Quote:
Originally Posted by eastsussexred
He was the son of the former magistrate and mayor of Wrexham in 1875 (Dr Thomas Eyton Jones) who died in France in 1893. Dr Thomas Eyton Jones was a very well known surgeon in the area and was also the secretary and President of The North Wales Branch of The British Medical Association. Thomas was a surgeon in The Denbighshire Rifle Volunteers and the regimental surgeon of The Wrexham Yeomanry Cavalry
John Arthur Eyton Jones was also a famous surgeon in the area, and he was a Lieutenant surgeon in The 1st and 2nd Volunteer Brigade of The Royal Welsh Fusiliers, who’s headquarters were based on the Crispin Lane end of The Racecourse. He was the President and vice captain of The Wrexham Hockey Club, on its inception in 1897 and also played cricket for The Wrexham Cricket Club in the 1880’s and 90’s. He was the nephew of Sir Edward Samuelson, who was the Lord Mayor of Liverpool in 1862/63 and the great nephew of Sir Rowland Hill, the inventor of the penny post.
He was commonly known by the name of Arthur, and mostly received the title of Dr J.A. Eyton Jones in his medical career. Arthur had three brothers-Thomas (born 1862) Hugh Mortimer (b-1864) Robert (b-1871) and both Thomas and Hugh Mortimer had played in scratch matches for Wrexham FC.
Arthur had been playing for The Hare and Hounds (Wrexham) Football Club since at least 1881 till the end of the 82/83 season, while his brother Thomas (jnr) was also listed as the goalkeeper in the same team. In those days, players were interchangeable between clubs, and The Hare and Hounds, who played on The Racecourse, often served as a feeder club for Wrexham FC, so that players would step in if there were shortages in either team. In the 1883/84 season, Arthur was mostly playing for Wrexham FC, although sometimes would also play for Bootle. He was one of the Wrexham players in the team against Oswestry in the second round of the FA Cup on December 1st 1883, in which crowd trouble led to Wrexham being banned from English FA games. Most of that team were then released from the club as Wrexham reformed as Wrexham Olympic at the end of the season, although Arthur played for Wrexham Olympic against Ruthin at The Racecourse on 30th August 1884, even though he remained on the books of the Hare and Hounds Football Club. This, however, was just a ruse- a safeguard for Eyton Jones against expulsion from English FA games.
When Wrexham reformed into Wrexham Olympic prior to the start of the 1884 season, they just absorbed the Hare and Hounds into the new club, and former Hare and Hounds players like John Arthur Eyton Jones and Herbert Sisson continued to play for Wrexham Olympic. The Hare and Hounds ceased as a football club at the end of the 83/84 season, although it continued as an athletic sport club and a club for hunting. But when objections were raised about Eyton Jones playing in the international match against England in March 1884, he just produced documentation to say that he was on the books of The Hare and Hounds, even though that football club would shortly be absorbed into Wrexham Olympic.
In the 1883/84 season, Albert had played for both Wrexham and Bootle, but from 84 to late 85 he was playing for Bootle, although Olympic may have kept a retainer on him as he would sometimes play in testimonials for Wrexham Olympic on The Racecourse and was listed as a Wrexham Olympic player in all of his international matches, as well as the many county matches which he played for Denbighshire, and was also listed as an Olympic player in the games he played for North Wales against the South.
He also played in a friendly match between representatives of the legal profession in Wrexham and those representing the medical profession in Wrexham at The Racecourse on 9th April 1897. Eyton Jones scored the only goal for the doctors and Thomas Parry Jones Parry- the Wrexham solicitor who later bought The Racecourse, scored a goal for the Legal Profession who won the game by 2 goals to 1
He was declared Bankrupt in 1903.
https://newspapers.library.wales/vie...53/4248059/57/
Wrexham Olympic were formed in August 1884 |
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Originally Posted by APJ
A fascinating read Eastsussex.
I wonder do you have a view of Stoke City's 1863 disputed date of origin? (e.g. see https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...nalCode=fsas20 - sorry its just the abstract). If their origin is in fact 1868 as has been widely claimed, it would mean that if Wrexham could get promoted before Notts County, we could claim to be the oldest club in the EFL! |
Thanks APJ, that is interesting, but I dont know much about Stoke, other than their claim to have been founded in 1863. I imagine that there would be plenty of arguments made either way as there would always be plenty of grey areas in comparison to the ways that modern clubs function. I tend to imagine the clubs in those days as just being groups of people who were creating clubs due to a new ethos of healthier living that was sweeping through society, with the backing of the establishment, but by modern standards, these clubs would be more akin to Sunday League pub teams nowadays..
The game had been evolving as a codified sport since the 1840’s, with The Cambridge Rules, followed by The Sheffield Rules and finally, the Football Association Rules, which were first penned in 1863 and have been evolving ever since.
From our own perspective, there are two main grey areas- 1869 to 1872, when the club appears to have disappeared; and the Olympic era, when the board and most of the players left the club and advertisements were placed in the local newspaper seeking volunteers to start a new club. However, the latter was far more nuanced than it first appears and was necessary to keep a football club in Wrexham after a scandal which led to the club being banned from the English Association. But as I have explained above, this was a bit of sleight-of-hand diplomacy, which was intended to keep the club alive by gaining re-admission to the English Association. This worked as the English FA readmitted the club in the following season, minus most of their players and their board. The club also added ‘Olympic; after its name, although the club remained on The Racecourse and there was still a continuation of individuals and organisations that had been associated with the earlier club. In effect, it was the same club, but changes had been made to avoid the economic affect of an English FA ban. If this was ever challenged, I feel confident that I could prove enough ongoing associations between the club before the ban and the Olympic era, to show that it was basically the same club.
The 1869-72 issue appears to have occurred for two reasons. Firstly, Sir W.W Wynn was giving the military precedent over use of The Racecourse, which meant that the club could not use the ground when it was needed, and as most of the players were volunteers in the military then they were not available to play for the club either- a bit like the situation that occurred during the first and second World Wars. Additionally, many of the players had also been Provincial Insurance clerks, as well as volunteers in the militia and cavalry, and it appears that The Provincial may have been reigning in their staff to represent their own company sports activities, although again, there was a continuation of people and associations with activities at The Racecourse to show that the club was basically the same club in 1872 as it had been in 1869. I believe that I could also prove that this was the case too.
I assume that you would get similar arguments from Stoke fans in relation to their clubs history?