Chapter 2.
Two Cups
The Inter-departmental Soccer Cup.
1898/9 was the year that the Inter-departmental Soccer Cup was inaugurated; it was so inter-locked with the Club at the start, it needs recording that, until 1914, it was played on Saturday afternoons and, with unofficial trials also taking clubmen out, it could throw spanners in the normal programme. The first draw was:
Clerks v Comptrollers
Architects v Local Government and Statistics (Docketts for short)
By 1900 the full establishment of the Cup was held to give the Club greater playing strength and regularity in selection. Rules were formulated:
Open to entirely bona-fide professional and clerical staff (held not to cover the Chairman’s Secretary)
Applications for entry with 50p fee by 31 July – could be refused.
All rounds re-drawn.
Three clear days of scratching needed.
For the final the referee was engaged from the Refs. Association; Architects beat Comptrollers 2 - 1 and very fine silver medals were presented at 2 guineas a dozen.
Over a hundred spectators were taken down to the match by omnibus, then back to the Soccer Club’s dinner at Anderton’s Hotel in Fleet Street – a 75p advert in the Gazette had produced 250 guests at 15p a head. A list had previously been produced of gentlemen willing to sing, augmented by Mr Philip Payne and a friend at one guinea the pair (105p); but it went to the Executive.
The period tone of the Gazette report on this event may be of interest:
“One of the greatest successes ever scored … how heartily the head of the staff enters into the social life of those who work under him … kindly words spoken from the Chair are welcome compensation for the disadvantages of working for a corporate body … superior people, who feel the less they have to do with brother officers the better, would have felt somewhat ashamed … capital speeches, songs and recitations.”
The man who took this and other finals (and sang at the subsequent dinners) was A Roston Bourke, a national figure in that field; however, a later appeal for his testimonial appears only to have been “received” by the Club Committee.
The Club had lately been defeated by Islington Vestry (the parish council!) but they were now incorporated in the new Borough Council, which applied officially to compete in the inter-departmental. Instead, we joined in inaugurating the Inter-departmental Cup a brief note on which follows. A separate Treasurer was appointed to handle the two competitions.
1900/1
Entries for the Inter-departmental Cup were received from Chemists and Works, as well as a full turn-out of more familiar departments. To allow for practice games, the Club made no fixtures in the week before the first round, but when the Comptrollers held trials against a bank side and then against another department, the Club was left short of players and ruled that consent would be needed for such games on Saturdays. Spectators (over a hundred at one round) paid 1p admission, direct to Soccer Club funds. £1 profit at the end of the season after hiring pitches in early rounds.
The final was played “in a spirit of endurance and perfect good temper”, and advantage was taken of the ensuing dinner to present the Boating Club’s trophies. The Soccer Cup was apparently bought in 1901 while contributions to the cost were still being canvassed around the office; the Executive were put down for fifty shillings (£2.50). Timekeepers were barred from the Works side. For the final, handbills and tickets were printed and Major Warne cancelled the parade of F Company of the City Imperial Volunteers. The dinner, moved to the Caledonian Adelphi, was “a much more jovial occasion than the staff dinner, although the concert was too long”; the artists sang for their supper. Press tickets (?) were charged to the interdepartmental fund, not the Club’s supper fund.
1902/3
Even a trial for Works Dept. was followed by a smoker. A protest by Comptrollers over one round was at last rejected because they had not sent a deposit, then treated as “an informal complaint” and replayed under a ref. from the London F.A.; he failed to turn up; Comptrollers couldn’t raise a side for the new date; back to square one. The account of the final in the Gazette was sixty lines after Longfellow and, at the dinner the referee, probably Mr. Bourke, sang a couple of songs with his usual artistic restraint.
As attendance had fallen off, there was a loss of 96p and the Treasurer was instructed to set that against concert profits.
When Scothorne joined Docketts in 1903 the first question Establishment asked was whether he played football or cricket; in the 1904 final his side lost only 0 - 2 to Architects, composed of mainly the Club First XI. The next year the competition was joined by Tramways, who had their own ground at Dulwich. It was left to their opponents whether a Mr Hansard should play for Comptrollers after he had left the service. A firm of photographers covered the final at their own cost and convenience.
1904/5
This season saw the arrival (from the London School Board) of a department severally known as Education Offices and Executive Officers Dept. (EO’s), who reached the final against Clerks. Gentlemen chosen to officiate at the games in that season had to be fully certificated referees. We apologised to rugby for making a cup fixture on their Saturday – presumably both codes turned up. The next year, Clerks won the cup against Comptrollers. In 07/8, they were exempted from the first round and went on to beat Local Government and Statistics (L.G. & S.) by 6 - 2.
1908/10
The records are as scrappy as for the Club itself, but a Sub-Committee was still struggling with the purchase of the cup, and a new department, Education Architects, was involved. In the latter year EO’s and Comptrollers drew a final 2–2 at Ealing Association’s ground, with Leonard opposed to one of the Bryants. One final, between that and World War 1, was played at the Spotted Dog, (Clapton FC).
After that WW1, medals were re-instituted in 1925. The next reference to the competition was in the mid 30’s when the cup was presented by the Clerk at a Bohemian concert.
Since the WW2, the competition organisers have been Ted Hall, Ken Middleton, Ned O’Keeffe, Mick Veale (one year) and currently Graham Berkins.
The London Municipalities Challenge Cup.
Following the approach from the new Islington Borough Council in 1900/1 the Club discussed possibilities with their Clerk, and our Clerk convened a meeting at which he was elected President of the new cup competition, a post he held long after he left the service to better himself.
It was laid down that an LCC team should call on only three departments, as a handicap, so we entered Arch/Clerks/Compts and Solicitor/Statistical/Works, each team finding its own one guinea entrance fee. The first named team beat Wandsworth Council in the semi-final (the Club did not meet the Borough Officers until 1907/8) and went on to beat Hampstead, the Town Clerk at full back, on their ground at East Finchley.
On the dates when these matches were played, the Club gave preference in selection for its own games to non-LCC staff. The organisation was intermittently referred to as a Football Club and, in fact, selected a representative side which lost to Croydon Borough but were entertained afterwards to tea and song; it also went for an annual smoking concert.
Clerks (alone) represented us in the 1904 final and gave away sixteen goals to Hampstead, now on a ground at Cricklewood, by which time the debts on this trophy had been paid off. It was also noted that in 1906/7 the same department lost in the first round.