Dave
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Post by Dave on Jan 25, 2009 16:43:42 GMT
The only picture I can find of the Buckfastleigh racecourse was taken in 1955. it does show the stand that can still be seen as you drive past it on the a38, only it is now in a very poor condition.I wonder if this stand was built in the same place and about the same size as the one that was moved to Plainmoor.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2009 17:47:54 GMT
This is from Geograph - www.geograph.org.uk - a site which aims to have photos from every 1km grid square in the country. Taken in 2005:
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jan 25, 2009 19:37:25 GMT
Just goes to show you should never believe what you read without cross-checking. Three of the four foundation dates given are wrong!
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Jan 25, 2009 20:35:54 GMT
barton, does it feel like you are being picked on :Dthe problem is, these history guys like to make sure the facts are correct.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2009 22:22:46 GMT
barton, does it feel like you are being picked on :Dthe problem is, these history guys like to make sure the facts are correct. Accuracy makes the History Man, Dave, and there's a danger in over-relying on secondary sources at the expense of primary sources (as we say on in trade). Sometime in the past there's been this strange confusion over the club's foundation date - 1898 or 1899 (let alone 1897) - and that's possibly been perpetuated by nobody checking to see a trusted source has got it right. Mike Holgate picks up on that 1897 date by making the point that many of the founding fathers were playing that year as Torquay Public College AFC. But then, if you consult the centenary history, my reading is those school games might not have started until the 1898/99 academic year. There's also mention, in various places, of pupils from Torbay College also being involved. Mike's book shows the cover of this 1948/49 publication which gives the foundation date as 1898: I've not seen this publication but apparently it includes a history of the club by Bill Luscombe, one of the Ancients, who gives the foundation date as 1898. I'm guessing this is the same material reproduced in the centenary history with a health warning about the accuracy of the Bill Luscombe's account. Having read it again recently, you do wonder what he got right! Anyway - and I'm making an assumption here - it looks like nobody questioned the 1898 foundation date until much later. I've just checked a few older reference books and they all say 1898. However, Laura Joint's 1991 booklet says 1899 as the original birth - and 1921 (the professional Torquay United) for the "rebirth". As for Rothmans there's one shout for 1910 (Torquay Town at Plainmoor) but otherwise it's 1898 until the 95/96 edition; 1899 thereafter. When was history revised? Who spotted the error? Are they members of this forum? This isn't the time for modesty. I think there's a story to be told... Is it my eyes but does it say Capt C.G Dsane of Bronshill House?
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Post by ealinggull on Jan 25, 2009 22:56:08 GMT
Racecourse opened in 1883. Am fairly sure the date we got it was mentioned in the book Jon and ealinggull worked on, which I can't find at the moment. Rob I'd just like to set the record straight and confirm that I have had nothing to do with contributing to any book on TUFC to date. Maybe at some point in the future ...
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Rob
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Post by Rob on Jan 25, 2009 23:07:06 GMT
My apologies Alex.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jan 25, 2009 23:47:34 GMT
Sometime in the past there's been this strange confusion over the club's foundation date - 1898 or 1899 (let alone 1897) - and that's possibly been perpetuated by nobody checking to see a trusted source has got it right. Mike Holgate picks up on that 1897 date by making the point that many of the founding fathers were playing that year as Torquay Public College AFC. But then, if you consult the centenary history, my reading is those school games might not have started until the 1898/99 academic year. There's also mention, in various places, of pupils from Torbay College also being involved. Mike's book shows the cover of this 1948/49 publication which gives the foundation date as 1898: I've not seen this publication but apparently it includes a history of the club by Bill Luscombe, one of the Ancients, who gives the foundation date as 1898. I'm guessing this is the same material reproduced in the centenary history with a health warning about the accuracy of the Bill Luscombe's account. Having read it again recently, you do wonder what he got right! Anyway - and I'm making an assumption here - it looks like nobody questioned the 1898 foundation date until much later. I've just checked a few older reference books and they all say 1898. However, Laura Joint's 1991 booklet says 1899 as the original birth - and 1921 (the professional Torquay United) for the "rebirth". As for Rothmans there's one shout for 1910 (Torquay Town at Plainmoor) but otherwise it's 1898 until the 95/96 edition; 1899 thereafter. When was history revised? Who spotted the error? Are they members of this forum? This isn't the time for modesty. I think there's a story to be told... Is it my eyes but does it say Capt C.G Dsane of Bronshill House? The Public College AFC was definitely playing as far back as 1888 (eleven years before TUFC) - maybe even earlier. The history in the 1948/49 annual is the one reproduced word for word in the Centenary History. Luscombe simply mixed up the date and placed the events a year earlier than they actually happened. I guess that everyone trusted his memory without checking. We celebrated our golden jubilee in 1948 - hence the book. Rothmans and every other publication went along with it. I spotted the error in the mid 80s. Torquay library has copies of all the old Torquay Times and football was very well reported in it - there is a very clear piece about the formation of TUFC in May 1899. It was not at all difficult to find. Leigh Edwards put out a small yellow book in the late 80s with all the scores post 1927 - which were contributed by John Lovis. I managed to convince him of the 1899 date and this was probably the first publication to get it right. A few years later (but not until 1994 or 1995 if Barton's research is correct, which I suspect it is) I wrote to Jack Rollin and asked him to amend the entry in Rothmans which he did. Finally, Dave Thomas got in touch as the centenary approached and I let him have the evidence of the 1899 date, so he could clear it up in the Herald. Unfortunately, I had less luck with the South Devon League who continued to insist on a 1902 foundation date, even after I took the trouble to send them irrefutable evidence that the true date was 1903. This kind of thing is rife and as Barton says comes down to people readily accepting hearsay and not bothering to check things out. Torquay Athletic celebrated their Centenary in 1975, but when Ray Batten did just a little research he soon found out that they were founded in 1886. Finally, I know tongue is firmly in cheek with the Dsane quip, but it is worth mentioning what an incredible all-round sportsman Gerry Deane was. He played first-class cricket for Somerset and was one of Torquay Athletic's finest players before swapping codes to play for the original United. He originally signed up as goalkeeper, but soon moved to centre-forward - scoring goals by the hatful. He moved to centre-half when Town was formed, but played in goal in the 1912 Devon Cup Final after our goalie flounced off in a hissy fit. Unfortunately, he was killed in India during the Great War.
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merse
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Post by merse on Jan 26, 2009 3:35:34 GMT
The confusion over formation dates of the various "football" clubs of Torquay is wholly understandable. My grandmother (who lived to be 101), whom I mentioned in the posting on Buckfastleigh Races; had to endure "time standing still" for twelve months when on the occasion of the death of her sister in 1974, we discovered that the understanding of the family that Auntie Florrie was the younger sister of the two was in fact wrong and that she was the elder. In the days that they were born, in country parishes; there were no birth certificates as such but an entry in "the book" at the local vicarage and so on the demise of our Great Aunt we had to refer to the Vicarage in Ipplepen where the truth (and the two elderly sisters had spent a lifetime blissfully unaware) dawned that in their childhood and youth they had somehow become "reversed" in the order of birth of their many siblings...............there were as many as sixteen born to my great grandmother, although not that many survived infancy. I well remember my gran saying "oh well I must be 86 then"................it was of no real concern to her and she happily lived as an 86 year old for a bit longer rather than an 87year old!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2009 9:25:53 GMT
Excellent Jon! From now on I shall think of you as "the man who..." The Rothmans oddity is that it was the 1989-90 edition which dropped 1898 in favour of 1910 - just for the one edition - before reverting to 1898 for a few more years. The 1880s would have been the time football clubs were appearing in Devon. I think Heavitree (1885) always claimed to be the oldest - Dawlish say 1889, Tavistock 1888, Holsworthy 1891. Argyle's date is given as 1886 - another club formed by pupils of private schools. And, in Cornwall, there's at least ten current SW Peninsula League clubs offering 1880s or 1890s foundation dates. it is worth mentioning what an incredible all-round sportsman Gerry Deane was. He played first-class cricket for Somerset and was one of Torquay Athletic's finest players before swapping codes to play for the original United. He originally signed up as goalkeeper, but soon moved to centre-forward - scoring goals by the hatful. He moved to centre-half when Town was formed, but played in goal in the 1912 Devon Cup Final after our goalie flounced off in a hissy fit. Unfortunately, he was killed in India during the Great War. I checked Gerry Deane's credentials as soon as I posted using a doorstop of a cricket book I've had for years (although the basics are now on Cricinfo). He played 36 times for Somerset over seven seasons at a time when the amateurs often took it in turn to play. The book says he died of a fever in Multan in December 1914 and he attended Taunton School. In an age of all-round sportsmen this would make Gerry Deane a Somerset contemporary of Sammy Woods who played cricket and rugby for England, cricket for Australia (he was Australian-born) and - apparently - football for Sussex. You can find his memorial stone in the smaller cemetery on Wellington Road in Taunton.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Feb 23, 2015 23:04:35 GMT
Just tripped into this site: www.golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/england/south-west/devon/1008-dev-torquay-golf-club-walls-hillI hadn't realised that the golf clubs at Petitor and Walls Hill overlapped by a quarter of a century. There is a nice old postcard view - possibly from the days when Mr Dear's boys strutted their stuff there from 1903 to 1907. I assume that football was played on what was and still is the cricket ground. The young Babbacombe football pioneers - possibly including an ancestor of a forum member looking at the names in the first photo on this thread - were originally referred to as "Babbacombe Caddies". I wonder if they earned a few pennies on a Saturday morning carting golf bags before playing football in the afternoon. In 1907, Babbacombe FC moved to land which was earmarked for the new golf course at Petitor Road - moving down to opposite the Palk Arms in 1908 and to Plainmoor in 1910.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2015 10:54:08 GMT
I’d love to think football on Walls Hill once looked like this: This comes from the programme for the 1963 UEFA International Youth Tournament held in England. Rather too flat a surface for Babbacombe, I imagine, although I’m none too sure of the actual location.
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Post by stefano on Feb 24, 2015 14:02:13 GMT
I’d love to think football on Walls Hill once looked like this: This comes from the programme for the 1963 UEFA International Youth Tournament held in England. Rather too flat a surface for Babbacombe, I imagine, although I’m none too sure of the actual location. Looks like Mullion
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 25, 2015 7:56:53 GMT
I don't know the football at Mullion myself but, yes, that could be the view south in the direction of the Lizard. Mullion are doing well this season; top of the Cornwall Combination. Next stop Peninsula?
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Post by stefano on Feb 25, 2015 8:19:27 GMT
I don't know the football at Mullion myself but, yes, that could be the view south in the direction of the Lizard. Mullion are doing well this season; top of the Cornwall Combination. Next stop Peninsula? They were in the old South Western League for a few seasons before it became Peninsula. Their bid failed in 1991 when Devon and Cornwall Police came in as a surprise package and got elected instead, but the Mullion bid succeeded the following year 1992. Like TUFC constantly moan about, Mullion found their location difficult to attract the 'SWL circuit' players and found travelling a financial strain. The SWL was of course dominated by Cornish clubs, and although SWPL West would probably be about the same, if they were successful and made the Premier travel would be even more prohibitive. Best of luck to them though. A 'proper' football club.
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