Preston North End v Aston Villa (1905)

Preston
1905-11-11
Silent
1m

Early football giants Preston and Villa face up in an epic Edwardian contest.

As Villa lead Preston out of the changing room at Deepdale, the teams seem relaxed - unfazed by the then unfamiliar sight of a cameraman. Preston, in white shirts, are soon pressing hard and Villa have a couple of narrow escapes, including a disallowed goal. But the home crowd soon have something to cheer with outside right Dicky Bond's unstoppable shot in a 2-0 win for Preston's 'Invincibles'.

Preston, among the founders of the Football League, were one of the game's early giants. They topped the table in the League's very first two seasons, 1888-89 and 1889-90 - the second time maintaining an unbeaten record in both league and FA Cup games - an achievement never matched since. They would finish the 1905 season in second place, four points behind league winners Liverpool. Rivals Aston Villa had been Preston's runners-up in 1888-89 and were already five-times league champions and five-times winners of the FA Cup. The peculiar striped hut seen in the film was in use as a changing room until 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.