Pilgrims' Patter
The Forum => The B-Ark => Topic started by: TAWMAN on February 21, 2018, 01:32:56 PM
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Has anyone written a history of football in Boston, especially covering the pre United days?
The reason I ask is because I've come across a player called Bill Julian who played at the Lord Nelson Field in the 1890s against Royal Arsenal (yes, THAT Arsenal), who signed him a few days later and he became their captain. Bill played for a team called Boston Excelsior.
I know there were other teams in the 19th and early 20th centuries before Boston Town, including Boston Swifts, but no nothing about them either. Talking of Boston Town, I have a team photo from the 1920s, that may include a player called Jack Doran, who had previously had a good career, including playing for Manchester City and Ireland.
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This is the first time I've ever heard of Boston Excelsior - what a brilliant name. Some more information on them would be great.
I always liked 'Boston Swifts' too and if the club had gone under in 2007 it would have been great to re-form under that name - indeed, if I recall correctly, some cheeky little scamp called "Scotty Walds" registered that domain name!
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I always liked 'Boston Swifts' too and if the club had gone under in 2007 it would have been great to re-form under that name - indeed, if I recall correctly, some cheeky little scamp called "Scotty Walds" registered that domain name!
Nah, that was AFCBoston(.co.uk)... since expired and available, as is bostonswifts.co.uk.
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There's a photo of a "Boston Excelsior" team on a website www.thestrawplaiters.com which is a historical site about Luton Town FC in the Victorian era. It's on an A-Z list of teams that Luton played. The photo shows no players names but is labelled "The Boston Excelsior team of 1886-7". It's reasonable to assume that it's the same team that played Royal Arsenal. The source of the photo is Lincolnshire Standard according to the web link.
There's also a mention of a "Boston" team (no "Excelsior" though) losing 7-0 at Gainsborough Trinity in the FA Cup first round on 15th Oct 1887. The source of this is a book entitled "The History of the English Football League".
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I've just found a reference in the England Football Online website to a player called Alf Quantrill, who started out with Boston Swifts, joined Derby in 1914, then Preston for £4000 in 1921. He played 4 times for England in the early 1920s.
At www.friardale.co.uk/Gem/1922/Gem%200771-A.pdf there's a copy of 'The Gem' comic with an article about Quantrill on page 8 (and his photo on the front cover).
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I have these newspaper clippings in my local history archive collection about Boston Excelsior in 1886-7 -