Notts County v Middlesbrough (1902)

Nottingham
1902-09-27
Silent
2m

The game is held up for the camera to do a full tour of the cheering crowds at Trent Bridge, Notts County's home until 1910.

The cheering crowds on view are about to see a 2-0 home win that put Notts County at the top of the First Division, though the season would end with the Magpies in a disappointing 14th place, just behind Middlesbrough. The difference between the crowds in the standing and seated sections is striking - particularly the number of women, who are completely absent from the terraced sections.

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.