Author: nigelfreestone1960

Photographs from the late 19th century show how players dressed for matches in the early days of football. For most teams, the kit consisted of long-sleeved, cotton, flannelette (roughly woven…

Training was not part of the ‘gentlemanly ideal’. Intense training was considered throughout the Victorian ear to be “poor form”: ‘Practising too much undermined natural grace and talent … gentlemen…

Loughborough Wednesday Football Club, who in later years became known as Loughborough Traders, shared the Athletic Grounds with Loughborough AFC of the Football League. At one time all the shops…

As a preliminary to the 1897-98 football season, Leicester Fosse staged a baseball game between Derby County and Crystal Palace, the first exhibition of the sport in Leicester, and a…

In 1882 Market Harborough became the first Leicestershire football club to enter an Association Football competition – Wellingborough Challenge Cup – which over time became referred to as the Northamptonshire…

The following Football Association Rules were in place when Leicester Fosse were founded. Definition of Terms Place Kick – the ball is kicked when lying on the ground, in any…

Leicester Fosse endeavoured to induce goalkeeper Godfrey Beardsley and other players for that matter to play for them. Beardsley, having either a real grievance or an imaginary one with the…

Bill Rowley Leicester Fosse’s signing of former England goalkeeper, Billy Rowley bought the club into conflict with the football authorities in the late 1890s. Rowley was described as a “brave…

J. C. Thring, Uppingham School master laid the ‘the groundwork on which the Association code was built’. Thring’s rules for The Simplest Game, first published in 1862, and his call…

Leicester Daily Journal – 30 May 1894 Leicester Fosse FC published their financial statement for 1893-94 in May 1894 – income, £2907 11s 2d (95% of which came from gate…