Last month, in footballing news a century in the making, Harwich & Parkeston FC announced that their formation date has been officially changed from 1877 to 1875. The announcement came with its own piece of footballing history, in the form of the 1876 edition of Charles Alcock‘s Football Annual.
As stated in the announcement, the 1876 Football Annual has the-then Harwich FC’s “results of goals”, which happened to be a nice round summary of ten matches played: “won 6, lost 3, drawn 1”. With what little information is available, I wondered if it would be possible to determine at what point at 1876 the “results of goals” would have been formulated, and maybe even exactly which ten matches they were.
A baseline to work with is the sole drawn game. Through my own research on the BNA, I have come across two drawn games in 1876:
- 15 March 1876: Ipswich Grammar School 0-0 Harwich
- 29 November 1876: Colchester 2-2 Harwich
There may have been others that are as of yet unknown, but the results were definitely compiled before that second game, which strongly implies they were of the 1875-76 season as a whole. Indeed, the results state three losses, and I happen to have found exactly three from before November 1876:
- 8 March 1876 – Harwich 0-2 Dedham Grammar School
- 25 March 1876 – Harwich 1-2 Colchester Garrison
- 1 April 1876 – Colchester Garrison 2-0 Harwich
A bit of a bad spell, then. I have three other results from the 1875-76 season, all wins, which takes the tally to seven:
- 19 February 1876 – Colchester 1-2 Harwich
- 26 February 1876 – Harwich 1-0 Mr. D. B. Roffey’s Team
- 1 March 1876 – Harwich 2-0 Colchester
So, the remaining three are key. We know they will have all been wins, but against which clubs? Through Andrew Senter‘s efforts, scouring the Harwich & Dovercourt Newsman, we know that an internal match between club members was played on 27 October 1875, and a home match against an Army & Navy side was tabled for 20 November 1875, but unfortunately the scoreline for each is unknown.
The Essex Standard of 10 March 1876 states the game two days prior against Dedham Grammar School was the “return match”; add this unknown away fixture to the above two, and we have our ten. However, it is not necessarily that straightforward.
Firstly, that maiden internal match provides an obvious issue – if it was Harwich A vs Harwich B, would they really count Harwich A winning as a win for the club as a whole? It’s tough to see that counting in the stats. Secondly, the East Anglian Daily Times of 28 February 1876 states that for the game against Mr. D. B. Roffey’s Team, the titutar D. B. Roffey “was obliged to make an alliance with H.M.S. Penelope and Dedham School” – would this have been enough to count as the first fixture with Dedham?
For completion’s sake, there is one other result known before the November 2-2 draw; on 8 November 1876, Harwich travelled to Ipswich to play Woodbridge Grammar School, and won 1-0. This is unlikely to have formed part of the six wins, but is recorded here just in case.
Where do we stand? Well, it is absolutely certain that Harwich played seven matches in 1875-76, with a record of W3 D1 L3. They probably beat the Army & Navy side (though the result may have been lost to time), and the internal match probably took place, with statisticians maybe being cheeky enough to count it as a Harwich win. There may have been a game at Dedham against the Grammar School, perhaps in early February 1876, but this is not certain, let alone the result.
Almost 150 years later, the early days of Harwich Football Club are still being thoroughly researched and brought to life and, as with all aspects of history, this can’t be a bad thing. Here’s to the next 150.
Harwicensis 