This article has been reproduced with permission from the excellent Blyth Spirit blog at https://blythspirit.wordpress.com/ Francis Oliver King was born on 13th April 1917 in Radcliffe, Northumberland. The eldest of three brothers, George & Ray, his father was a miner at Radcliffe colliery. Aged only nine they were evicted from their colliery house
Tag: War-Time
“More Like A Fighter Than A Footballer”: The Powerhouse English Forward Who Took Serie B By Storm
The following article is reproduced with permission from calcioengland.com. It concerns one of Southport's many war-time Guests, Frank Rawcliffe. Frank Rawcliffe was that rare breed of an Englishman who flourished in Italy. Plucked from the lower reaches of the Football League, his fearsome centre-forward play and predatory instincts in front of goal
War-Period Missing Data
Missing/Incomplete Line-Ups Second World War 1945-46 27/04/1946 War Period H 1000 ROCHDALE W 2 - 0 Goals: J. Rothwell, A. Hanson 04/05/1946 War Period A 3000 ROCHDALE L 1 - 2 Goal: J. CloughH. Todd,J. Rothwell,J. Clough,R. Hulbert
1945/46 Season Summary
The last wartime football season got underway very much how it had been outlined in the May meeting. The Football League held their annual meeting in London on Monday 23rd July with most of the decisions already taken. The lack of fixtures for the Third Division clubs was sorted out.
1944/45 Season Summary
The fifth wartime meeting of the Football League Management Committee was held at Blackpool on the 17th June. Basically the meeting rubber stamped the plan for the previous two seasons being repeated. The Football League North and the Football League North 2nd Championship had grown into massive leagues. Last season
1943/44 Season Summary
The war looked very different at the fourth meeting of the Football League Management Committee. The Allies had taken the whole of North Africa, whilst in the North Atlantic German U-boats were having a hard time losing 43 boats in May 1943. The Germans were in retreat on the eastern
1942/43 Season Summary
The war news had changed from being as bad as ever, to being a different type of news. In December 1941 the Germans had been stopped before Moscow, but by the summer of 1942 they were biting deeper into the Soviet Union again. On the day before the leagues meeting
1941/42 Season Summary
The Football League Management Committee met at the Victoria Station Hotel, Nottingham on 9th June 1941 with no sign of the war coming to an end any time soon. They announced that for the forthcoming season they would ditch the hated goal average system and go back to the usual points
1940/41 Season Summary
Newsprint became scarce and after 1939-40 programmes were reduced to a single sheet. Despite the escalation of the war the local pressmen — and in particular Len Peet ("The Scout' of the Southport Journal) — published a constant stream of football news which was eagerly lapped up by the increasing
1939/40 Season Summary
Liverpool Echo - Saturday 19 August 1939 Life in the summer of 1939 continued largely as normal. The club installed Billy Semple as head trainer in place of Jimmy Seddon while Bob Jones returned as his assistant. Liverpool Daily Post - Monday 24 July 1939 At the Football League's Annual General Meeting it was decided that all
1918/19 Season Summary
The following season, clean out of the blue, the club was taken over by the Mayor Cllr T Hampson - a pioneer of the car industry - who had built up the Vulcan Motor & Engineering Company in Crossens. The club was financed by this company on the express condition
1917/18 Season Summary
The 1917-18 season saw the arrival of another splendid goalkeeper in Tommy Capper who went on to play for Dundee and subsequently Southend United when they were elected to the Third Division. Even so, he had to pick the ball out of the net six times in the first match
1916/17 Season Summary
The next season began with Corporal Kenneth Campbell, formerly of Liverpool and Partick Thistle, in goal; he was destined to be capped nine times by Scotland after the war. Admission was now 6d. for adults and 3d. for boys with an additional 1d. government tax on top. On Boxing Day
1915/16 Season Summary
In September 1915 football was completely reorganized. To save unnecessary travel it was decided to run various sections for different areas of the country. With Blackburn Rovers suspending operations altogether, Southport were called upon to join the Lancashire Section of the Football League which also included Stoke City, Port Vale
1914/15 Season Summary
Although war was declared on August 4th, 1914 the season went ahead as planned. Southport experienced a disastrous year finishing next to botrom with just 26 points. Stringfellow, with seventeen goals, was leading scorer for the third successive season while Billy Caulfield, although transferred to Blackburn Rovers in the February,