What was the game like when Fred Spiksley played it? 1887-1906

 

What was the game like when Fred Spiksley played it? 1887-1906

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50139190

 FRED SPIKSLEY WAS a gambling addict who would risk his job for the sake of having a bet at the local races.

Like all gamblers, he ‘felt lucky’, but was unlikely to have appreciated that his greatest piece of luck was in being born on 25 January 1870. This was because only fifteen years after his birth football’s growing popularity, particularly, amongst the working class, would lead to the Football Association (FA) introducing professional football in 1885.

Three years later, the Football League began and football was on its way to becoming the most popular sport in the world.

Between 1870 and 1888 football, especially thanks to Scottish side Queen’s Park, formed 1867, changed dramatically moving from a sport where teams lined up in 1-1-8 formation, in which forwards sought to advance en masse such that when one lost the ball another took it up in an effort to overpower the defenders, towards a 2-3-5 formation where passing the ball became king. When England faced Scotland the latter’s greater passing abilities meant they generally won.

Large numbers of Scots players arrived in England after 1888 and the best teams were packed with Scottish players.

Professionalism meant players could improve their fitness levels and skills and standards rose although there were no such things as specialist coaches and trainers largely relied on keeping the players fit and, in some cases, especially during FA Cup weeks, away from alcohol.

Spiksley was lucky when Gainsborough Trinity, who played for from 1887 to 1891 before moving to Sheffield Wednesday, employed Willie Madden as player/coach. The Dumbarton player had already shown his skills on the field, had studied the game and wanted to pass on to younger players his ideas that included the need to remember football was a team game and so it was better to pass to a better placed colleague when in front of goal rather than take a wild swing at the ball.

A handicap for players was the equipment and state of the pitch. The leather ball could become heavy and misshapen during matches, boots were little different to walking boots with spikes in them, the pitch was nothing like today and might have no grass on it except out on the wings from autumn onwards. It would become muddy on wet days, slippy when snow covered and physically demanding.

Despite all this the game was exciting and contained players with great skills such as John Goodall of PNE and Derby and England whose abilities to bring others into the games and score goals would stand comparison with the legendary Hungarian and Real Madrid midfielder of the 1950s Ferenc Puskas. There were also players with incredible speed such as Arthur Wharton, the first black professional player, and Fred Spiksley.

 As has always been the case, goalscorers were the kings, perhaps even more so than today as the game was built around supplying the centre forward – who, of course, had no number on his back – with opportunities to net, although only after nets had been introduced into the game at the start of the 1890s! During Fred's time at the very top of the game between 1892 and 1903 the top strikers included  two Johnny Campbell’s, one with Sunderland and one with Villa, both Scots, John Southworth of Blackburn Rovers and Everton, Steve Bloomer, whose abilities rank alongside players of modern times and Vivian Woodward.

Wingers such as the legendary Man Utd and City and Welsh international Billy Meredith could put the ball just where forwards needed to net.

It was generally the case that up front, the players either side of the centre forward formed strong partnerships with the inside forwards and wingers seeking to play one-twos with one another. At Wednesday Alec Brady and Spiksley were amongst the finest left forward combinations.

At the back, full backs were no nonsense players who could be brutal towards opposing wingers. Sheffield United’s Rab Howell would dump Spiksley on the side of the pitch. Ron Harris at Chelsea in the 60s and 70s would have admired Howell.

In an era when a 3-man rather than 2-man offside rule was in place the centre halves would have more opportunities to advance with the ball and bring others into the game. Charlie Roberts at Manchester United was possibly the best.

The excitement generated by these great players and the teams they played in meant crowds grew enormously and they can stand comparison at big games with today. Spiksley played in front of gates of over 20,000 at Olive Grove until 1899 and 40,000 at Owlerton in 1903 and over 40,000 at Villa Park and 30,000 at Newcastle Road, Sunderland. Few of these spectators sat down and the passion was intense in big league matches and derby games and in the latter stages of the FA Cup and England-Scotland games.

When Spiksley was at his peak there were no such thing as TV cameras to catch the moving action – that was to change dramatically in the first decade of the 20^th century – making comparison with today difficult but there is action many years later of Stanley Matthews, rightly acknowledged as one of England’s greatest players and whose ability with the ball, especially crossing it, is matched by few players.

When Spiksley died in 1948, Matthews was voted the FWA Player of the Year and he later became the first man to win it for a second time in 1963. Matthews was the first winner – in 1956 – of the European Footballer of the Year award.

 

There appeared soon after Spiksley's death a letter in the Gainsborough News from C G Jennings of 16 Garnett Street, Cleethorpes, who stated that during his seven years working on the paper he had worked alongside Fred Spiksley when he was an apprentice compositor in the 1880s and 90s. The writer claimed he had seen every England international match and FA Cup final from 1897 till 1934 and “that with all due deference to (Stanley) Matthews wizardry, I shall always maintain Fred Spiksley, in possession of the ball, was the fastest forward I have ever seen, his phenomenal speed, his elusiveness and his shooting gifts made him the great player he became.” Jennings commented on Fred’s remarkable exploits at Richmond Park in 1893 when he inspired England to come from 2-1 down to beat the Scots 5-2.