sports themed cube, produced by members of the Darby and Joan Club in Market Lavington

The cube is at Market Lavington Museum

The six sides featured bowls, cricket, darts, football, snooker and swimming and the cube perched on a wooden stand.

 

The cube on its stand

The makers of this entry were:

Snooker – Lily Fielding

Lettering and construction – Mary Greening

Darts and football – Norah Hitchings

Swimming and cricket – Betty Martin

Wooden stand – John Martin

Bowls – Audrey Wilks

Perhaps this item will get a turn on display within the next 12 months. Like most of our 7000 plus items it is in store at the moment, but we do have a policy of different temporary displays each year. Its turn will come.

Another football team

As the 2012/2013 football seasons grinds to a close, let’s look at another local football team in times past.

Market Lavington – a football team during World war I

This photo dates from almost 100 years ago and it looks as though it was taken at Alf Burgess’s little studio in Market Lavington. We have it dated as ‘First World War’.

We do not know many of the men and boys shown.

Top row, third from left is Bill Elisha.

Bill Elisha

Bill was connected with local football for the rest of his life. Fittingly, the playing field on Drove Lane is named after him.

Alan Baker is second from left in the middle row.

Alan Baker

Front left is Frank Cooper

Frank Cooper

And front right is Alf Merrett

Alf Merrett

Of course, we’d like to know who the others are. Can you help?

The Church Lads Brigade Football Team

The England football team, despite an 8 –  0 victory, seem to be making slightly heavy weather of qualifying for the next world cup. I wonder how the local Church Lads would have got on.

This photo shows the lads – and some who might be more senior in the 1911/12 season.

Market Lavington Church Lads Football Team – 1911/12

Sad to say this is a ‘don’t know where, don’t know who’ photo. But maybe somebody out there will recognise some of the lads. That’s what we hope.

So let’s enlarge the team, bit by bit.

As an added bonus we have the person peering out of the window.

Please do get in touch if you think you know any of the lads.

Who wears short shorts?

The answer, in this case, is a 1970s football team. They are probably late 1970s and could be early 1980s.

Here they are.

Football team, probably of the late 1970s. Presumed to be a Lavington team – can you help us to identify them?

Sadly, we know nothing about the team. Peggy Gye, our museum founder, donated the photo but it is only captioned, ‘coloured photo of football team with cup’. Coming from Peggy, we assume it is a local team.

Here’s hoping somebody out there can tell us more about this team which seems to feature a number of players with Kevin Keegan like hair-dos.

If you can tell us more then do get in touch. If not then just enjoy (or laugh at) the way fashion was a generation ago.