Articles tagged ‘Corinthians’

Amateur Dramatics: the high ideals of Wycombe’s Wanderers who refused to go pro

In 1877, reigning FA Cup champions Wanderers FC – midway through a three-year winning streak that took their total number of Cup titles to five – came to the Buckinghamshire town of High Wycombe for an exhibition match. Their visit must have left quite an impression. Seven years later, when a group of young men from the town formed their own football club, they adopted the name ‘Wanderers’ in honour of these prestigious guests.

The founders of North Town Wanderers (as they were called until 1887) worked in the High Wycombe’s famous furniture trade. These men must have enjoyed 1877 a great deal because in addition to Wanderers FC, the town was also visited by none other than Queen Victoria, making a rare public appearance in her widowhood to honour the birthplace of the ‘Windsor’ chair. This industry would provide the club’s ‘Chairboys’ nickname [...]
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That was the year that was for Nottingham Forest

1865 and all that

Not technically a ‘brief history’ in the context of this website, but it should be of interest to readers regardless, my article about Nottingham Forest’s birth in 1865 was published on LTLF on New Year’s Eve.

2015 marked the club’s 150th anniversary and naturally the year saw a host of new Forest history books being published. However, I felt that many of these titles failed to put the club’s creation into the proper context, so my piece sets out the wider picture of 1860s football and the social hierarchy that fostered it.

The article discusses the likes of Sheffield FC, Notts County, Wanderers FC and Corinthians – and where the ‘Foresters’ fitted into the story of gentlemen amateurs and the emerging working class who would later claim the game as their own.