Whenever I’ve previously been asked about the main football club in this town, I’ve largely had to refer people to early newspaper reports. But I’ve recently been wondering whether there really are no other major sources likely to be preserved nationally – or at least, regionally? Unless I’m missing something obvious, it seems quite difficult to track down very much information – either via the Internet, or through looking for evidence as to other sources used in such club histories as have now been published.

Directors minute books would presumably record local policy decisions, and account books might seem self-explanatory (even if considerations of confidentiality were to be invoked). But what exactly are the “referee’s reports” - which seemingly are often anxiously awaited whenever there has been trouble at a football match? What do they contain, and what eventually becomes of them? Similarly, what about documents relating to a player’s registration? In the short term, they would seem to be carefully preserved, since any irregularities can result in the docking of points or the forfeiture of games. But what happens to them subsequently?

Are such documents usually submitted to the secretaries of various leagues concerned, rather than to the Football Association (or to the Scottish FA)? And does any repository therefore hold any historic league records relating to the professional, or the semi-professional games (e.g. Football League, the Scottish League, the Southern and the Midland Counties Leagues, or the various other Northern leagues)? I suppose that FA Cup games would be subject to different arrangements, and that the same would apply to disciplinary committees (although "red cards" and "yellow cards" are a comparatively recent development). Are any libraries or record office actually storing any significant quantities of early programmes - or are such sources generally neglected, or even despised? (Somewhere amongst my collection of football year books, it used to state that the world's oldest club still in existence was the original Sheffield FC, founded in 1857, and that the original minute book was still extant. I wonder whether that volume still survives today – and who holds it now?)

And what about cricket, or the other high-profile professional sports? Have any of the county clubs made significant deposits of early records with their local repositories? Or are any known to be making alternative arrangements for such items? Cricket, fortunately, has quite an impressive online resource, showing the dates and the careers of most of the First Class players for many years gone by http://www.cricketarchive.com/cgi-bin/ask_the_player_oracle.cgi

If anyone has previous experience of investigating such questions in relation to their own local area, I’d be interested in reading comments (either on-list or off-list) concerning any archive catalogues, or printed sources of information, that I might have overlooked. After all - for many hitherto uninvolved members of the public it's potentially quite a popular research topic. If there was sufficient interest, I’d be happy to produce a summary for this list.

Incidentally, I know that my current home team (who never admitted to having significant archives) formerly had a largely unremarkable and undistinguished career in the Football League – apart from a Third Division game against Plymouth Argyle in November 1968, when the winning goal was accidentally scored by the referee. Yes, I've been asked about that one in the past. However, it would be disappointing (yer know) if no early records had been preserved anywhere else. In fact, I’d probably feel absolutely gutted!

Aidan Jones,

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