Hull City Football (c.1905)

Kingston upon Hull
1905
Silent
2m

Hull City football club plays a friendly match in their inaugural season.

Their opponents have yet to be identified, but this footage of Hull City (in dark stripes) at The Boulevard is believed to be from the 1904-05 season, their very first as a club. Although this would have been 'only' a friendly - which might explain the many empty seats - the all-male crowd are clearly in good spirits, waving and cheering at the camera.

For the 1905-06 season, their first in the Football League, Hull City played their home games at the Anlaby Road Cricket ground, before moving to their own stadium, Anlaby Road, in March 1906.

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.