Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 21352 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| FA CUP 1ST QUALIFYING ROUNDS 1951: FA AMATEUR CUP 1951-1952 | 1951-1952 | 1951-01-01 |
|
Details
Original Format: 9.5mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Silent Duration: 9 mins 32 secs Credits: Organisation: Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers' Association Genre: Amateur Subject: Sport |
| Summary A round-up of the 1951-52 season FA Cup and Amateur FA Cup qualifying football matches played at Willington, Crook and Tow Law, local County Durham teams in the Northern League. This is believed to be an amateur production and forms part of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) collection. |
|
Description
A round-up of the 1951-52 season FA Cup and Amateur FA Cup qualifying football matches played at Willington, Crook and Tow Law, local County Durham teams in the Northern League. This is believed to be an amateur production and forms part of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) collection.
Title: FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round 29th September 1951 Willington - 4 Tow Law – 4
Teams run onto the Willington pitch at the start of the match. Match action is filmed...
A round-up of the 1951-52 season FA Cup and Amateur FA Cup qualifying football matches played at Willington, Crook and Tow Law, local County Durham teams in the Northern League. This is believed to be an amateur production and forms part of the Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) collection.
Title: FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round 29th September 1951 Willington - 4 Tow Law – 4
Teams run onto the Willington pitch at the start of the match. Match action is filmed from the sidelines and goal area, with shots of some of the goals and goalkeeper saves. The Willington captain was Eddie Taylor, a shipyard worker from Sunderland. The club's goal keeper was Jack Snowdon.
Title: Replayed 3rd October 1951 Tow Law – 1 Willington – 2
Title: FA Amateur Cup 1951-1952 1st Round 15th December 1951 Willington 2 v Marine Crosby 4
The Marine Crosby team of players run onto the pitch, followed by the home team, Willington. There’s plenty of match action, a giant slag heap looming in the distance. A goal is recorded. The crowd, full of young lads, go wild. The play includes a few hefty tackles. Police walk around the edge of the crowd.
Title: 2nd Round 12th January 1952 Crook 1 v Pegasus 1
There’s a large crowd for this Amateur FA Cup round on Crook’s home ground against the Oxbridge team, Pegasus. A group of men and women act up to the camera beside the pitch, waving rattles. Two of the men wear mortar boards and one is carrying a home-made scythe. The players run onto the pitch. Match action includes goal attempts and goalkeeper saves. Crook’s goalkeeper was Ray Snowball, with Robinson as No. 7 and Centre Forward Ken Harrison. People wave from the crowd as the camera is turned on them.
Title: Replayed 17th February 1952 Pegasus 0 v Crook 1
Title: 4th Round 23rd February 1952 Crook 0 Walton & Hersham 0
There’s a record crowd of supporters wearing club scarves at Crook’s home ground for this Amateur FA Cup qualifying match against the Surrey team, a gate of 17,000 plus. Group portrait of team. The two teams run out onto the pitch, followed by the referee and linesmen. People wave at the camera from the crowd, a mass of flat caps. No match action is included in this sequence.
Title: Replayed 1st march 1952 Walton & Hersham 2 Crook 0
Context
FA Cup 1st Qualifying Rounds 1951 is credited to the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers’ Association although we don't know the individual filmmakers involved. The cine club is the only one of the original ACAs still existent in Britain today, in 2019. Members filmed a wide variety of films which give us a great insight into life in the north east’s past. Their range of films from the group’s inception in 1927 to the present day is hugely valuable in researching how things...
FA Cup 1st Qualifying Rounds 1951 is credited to the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers’ Association although we don't know the individual filmmakers involved. The cine club is the only one of the original ACAs still existent in Britain today, in 2019. Members filmed a wide variety of films which give us a great insight into life in the north east’s past. Their range of films from the group’s inception in 1927 to the present day is hugely valuable in researching how things looked in the past as well as attitudes to historical events. Their films showcase the north east’s industrial heritage as well as its decline over the years and the changing landscapes and lifestyles.
The film was produced in 1951, and shows football not far removed from the Second World War. Many clubs, such as Crook Town FC, had postponed their football league obligations due to the loss of players as many men enlisted in the fighting. Most sides re-entered competitions in 1946, following the end of the War in 1945. A local County Durham historian at one of the archive's film shows in 2019 stated that the reason the matches pictured were so busy in terms of crowds was because they were pit villages. Miners had to work on a Saturday morning, so they didn't have time to get to the towns and cities to see the big teams and supported their local team instead. The FA amateur cup had been running since 1893. The competition had been set up following the dominance of professional sides in the FA Cup as a way of giving amateur clubs a real chance to compete for silverware. The 1950s was a time of great change in England, with the Queen’s coronation in 1953 and an end to rationing in 1954. The North East at this time was still dominated by industry, with high employment in the area thanks to industries like steel production and coal mining. The film, in keeping with the purpose of the Amateur FA cup, was an amateur production itself. Films such as this offer a chance to see how local football has developed through the years as well as showing players who would go on to have famous careers before they were household names. Television coverage of sport was nowhere near what it is today. Football was first broadcast live on television by the BBC in the UK in 1937, a specially-arranged friendly between Arsenal v Arsenal Reserves at Highbury, but it was not until the 1950s that television brought the moving image into the viewer’s home in greater numbers as sales of TVs increased with the broadcast of Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation in 1953. Prior to television coverage, sports fans went to the cinema to watch local topical films or newsreels by companies such as Pathé. Cameramen in the early days (often only one or two) struggled to capture the action (often missing goals) due to the constraints of their equipment (no filming from the stands) and the high cost of film. Over the years, television introduced innovations such as action replays, player cam, and slo-mo. The newsreel market suffered with the popularity of television, but the media techniques developed by newsreels continued to be used in TV football broadcasts for decades, and left behind a rich archive of football’s past. In the film we see Crook Town FC take on Pegasus, an Oxbridge side, as well as Walton and Hersham. The latter saw Crook achieve a record attendance of 17,000 fans. This remains Crook’s record attendance to this day. Despite losing the replay. Crook would go on to win the tournament the following year, defeating Bishop Auckland FC in the final at Wembley. Crook would lift the trophy again in 1959, and twice more in the sixties. In total the club won the competition 5 times in their history; however, rivals Bishop Auckland FC were the tournaments most successful club, having lifted the trophy on ten occasions. Also featured are Tow Law Town, or Tow Law FC as they were known at the time. In the film they are defeated by Willington. Tow Law never managed to win the Amateur FA cup by the time it was abolished after the 1973-74 competition. However, they did get to the final of the FA Vase competition, seen by many as the successor to the FA Amateur Cup, in 1998, but were beaten by Tiverton Town at Wembley. The club is also famed for being the former club of England international Chris Waddle, before he was sold to Newcastle United in July 1980 for £1,000. More recently, former Leicester and Derby County striker Steve Howard first played for Tow Law in 1994 but was only at the club for a year before moving on to Hartlepool United. More football on film at NEFA and YFA: 1911 CUP FINAL CRYSTAL PALACE NEWCASTLE V SUNDERLAND 1913 BERWICK INFIRMARY CUP FINAL & SNAPSHOTS IN BERWICK (1928-1929) THE CORONATION CUP FINAL PRESTON NORTH END VERSUS SUNDERLAND 1937 BISHOP AUCKLAND V PRESTON NORTH END (1974) CHARLTON'S CHAMPIONS (1974) And some different news approaches to FA Cup matches: TODAY AT SIX: CUP SPECIAL (1974) MEANWHILE BACK IN SUNDERLAND (1973) References: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/through-decades-north-east-1950-11103421 https://crooktownfc.co.uk/history/ https://www.towlawtown.co.uk/ https://www.nationalfootballmuseum.com/collections_detail/the-fa-amateur-cup/ https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/through-decades-north-east-1950-11103421 https://www.live-footballontv.com/history-of-football-on-tv-uk.html http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/news/fa-cup-trail |
