urban rambler wrote: ↑Sat 04 May, 2019 8:13 pm
If I can manage to attach a photo, I was hoping someone would have an idea of the occasion. It was among family photos, and wasn't a postcard format.
I've solved part of the puzzle of your image - the trophy.
Need more details from you to resolve which team it is & what year.
Done a lot of research on the early days of association football for the Burley Archive -
Burley in Wharfedale football history upto 1940
What struck me about your image was how "professional" the 12 players looked compared to the ones I'm more used to looking at. Clean shaven, neat haircuts, clean strip, badges on their shirts (bar one on the back row) & a well turned out manager.
The setting of the photo is unusual - it looks like someone's garden, no building, football stand or goal post anywhere in view.
Then there's the trophy - wow that is something else! And the miniature ones spread across the front.
Finding the trophy was relatively easy - something that size wouldn't go unnoticed by newspapers at anytime in the past. But conversely the size of the trophy or how elaborate it is, rarely seems to relate to the importance of the competition.
Did a Google image search on - old football trophies 1902, then filtered on B&W images. Then added "Yorkshire" as you said the image was in family photos. A few rows down saw the trophy with - "Durham County Cricket Club - Durham.gov.uk Lahore Trades Cup". Although the link didn't work - did a search on Lahore Trades Cup.
The Lahore Trades Cup has gone by several names in the past, it was originally called the "All India Inter-Regimental Football Cup", was made in Sheffield in 1907 & cost £150.00 and presented to Lahore Traders in what is now Pakistan. In that year 19 regiments entered the competition.
(Other names include the Lahore Traders Challenge Cup & Lahore Trades Tournament Cup).
From the British Newspaper Archive - Army & Navy Gazette:
1909 The trophy was won by the 2nd Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment.
1910 & 1911 The Lancashire Fusiliers.
1925 possibly 2nd Battalion Sherwood Foresters
Yet to find details of who won it between 1911 and 1925/1926.
In 1926 soldiers from the Durham Light Infantry regiment entered the competition for the first time and won. They retained the trophy in 1927, and went on to win it again in 1928 and 1929. After their fourth victory, they became perpetual holders and brought the cup home to Durham where it has remained ever since. They renamed it the Durham Light Infantry Cup.
Its now on display at the Palace Green Library, part of Durham University
https://www.dur.ac.uk/palace.green/dli/faqs/
"Visitors can see old favourites such as the Durham Light Infantry Cup (known as the Lahore Trades Cup and once said to be the largest football trophy in the world)".
By contacting the Durham Light Infantry Trustees (owners of the cup) and/or the Palace Green Library (
[email protected]) it might be possible to match up the orientation of the trophy in your photo, with how the trophy is now & work out which miniature shields are the two on the lower tier of the trophy i.e. the latest two winners when the photo was taken. These shields are likely to have the name of the regiment plus the year.
If you can work out which of your relatives was in the army, & which regiment they were in that had tours of duty in India (including what is now Pakistan) between 1912 & 1925, it might be the case that your relative is in the photo.