Sheffield United v Bury (1902)

Sheffield
1902-09-06
Silent
2m

Sparkling images of fans and players at an Edwardian fixture at Sheffield's Bramall Lane.

Its sparkling images of players and fans make this one of the best of Mitchell & Kenyon's football films. Long, slow pans across the terraces capture the intense concentration etched on every face as Sheffield United, in stripes, lead the attack. The camera missed United's winning goal, but we do see one of the game's first celebrities, United goalkeeper William 'Fatty' Foulke.

Sheffield's Bramall Lane is the oldest major football ground still in use. It was finished in 1855 and hosted its first football match in 1862. United had an excellent 1902-03 season and finished fourth in the First Division, just three points behind the champions, their Sheffield rivals The Wednesday (as they were called until 1929).

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.