CROYDON COMMON FOOTBALL CLUB
MEMORABILIA
A few items of Croydon Common memorabilia, several of which are from my own personal collection, are shown below. Click on the thumbnail to see an enlarged version of each item.
I am interested in purchasing items of memorabilia connected with Croydon Common or any player who appeared for the club. If you have anything of interest, please contact me on ajf@westsussex.myzen.co.uk.
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A postcard showing action from a game, probably at The Crescent during the 1907-08 season; Croydon Common's first season as a professional club. |
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The cover of a boy's season ticket to The Nest for the 1910-1911 season. It cost 7/6 (37.5p) at a time when the Croydon Common players were on a basic wage of around £2 per week. |
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The inside of the same season ticket. |
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A ticket for the club's F.A. Cup First Round Proper match with Woolwich Arsenal in 1913. The match was drawn 0-0 and the Robins lost the replay 2-1. This was a similar outcome to the tie at the same stage of the competition four years previously, where the replay was lost 2-0 after a 1-1 draw (see next item). |
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A spoof remembrance postcard "in memory of" the F.A. Cup defeat by Woolwich Arsenal in 1909. |
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A page from the club handbook for the 1909-10 season, which was its first in Division One of the Southern League. The page recounts the story of the club's formation. |
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A similar page from the club handbook for the 1914-15 season, which was its only other foray into Division One of the Southern League. It is possible that the club only issued a handbook in the two seasons that it was in the top division of the league. |
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A mystery! This postcard showing future Robin, Sam Wolstenholme, was sent in 1905 when he was a player with Blackburn Rovers. It was addressed to a Miss Brewerton and was posted in Birmingham on the evening of Sunday 31 December 1905. One wonders why someone would send a postcard of a footballer, without any message, to a woman, but Wolstenholme was in Birmingham that weekend, as he had played for Blackburn Rovers in a 1-0 win at Aston Villa the previous day. Could he have sent it? |
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A postcard showing the Southern Football Alliance trophy won by Croydon Common in 1912-13, the competition's inauguaral season. It is signed on the front by manager John Bowman. |
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The reverse of the postcard, also signed by manager John Bowman. |
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The back page of the programme for the South Eastern League match away at Tottenham Hotspur on 10 February 1912 ... |
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... and the back page of the programme for the same fixture three years later on 27 February 1915, although it was the Common's reserve eleven playing on this occasion ... |
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... and the line-ups page of the programme for the reserve eleven's London League fixture against the same opponents just a couple of months later. The recorded changes show that manager Bowman stepped in at the last minute and played centre half. |
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The line-ups page of the programme for the South Eastern League match at Fulham in the 1910-11 season. The match was drawn 0-0. |
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The line-ups page of the programme for the same fixture the following season, which also finished 0-0. Incredibly, Fulham managed to misspell FOUR of the Croydon players' names; Mason, Ramsay, Critcher and Romain. |
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The back page of the programme for the away South Eastern League match at Chelsea on 21 March 1908. The Robins lost 4-0. No doubt MacDonald was not amused by the misspelling of his name. The programme is a bright white because it is a modern copy. |
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A postcard celebrating the match between Croydon Common and a Southern Football Alliance Select XI at The Nest on 8 October 1913. Croydon Common had won the SFA league title the previous season and so the match was "The Champions v. The Rest". The Robins lost 2-1. |
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The cover of the menu for a dinner held to commemorate the club's promotion back to the top flight of the Southern League in 1914. The name at the top suggests that it was Billy Bushell's copy. The original is in National Football Museum. |
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The centre pages from the programme for the home Southern League fixture with Llanelly on 31 January 1914, which the Robins won 3-0. |
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The centre pages from the programme for the home Southern League fixture with Northampton Town on 13 February 1915, which the Robins lost 1-0. Of interest is the appearance at right half for the visitors of Walter Tull, who was only the third black player to play in Division One of the Football League and who later became the first black commissioned officer in a regular regiment of the British Army. He was killed in action on 25 March 1918.
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The following four images are not, strictly speaking, of items of memorablila. They relate to documents within the historic file for The Croydon Common Football and Athletic Company Limited at the National Records Office in Kew. The first is a list of the company's directors in 1908. |
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The second is a letter from secretary/manager J.W. Bartlett to the Companies Registration Office explaining why the company's returns were late in being filed. |
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The third is a letter from secretary/manager John Bowman to the Companies Registration Office explaining that the company's returns had been filed, but the letter may have been a delaying tactic necessitated by the company's parlous financial situation. |
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The last is the County Court order winding up the company in March 1917. |