Articles tagged ‘Southern Football League’

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 [...]
Read more

Go East: why Cardiff City can blame it on the trains

I suppose the first question to ask is why Cardiff City are included in a supposed history of ‘English’ football in the first place. It’s a difficult one to answer without insulting any Welsh readers, because it comes down to two things to the detriment of their fine country: the first is that the likes of Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham were simply too good to play in Wales; the second is that Wales is a pretty hopeless place to football at all [...]
Read more