Our latest library exhibition is running now until mid-April 2025 in the Wychwoods Library in Milton. We feature a selection of images of local football teams and some action shots – covering dates from Edwardian times to the mid-1960s.
As with all our exhibitions in the Wychwoods Library in Milton, these images have been selected from our online archive.The origins of football in the Wychwoods can be traced back to the late 19th century, a period when the modern game was beginning to take shape across the country. Local records suggest that informal matches were played in village greens and schoolyards. These early games were often unstructured, with varying rules depending on the participants.
As the popularity of football grew, so did the desire to form organised teams. By the early 20th century, several local football clubs had emerged in the Wychwoods. These clubs provided a structured environment for players and helped to standardise the rules of the game.
Village football continues to be an important focus for communities throughout the country, and football in the Wychwoods is no exception.
Memories of Village Football – by Fred Russell
Longtime Ascott resident and keen footballer Fred Russell has kindly provided these recollections of his footballing years in the Wychwoods
I left school at Christmas 1953, and early in 1954 I started work at the Tillyard in Shipton where they made wooden shop fitting , mostly wooden cash tills. The building stood near the old gas works in Shipton, two new houses now stand where I started my working life.
I soon noticed that late on Tuesday afternoons I could smell warm cooking fat, it was Ivy Avery firing up the stoves to sell fish and chips on Tuesday night.
Opposite Ivy’s grocery shop, Frank Coombes had his bicycle repair shop. Frank also sold leather football studs and white oil in medicine bottles which many of us young men of the villages would buy to rub on swollen ankles and tired legs after playing football. The label on the bottle read EMBROCATION WHITE OILS, FOR USE ON HORSES!
In my early days of playing for my village team many villages had to drive the sheep or cattle off the pitch before the game could start. This included my own village of Ascott. Milton always had a good pitch on the Green. Shipton pitch was where it is today beside the New Beaconsfield Hall, though this was before the new hall was built and the pitch was marked out in the other direction. The site of the New Beaconsfield Hall is where the Shipton children built their bonfire.
The headquarters of most village teams was the local pub. Many pubs provided a place in one of their outbuildings where the away team could change, but there were no showers or baths after a game. However, I recall one occasion, when Ascott played Dean, a small hamlet near Chadlington, whose headquarters were at the Malt Shovel in Chadlington. After the game on a late afternoon in November, the daylight almost gone, we were directed to one of the outbuildings where, stumbling over empty beer crates and barrels, we found a large, galvanised bathtub full of hot water. We stood in the water, still with our strip on, and washed the mud and muck off our legs. By the time we left the shed to get the bus home, the water in the bath was the colour of thick brown cocoa!
The Ascott club hired the Backs Coach Company from Witney for away matches, this was often driven by Graham Arundel, a one-time keen footballer himself, and member of a well-respected Shipton family.
It was ten shillings to join the football club for the season, and if you were picked to play the match fee was two and sixpence, or half-a-crown (12.5p in today’s money). Half-a-crown would have paid for a decent seat at the pictures (cinema) in those days. The most expensive seats were three and six (17.5p), these were the seats favoured by courting couples. Sadly, I never did reach the back row of seats.
The best footballer I ever saw was Stanley Matthews who played for Stoke City for most of his career. I still think he is the best footballer I will ever see.
