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The Football Club, Apsley, 1885-1935 |
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The Football Club, Apsley, 1885-1935 |
Apsley Football club was founded in 1885 and played on Salmon Meadow until this was built over by part of Apsley Mill in 1933. In 1935 the club changed its name to Hemel Hempstead Town Football Club.
Two of the pictures come from the Hawkins Photograph Collection
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The Apsley 'A' Football Team in 1901-2 With them is Christopher Henry Hawkins, publican of The Salmon, Apsley - the football ground being Salmon Meadow. For more information about the players see
As the team is wearing a different strip to the later pictures of the Apsley Club team. and all the players so far identified could be employees of J. Dickinson this may be an internal company team rather than the village team. |
Formed in 1885 as Apsley End FC, the club was based at Salmon Meadow and played in a claret and blue strip. The first record of competitive football was in 1889, when the club entered the Herts Senior Cup. Apsley End were then one of the founding member clubs of the West Herts Football Association and entered their first league competition in 1891/92, before changing the name to just Apsley FC two years later. Apsley won the Division One championship in 1894/95, the first honour in the clubs history. Around this time, many clubs competed in more than one league at a time; small numbers of competing clubs meant that entering more than one competition would allow the clubs to play more regularly. Apsley also competed in the Wolverton League and the Herts County League, entering the latter as a founding member club in 1898/99. Apsley were one of the more successful local teams competing in the Herts County League either side of the fist World War, winning three league championships along with many other high league finishes. In 1922, Apsley left the Herts County League to join the Spartan League.
From the Hemel Hempstead Football Club web site.
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Circa 190? |
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Click here for bigger picture This picture is part of the Hawkins Photograph Collection |
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The identity of the cup is unknown. The significance of the box labelled "West Herts Infirmary" is unknown but it was renamed "West Herts Hospital" in 1908.
| 1904-1905 |
| Winners of the West Herts League Divisions One & Two And St Mary's Cup. |
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This picture is part of the Hawkins Photograph Collection
Back row, left to right: William Beck, M. T. Mackay, S. Gurney, C. H. Hawkins, E. Gurney, A. E. Hazell, F. Tyers.
Second row: A. Allum, S. Findlay, D. Bandle, G. Coxhill, A. Janes, W.R. Beck, G. Picton, G. Dowse, F. King, S. Parnell, D. Birchmore.
Third row: G.F. Seagrave (Assistant Honorary Secretary), J. Homans, W. Butler, H. Kempster, F. Jackson, J. Sparrow, W. Coker, J. Paton, W. Tyers (Honorary Secretary).
Front row: A. Hay, A. Gurney, '?', H. Chennells, C. Green, A. Kitchener, G. Theed, S.W. Tuckwell
The mount is marked Coles, Hemel Hempstead.
(Another copy of this picture is reproduced in Eve Davis's Hemel Hempstead, which include the above list of names.)
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The two "White" panels in the picture can be digitally processed and both show an identical shield shape with the "Hertfordshire Stag" in a panel at the top and similar unreadable lettering. These are presumably the certificates for the West Herts League Divisions One and Two. The Cup must be the St Mary's Cup, and the board displays the 11 individual team medals.
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Christopher Henry Hawkins from the above photograph
The Salmon in Apsley was close to St Mary's Church and adjacent to Salmon Meadow where Apsley FC (which over the years became Hemel Hempstead Town FC) and had a close link with the ground. The Salmon pub also has a strong link with the town's oldest football competition - the Uncles Cup - Uncles Cup derived from Mr. C. H. Hawkins, one of the publicans at The Salmon who started the competition. From the Hemel Hempstead Today web site |
1908-1909
Hertfordshire County Cup Winners
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The strip was claret and blue. |
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1898-99 Founder members of Herts
County League |
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Anthony Taylor wrote (July 2013) to say: The club continued to play under the name "Apsley FC" until after WW2. A name change had been proposed on and off from 1929/30 when the club moved to Wood Lane to what became known as the "Crabtree Lane" ground but this never happened until the end of the 1946/47 season, when they adopted the name "Hemel Hempstead Town FC". Apsley FC's last game under the old name was played on 16 May 1947 against Rickmansworth in the final of the Apsley Charity Cup. (BTW the name change has caused confusion to historians as there was a previous "Hemel Hempsted Town FC" playing pre WW1 - unrelated to the present club).
| December 2009 | Page Created | |
| December 2010 | Hawkins pictures, etc, added | |
| August 2013 | Note by Anthony Taylor | |
| September 2014 | Corrected link to Football Club History Database |
