There is no bad day to play football

RodneysMiddleName

Not sure if this has been posted before but there is a small Spanish chain of shops that specialise in vintage football shirts. They concentrate on Spanish teams of course and have a couple of English team shirts, as well as internationals.

What caught my eye in the Barcelona shop was this shirt, because the ground looked very familiar:


It's part of their 'Glory Days' line and the picture is also shown on their 'Football Memories' ad (the piece of paper with two yellow lines).

Here's a close-up of the picture:



Inside the shirt is this blurb, which seems to think this was a picture taken in the 1960's:



I had a chat with the guy in the shop and he admitted to not knowing much about football but he said they also sell posters of the picture and that it's a popular range. He didn't seem too bothered that they'd used a picture from the 1930s to represent the 1960s, or maybe my Spanglish wasn't up to the task of explaining it properly.

The shop is called Coolligans and their online store is here: GLORY DAYS – Coolligan. Well worth a look.

I had a go at naming the players in the picture (better version here- The 18 Worst Football Pitches In History Are Terrifying) and wondered if the opposition player with the ball is Raich Carter, meaning the picture was taken in one of the three pre-war games between Charlton and Sunderland.  According to Colin Cameron's book, The first of these, on 28th Nov 1936 was quite eventful, with Carter hitting the bar with one penalty and then scoring a second. Sunderland had lost their keeper after 15 minutes with concussion and Charlton went on to win 3-1.

cafcfan

My guess would be Stanley Matthews in a Stoke shirt.

Raith_C_Chattonell

I cropped the words off the photo and google image searched it.  (It's a slow Good Friday in my house).  Anyway pinterest.com had the photo described as :- 

Huddersfield Town’s Alf Whittingham (left) cuts past Jock Campbell on Charlton Athletic’s infamously turf-less mudbath at The Valley, 1947. 

Raith_C_Chattonell

... We lost 0-3 

Stig

I see the programme came with a free razor blade to slit your wrists after the defeat. Nice touch.

se9addick

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

... We lost 0-3 

That old programme is so interesting, so much of it’s familiar but also clearly a very different time.

Why did matches kick off at 3:15? 

MrOneLung

se9addick said:

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

... We lost 0-3 

That old programme is so interesting, so much of it’s familiar but also clearly a very different time.

Why did matches kick off at 3:15? 

Midweek - no floodlights

RodneysMiddleName

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

I cropped the words off the photo and google image searched it.  (It's a slow Good Friday in my house).  Anyway pinterest.com had the photo described as :- 

Huddersfield Town’s Alf Whittingham (left) cuts past Jock Campbell on Charlton Athletic’s infamously turf-less mudbath at The Valley, 1947. 

Great investigation, Raith. I didn’t think of that. I did try colourising the picture and it did use blue and white stripes for the Whittingham’s shirt. But then it also chose blue for one of the Charlton shirts so hardly scientific!

se9addick

MrOneLung said:

se9addick said:

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

... We lost 0-3 

That old programme is so interesting, so much of it’s familiar but also clearly a very different time.

Why did matches kick off at 3:15? 

Midweek - no floodlights

Ah I see, missed that. How come it was 3:15pm and not 3 though?

Addick Addict

se9addick said:

MrOneLung said:

se9addick said:

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

... We lost 0-3 

That old programme is so interesting, so much of it’s familiar but also clearly a very different time.

Why did matches kick off at 3:15? 

Midweek - no floodlights

Ah I see, missed that. How come it was 3:15pm and not 3 though?

I wasn't around at the time but it appears that this was to allow dockyard workers to get to kick off in time. 

stonemuse

need to get a batch of those shirts sent over - I'd love one

se9addick

Addick Addict said:

se9addick said:

MrOneLung said:

se9addick said:

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

... We lost 0-3 

That old programme is so interesting, so much of it’s familiar but also clearly a very different time.

Why did matches kick off at 3:15? 

Midweek - no floodlights

Ah I see, missed that. How come it was 3:15pm and not 3 though?

I wasn't around at the time but it appears that this was to allow dockyard workers to get to kick off in time. 

That’s brilliant! 

SoundAsa£

se9addick said:

Addick Addict said:

se9addick said:

MrOneLung said:

se9addick said:

Raith_C_Chattonell said:

... We lost 0-3 

That old programme is so interesting, so much of it’s familiar but also clearly a very different time.

Why did matches kick off at 3:15? 

Midweek - no floodlights

Ah I see, missed that. How come it was 3:15pm and not 3 though?

I wasn't around at the time but it appears that this was to allow dockyard workers to get to kick off in time. 

That’s brilliant! 

To say nothing of the many thousands of factory workers in the huge Charlton/Greenwich/Woolwich engineering factories, who were doing a bit of much needed Saturday overtime.
Many wearing their trade mark flat caps.

BrentfordAddick

That 315 is a Wednesday kick off, is FFC the football combination cup? Odd time either way. Sunset about 6. 

Swindon_Addick

I have a few old programmes from the early 50s and 3.15 seems to be the standard kickoff time in them. A couple of midweek games with 6.30 kickoffs, both of those were in April when it would be light a lot longer into the evening. It would be earlier in mid-winter, in the days before floodlights. 

FCC would be the football combination cup. They played it as several mini-leagues with the winners going into a knockout phase.