Staveley F.C.

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Staveley F.C. was a football club from Staveley, a village in Derbyshire, England. It was founded in 1875 and dissolved in 1892. The team was nicknamed Old Foot & Mouth because of its tough, competitive play and the noisy support from its fans.

Origins and players
Staveley originally played under the Sheffield rules. The Hay brothers were early stars: George was the goalkeeper, William backed him up, Sammy was a half-back, Jack was a forward, and later Tom Hay joined.

Achievements and famous matches
Staveley’s first major win came in the Sheffield Senior Cup in 1879–80, beating Heeley 3–1 in the final. The club first entered the FA Cup in 1880–81, beating Spilsby 5–1 in the first round and taking Sheffield Wednesday to two replays before losing in the third round. Their best Cup runs ended against the professionals Blackburn Rovers.

In 1883–84 Staveley beat Middlesbrough, avenged the loss to Wednesday (thanks in part to an injury to Wednesday’s Mosforth before the match), and then beat Lockwood Brothers to reach the fourth round, where a crowd of about 2,000 watched a 2–0 loss to Blackburn. The 1885–86 season featured a tricky first-round tie with Mexborough that ended with Mexborough scratching from the competition after a local cup clash was scheduled the same day. Staveley then beat Long Eaton Rangers and Nottingham Forest in the same season, employing time-wasting tactics that forest protested but the FA dismissed. After a long unbeaten run, they again faced Blackburn Rovers in the fifth round and were defeated.

Staveley was very successful in Derbyshire football during the 1880s, appearing in five consecutive Derbyshire Cup finals. The club also competed in the Birmingham Senior Cup from 1883–84 to 1885–86, reaching the quarter-finals in 1884–85 and nearly upsetting Aston Villa by drawing 1–1 at Villa’s ground (the replay was played at the same venue without one of Staveley’s key players).

Tragedy
On 12 January 1889, William Cropper of Staveley was badly injured in a match against Grimsby Town. He died shortly after in the Grimsby dressing room, with teammate George Hay by his side.

League era and decline
Staveley was a founder member of the Midland Counties League but could not survive the shift to professionalism. They finished mid-table in 1889–90 and were bottom in 1890–91 after other clubs left the league. Although their financial balance at the end of 1890–91 looked acceptable, the club went bust in 1891 and their fixtures were expunged. They were bottom with just one win and one draw from eight games, the final match an 8–0 loss. They tried to complete Cup fixtures, but the Derbyshire Senior Cup semi-final in January 1892 was a heavy 10–0 defeat, and many regular players refused to play. Debts of more than £30 were cleared by a benefit match, but the club stayed inactive for the rest of the season and did not renew Derbyshire FA membership for 1892–93.

Aftermath
A short-lived revival of the Staveley name appeared later in the decade as a junior club, again involving the Hay family, but it never returned as a senior club.

Colours and grounds
Staveley initially wore amber with a black hoop, switching to navy in 1881, and later adopting red and black quarters before 1885. Their first ground was the Recreation Ground near the Crown Inn, a compact and oddly shaped venue that gave Staveley a home advantage. The final match at the Recreation was a 2–1 defeat to Gainsborough Trinity on 19 April 1890, witnessed by about 1,000 people, as a railway line was due to cut through part of the ground. The club planned to move to a new ground for 1890–91, using the Staveley Works Cricket Ground in the meantime, but the new ground was never completed for the ill-fated 1891–92 season.