Hitchin F.C: An Auspicious Beginning

[anthony.brown]

The first Hitchin Football Club was founded by the Reverend John Pardoe, assisted by Cecil Frederick Reid and other Forest FC & Wanderers players. John Pardoe was given the task of spreading the 'association game' into Hertfordshire by Charles Alcock (of the Wanderers).
Joined by local 'gentleman amateurs' Francis Shillitoe, Hubert Delme Radcliffe, William Hill, Reverend James Benjamin Parker, Arnold Clarkson Conder, George Jackson junior, and others, about twenty members met for practice for the first time at the Dog Kennel Farm, Charlton on Saturday 25th November 1865.
The early games were not played at Butts Close, as some historians have assumed. The local press makes it clear that the players used a field at the Dog Kennel Farm, Charlton from the start, later using the cricket field in London Road. Butts Close was a much over-used public space, the gentlemen football players preferring the private land offered them by Frederick Peter Delme Radcliffe of the Priory estate.
Football had been the traditional winter game of the town's cricketers. The Hitchin Cricket Club was revived in April 1864, and in 1866 it started to prepare its new ground in London Road, at the top of Hitchin Hill, and the cricketers and footballers split into two separately run clubs. The membership of the two clubs was much the same, the local gentleman amateurs deciding to keep the clubs as separate entities despite William Lucas's attempt to re-unite the cricketers and football players and run them as one (again). Between 1864 and 1869 the cricket club played on Butts Close until their new ground was ready. This led to some historians wrongly assuming that the football club also played at Butts Close in its early days.

[anthony.brown]

Updated.

[anthony.brown]

Visiting Hitchin market recently, I saw the mural which includes a lovely yellow canary representing football in the town. A few yards from the mural, opposite the Warner's Alms House in the churchyard, stood St Mary's National School, where the 'first' Hitchin Football Club was inaugurated. Can anyone pinpoint the actual site of the demolished National School room, which would have stood in the Churchgate/new market area?

[CanaryHatter]

There's a photo of it here if it helps locate its location Anthony:

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-engra ... 86435.html

[anthony.brown]

A useful map of the area is shown in the book 'Hitchin: A Pictorial History' by Richard Field (published by Phillimore in 1991).
A better description of the school's location would be 'opposite the south side of St Mary's Church in the area of Churchgate and the new market', perhaps. Close to the old Iceland store.

[KEITH]

Anthony, bear with me, if you Google old St Andrew's school Hitchin it gives the location as the corner of Hollow Lane & St Andrew's Place. St Mary's, it tells us, was renamed St Andrew's after WWII. My dad went to St Andrew's which was demolished in 1971 & I vaguely remember him pointing out the school to me but from my memory, which maybe playing tricks on me, I too thought it was located roughly where the new market is now so I'm confused. If you click on "show more" & then the Hitchin memories photo there are 2 pictures taken from Queen St facing the market square (you can see the corn exchange bell tower in the background) which seem to bear this out. Hollow Lane/St Andrew's place is behind the camera.

[anthony.brown]

The old St Andrews School was indeed at the junction of Hollow Lane and St Andrews Place, but later moved to the St Mary's National school site. There has been much discussion about this over the years. There is an 1854 map of the area in the Hertfordshire National Archives which I have not seen; the map in the book is from 1928 (pre demolition).

[KEITH]

Ah that explains it.

[anthony.brown]

During the Hitchin Football Club's brief period of professionalism (1898-1908) they played in the South Eastern League from 1901-1908.
A brief summary of our complete SEL stats shows 171 games played, 45 wins, 24 draws and 102 defeats. Goals for 255, goals against 509, 114 points.
Hitchin's best season in this league was 1903-1904, when they finished sixth of thirteen with 10 wins, 5 draws and 9 defeats; goals for 39, goals against 57; 25 points. Their final season in this league was a disaster. In 1907-1908 they finished last of 18 clubs, winning 4, drawing 3, and losing 27; goals for 36, goals against 156.
I'll expand details of Hitchin's SEL period if anyone is interested, though many details are shown earlier in this thread.

[anthony.brown]

From 1909
AMATEUR CUP
Luton Clarence were at home to Hitchin in the fourth qualifying round of the Amateur Cup on Saturday [27th November 1909], and very easily defeated the Herts team by a margin of 6 goals to 3.
Biggleswade Chronicle Friday 3rd December 1909

HITCHIN TEAM'S EXPERIENCES
A Hitchin correspondent gives the following account of the team's experiences in connection to their visit to Luton on Saturday: -

The time for starting was fixed for 12.30, but it was 1.8 before they kicked the 'dust' of Hitchin from their feet, through having to wait for the 'trainer', and some of the players swallowing 'Bovril', but at last the brake started from the Sun Hotel with final best wishes that Hitchin would win. They had a little training through walking up Offley and Beech Hills, and they arrived at Luton at 2.10. They drove to their hotel in George Street and then got in the wrong tram which would have left them at the Old Clarence ground. This meant another walk, instead of jumping in a Bedford Road tram, which would have landed them outside Wardown Park gates, from whence they would have had only to walk straight through to the Park House; but there not being any representative of the Clarence Club to meet them, they strayed into the wrong road and had to walk back, eventually arriving at Wardown Park House where they dressed. Opposite was the ground, and the referee called the teams together about twenty minutes late. When Hitchin go to play the Clarence in the Spartan League there is no doubt they will know where their destination is.
Luton Reporter Thursday 2nd December 1909