From 1923 there’s an eye-opening report about Chelsea coughing up a whopping £6,000 for goal machine and man with the least interesting nickname until Gazza came along:
Andrew 'Andy' Wilson.
Or try the
surreal and hilarious scenes from a charity match in 1927 where West Ham’s pitch looks like the Somme and the participants look like characters from Asterix.
Here are
two women’s teams defying the FA’s 1921 declaration that football is “quite unsuitable for ladies” by taking the mick as they fix their hair and make-up before kicking off (the teams are from two lightbulb-making factories in Enfield and Hammersmith). Just one year later the English Ladies' Football Association was established and you can
see music hall legend George Robey kicking off a women's International between England and France in 1925.
There are also adverts and dramas in the new collection, including The Arsenal Stadium Mystery from 1939, an ITV whodunnit about the poisoning of a Trojans player, featuring real footballers in the cast (it is perhaps too suspiciously reminiscent of the incident in 2006 when a
bad lasagne took out the Tottenham team before playing Arsenal in a crucial match).
“Having lived and breathed films and football for the last few years it’s brilliant that BFI player is releasing this collection. It offers a fascinating insight into the history of the beautiful game,” said Greg Dyke, chair of the BFI and president of the Football Association.
