A photo taken of a Sheppey
game in the 19th century
It is my
intention with this section to not only have a history of
Sheppey United Football Club but, at some stage, to have a section
that looks at some of the club's best players and also at
each season in focus - with a personal touch from your's truly
on any of the game's that I attended over the years (and I've
seen quite a few Sheppey games in my time - about 300-400
by my estimation).
This section
now has 2 subsections. If you click on the "Sheppey United
- a club history" link below or at the bottom of this page,
you will be taken to a page where you can either select to go
to a section that goes into an in-depth history of the club split
into differing periods in the history of the club or you can
go to the "Season by season" section where I intend
to list ALL the final league tables from Sheppey's history. This
section is further split up by decade. So far, I've typed up
just over half of the league tables and will type up the balance
as and when I obtain them.
In
the meantime, here's a picture of the club's old Botany Road
ground. I've also recently added a picture of a Sheppey teamshot
taken before a game at Botany Road which can be seen further
down the page. Not sure which year it was taken so if anyone
has any ideas then could they drop me a line by clicking on the"E-mail
the site" link?
I
spent many games watching Sheppey play both in the Kent and Southern
Leagues here whilst also attending countless away games too (and
I can tell you a tale about some of them - like getting into
Chelmsford City's ground on a player's pass for one or being
threatened with being thrown out of Billericay's ground during
the club's best ever FA Trophy run as they thought they were
going to thrash the Sheppey only for us to beat them 4-2 with
Bobby Ashen scoring a hat-trick and we were being just a tad
vocal in our support for another!).
Watch
this space for some - hopefully frequent - updates on Sheppey
United's sometimes colourful history.
I have heard from
one of the players in this photo (Alf Goldsmith, second
from right in the back row) that this is a team photo
of the 1965 Greater London League Championship winning
side. The team, left to right back row first are:-
Peter Peters, Joe Keywood, John Laurel, Malcolm Bontoff,
Alf Goldsmith, Jackie Bridge, Johnny Platt, Ray Corney,
Albert Pounder, Roy Goodhew, Johnny Hutchins
Update:-
Finding information on Sheppey's formative years and, more importantly,
it's years in the Kent League up to the league disbanding in
the late 50's are proving extremely difficult to find. As are
details of the club's time in the Aetolian, Metropolitan and
Greater London Leagues - though I have got the league table for
the 1964/65 season and know that Sheppey drew with Eton Manor
in the Championship final that year and consequently shared the
title that year (the Greater London League was split into 2 sections
with the winner of each section meeting to decide the overall
winner). The photo to the left is a teamshot of that championship
winning side from 1965.
I've now added names to most of the players in the
teamshot to the left but I was missing first names for 2 of the
players until e-mails from Roger Birkin and Jon King helped fill
in the gaps for me - many thanks for that Roger and Jon. As a slight
aside, Johnny Hutchins used to turn up weekly to my house when
I was a kid as he was my parent's insurance man!
The
Kent League website has provided little help as it only deals
with the years since the league was reformed in 1969. I do know
that the club has won at least 6 Kent League titles but little
other information is forthcoming (I do have the years that they
won the league now and have added this information to the "Club
honours" page as well as a few other honours that Sheppey
have won over the years). I will endeavour to provide as extensive
a club history as I can. If all else fails then I will go back
through the local library's records of local papers as I once
did previously. If anyone can provide me with any information
I would be very grateful. You can contact me by clicking on the "E-mail
The Site" link.
Sheppey
after having just won the Kent Amateur Trophy in 1952 at
Maidstone against Erith & Belvedere
Latest
Update (11/10/2003):- I've now been down to the local library
and have started going through the microfilm archives they have
on local Sheerness/Sheppey newspapers. When senior football started
out on the Isle of Sheppey there were 2 local papers - The Sheerness
Times and The Sheerness Guardian. The Times doesn't appear to
have covered local football at all while the Guardian did - to
a certain extent. Even though it is now generally accepted that
Sheppey United began life as a club in 1890 I started looking
through the archives from 1885 to find the origins of the club.
There is no records of any football on the island in the papers
until October 1886 when the first mention of some island football
clubs appears and it is here where I will start. Click on the
link below to go to my account of the club's history.
