Preston North End v Notts County (1904)

Preston
1905-10-17
Silent
1m

Preston triumph at Deepdale in an Edwardian contest between two of England's oldest football teams.

As the players emerge onto the pitch it's possible to make out a tattered notice pinned to the wall of the changing rooms proclaiming 'No Betting'. Gambling on football matches emerged almost as soon as the game, but it was a mostly furtive practice before the arrival of the football pools in the 1920s. The positioning of the notice makes you wonder if it was aimed at the crowds or the players.

Note: Preston North End is wearing different strip from MITCHELL AND KENYON 96 and 98.

Edwardian Football

The beautiful game, Edwardian style, in some of the earliest ever film of League, international and amateur football

For Blackburn-based filmmakers Mitchell & Kenyon, the attraction of football was at least as much the swelling crowds - who they hoped to lure to paid screenings - as the game itself. With only a few hundred feet of film on hand and far less mobile cameras than today's, their cameramen could only hope to sample the action on the pitch; catching a goal was a rare bonus.

The crowds' passion and energy are almost spectacle enough, but these films also survive as priceless football history - preserving, among other trophies, the earliest known footage of Manchester Utd and probably the first 'international' games captured on film.