Rotherham Town v Thornhill (1902)

Rotherham
1902-02-11
Silent
1m

A ropey pitch and worse goalkeeping in a typical non-league football derby in Edwardian Yorkshire.

These two Rotherham football clubs eventually merged to become Rotherham United in 1925. Here, they make the best of a poor pitch that caused the match to be abandoned after 55 minutes. The Rotherham Town keeper, in white, puts in a lot of effort, if not so much skill, with the ball. Showman Albert Wilkinson, in a top hat, can be seen geeing up the coal-dusted crowds for the camera.

M&K 755: Football officials and players walk out onto a snowy pitch.

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.