Il Fantasista

21/08/2021

WE ARE BACK!

Are you Believe in Fairies?

The Greatest of all time

Brian Howard Clough or just Cloughie

11/07/2021

Gary Lineker diceva: “ il calcio è un gioco facile, si gioca 90 o 120 minuti, poi… Vince l’ ITALIA

30/06/2021

30 juin 1984, arrive à Naples. Dans les pages des « Vies des hommes illustres » de la Grande Encyclopédie Universelle sa biographie figurera à côté de celle d’Arthur Rimbaud, célèbre marchand d’opium et d’armes français du dix-neuvième siècle. Maradona, lui, y sera répertorié comme « le plus grand poète argentin du vingt-deuxième siècle ».

26/06/2021

26/06/2021

È un sabato Italiano

Welcome to Wembley

23/05/2021

Charles Henry Reynolds Wollaston

Arthur Kinnaird, James Forrest and Patrick Vieira are the only other players with five FA Cup winning medals and all of them are only bettered by Ashley Cole, who has won the FA Cup six times, beating the record in 2010.

Born Tuesday, 31 July 1849 in The Rectory, Vicarage Lane, Felpham, Sussex.
Charles is the youngest of two children to Charles Buchanan and Eleanor, his father is the Vicar of Felpham and along with four servants, they live at Rectory.

In 1871, Charles is a visiting Law Student to Hayes Common, headed up by the Morris family, during this years he started play football, he attended Lancing College, and Trinity College, Oxford University.
Also played for Lancing Old Boys AFC and Clapham Rovers.
Once moved in London, at 46, Belgrave Road, London, he finally join Wanderer as Forward, he also was A solicitor by profession, admitted in 1875.

The magic of football

At Wanderer he took part at very first edition of the FA Cup in 1872, actually scoring a goal but disallowed due to an handball, despite a late rally from the Engineers, Wanderers were able to hold on to their lead and the game ended in a 1–0 victory.
Newspaper The Field called the final "the fastest and hardest match that has ever been seen at The Oval" and said that the Wanderers displayed "some of the best play, individually and collectively, that has ever been shown in an Association game".

Following the victory, Charles an his team recieved a bye to the final, which took place on 29 March 1873 at Lillie Bridge in London, between Wanderers and Oxford University, Oxford dominated the early stages of the game due largely to the strong running of Arnold Kirke-Smith, nonetheless, Wanderers came closer to scoring when William Kenyon-Slaney got the ball into the goal, but udisallow the goal due to an infringement of the offside rule. After 27 minutes, Wanderers captain Arthur Kinnaird, whom the press rated as the best player of the match due to his dribbling skills, gave his team the lead when he outpaced Oxford's backs and kicked the ball between the goalposts.

a desperate attempt to secure an equalising goal, Oxford took the unusual step of dispensing with the use of a goalkeeper and moved Andrew Leach, who had been playing in that position, upfield to play as a forward.
This plan back-fired at around the 80 minute when Charles Wollaston broke through and scored a second goal for the Wanderers, who thereby retained the trophy which they had won in its inaugural year.
The correspondent from The Field stated that the shot would easily have been saved had there been a player in goal.

The following two seasons, just a few achievement 4 goal for Charles in the record club 16-0 victory over Farningham, not the first time for him, who scored 2 hat-tricks in 72 against Clapham Rovers and in 73 against Civil Service, but finally in 1876 against the odds they reached the FA Cup final against Old Etonian and Arthur Kinnaird who left the Wanderers the first game took place the 11th March 1876 at Kennington Oval in London, after the extra time the match ended 1-1, so the 18th the replay took place in the same venue.
The match was played in a strong wind, the Wanderers dominated the early stages of the game, but the Etonians kept them at bay for around 35 minutes until Charles Wollaston eluded Thompson and passed the ball to John Hawley Edwards, who kicked it narrowly under the crossbar of the Etonians' goal.

The Etonians began the rematch playing in a rough manner and there were also many appeals from the players for handball, which disrupted play.
After around half an hour, the Wanderers forwards surged towards their opponents' goal and Charles Wollaston got the final kick which sent the ball past goalkeeper Quintin Hogg, a most immediately afterwards, another massed attack by the Wanderers led to Thomas Hughes doubling the lead, soon after half-time, Hawley Edwards, Francis Heron and Jarvis Kenrick combined in a skilful attack and set up Hughes to score his second goal of the game and the match finished 3–0 to the Wanderers.

In 1877 with Kinnaird back in the team as goalkeeper the managed to reach again the FA Cup final.
Wanderers pressed for an equaliser, Francis Birley took an indirect free kick, which went into the Oxford goal, but no goal was awarded as the ball had gone straight in without touching another player.
Four minutes from the end of the game, Hubert Heron made what The Field called a "splendid run" and passed the ball to Jarvis Kenrick, whose shot eluded Oxford goalkeeper Edward Alington to level the scores and send the game into extra time.
Seven minutes into the extra period, William Lindsay's goalbound shot was headed away by an Oxford player but the ball rebounded to Lindsay who sent it past Alington to give Wanderers a lead which the cup holders kept until the end of the game and thus retained the trophy.

The First

1878

The Wanderers were the reigning cup holders and had also won the tournament in 1872, 1873, the first 2 round the archived 2 more record victory 9-1 against Panthers and 9-0 against high Wycombe, in the quarter-finals Wanderers defeated Sheffield 3–0 and then, with an uneven number of teams remaining in the competition, the team received a bye into the final.
The 23rd of March 1878 Oval, London
Rematch of the 1872 FA Cup final, the Wanderers against Royal Engineers, the team captains were the Hon. Arthur Kinnaird and Lieut. Robert Hedley.
The Home team were considered the favourites to win the Cup for the third consecutive season, took the lead after only five minutes through Jarvis Kenrick, but the Engineers quickly equalised with Morris, towards the end of the first half, the Wanderers were awarded a free kick, Kinnaird took the kick, which led to a second goal for the cup-holders. After around twenty minutes of the second half, Kenrick scored his second goal following some skilful play by Hubert Heron, giving Wanderers a 3–1 lead which they retained until the end of the game and achieve an unprecedented third consecutive win in the FA Cup, the rules of the competition stated that under such circumstances the trophy would be retired and become the permanent property of the victorious club, but Alcock returned the cup to the FA on the condition that the rule be removed and no other team permitted to claim it on a permanent basis.

After the fillowing victory, Charles, was employ for Union Bank of England 1878-98, first as assistant secretary and then as secretary. Becoming one of its directors afterwards,
in 1879, Charles became Wanderers' club secretary, and was also the club's captain.
In total, Wollaston played ten seasons for Wanderers and became the club's second top scorer, before joining Clapham Rovers in 1880/81.

He won the FA Cup five times with Wanderers, becoming the first player to do so, he earned four caps for England, scoring one goal.
Charles captained the national side against Scotland in 1880, he was the eighth English team captain was his last match.

Charles died the 22nd June 1926 Probate London 28 July to Ella Wollaston Greeve and Clare Wollaston Bartholomew spinsters.

In 2013, Wollaston was included on a special London Tube map released by the Football Association to celebrate its 150th anniversary. The map replaced station names with famous footballers.

Man, Footballer, Legend

22/05/2021

Charles Henry Reynolds Wollaston
The FA CUP’s Man
Coming soon....

15/05/2021

Charles W. Alcock

Described by the official historian of the Football Association as ‘the forgotten father of English sport’, Charles William Alcock was arguably the central pillar of London’s sporting establishment in the fourth quarter of the 19th Century.

Alcock was born in Sunderland on 2 December 1842, the second son of the elder Charles Alcock, a ship builder and owner, and his wife Elizabeth,
From 1853 to 1859, Charles attended Harrow School with his brother John and at this time public schools were pioneering the game of football.
By the time young Charles left Harrow, his family had moved from Sunderland subsequently established a marine insurance business in the City of London.
In 1859, Charles, along with his elder brother John Forster Alcock, was a founder of Forest Football Club, based in Leytonstone, By 1861, the entire Alcock family had moved south, taking up residence in Essex.
Now described in the census as shipbrokers, John and Charles, were near neighbours of the Kings Head Inn in Chingford and lived in a house called ‘Sunnyside’.
Whether the house name was chosen as a reminder of the family’s roots in Sunderland’s Sunniside district, in March 1862, both brothers played for Forest in a home 1–0 victory over Crystal Palace FC.

1863 was an eventful year for the two brothers. They attended the inaugural meeting of the Football Association at the Freemasons Tavern in Great Queen Street, London, and Charles took the lead in founding the Wanderers which made its home at the Oval and supplanted Forest as the leading Old Harrovian football club.

The following year, the club played its first match under the name Wanderers Football Club, against N.N. Club of Kilburn.
Charles had decided, possibly because of the expense the club was incurring by owning its own ground, to turn it into a "wandering" team with no fixed home venue, however it appears that some of the club's members opposed this idea.
For the following season teams operated under both names, with several players appearing for both, and indeed Forest and Wanderers even played each other in one match, but after 1865 there is no record of any further matches.

Wanderers initially fared well, losing only one of their sixteen matches in the 1865–66 season, but over the subsequent four seasons the team's fortunes declined significantly and Alcock also found it increasingly difficult to ensure that eleven of his players actually turned up for a match, with the club often forced to play with fewer than the required number of players or borrow some from their opponents.
During this period the club played a number of "home" matches at Battersea Park and Middlesex County Cricket Club's Lillie Bridge Grounds.
Wanderers subsequently made Kennington Oval its semi-permanent home in 1869 where they played 151 matchs.

In the 1870–71 season, the Wanderers finally turned around their fortunes, losing only five of thirty-seven matches played,
almost immediately, he was involved in organizing the first unofficial international football match between England and a ‘Scotland’ team made up largely of ex-public school Scots living in London. The match, which ended 1-1, was played at the Oval on 5 March 1870. on 20 July 1871, in the offices of The Sportsman newspaper, the FA Secretary Charles, proposed to the FA committee that "it is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association for which all clubs belonging to the Association should be invited to compete.

By 1871, now married with a son and two daughters and declaring himself to be a journalist in the census, Charles had made his home in Rosendale Road, Norwood in a house possibly called ‘Grassendale’.

The inaugural FA Cup tournament kicked off in November 1871 he showed the original trophy, known as the "little tin idol", was 18 inches high, It was the first knockout competition of its type in the world. Only 15 clubs took part in the first staging of the tournament. It included two clubs based in Scotland, Donington School and Queen's Park not content with simply organising the tournament, he also captained the Wanderers team, but due to a combination of their opponents withdrawing and an unusual rule in place at the time which allowed both clubs to progress to the next round in the event of a draw, Wanderers only won one game in the four rounds leading up to the final, held at the Kennington Oval on 16 March 1872 against the Royal Engineers the first club who was able to play football like Barcelona now, despite that fact, they lose the match 1-0 thanks to late goal of Morton Peto Betts who was on the pitch under the pseudonym "A. H. Chequer".

The club become the first ever winners of the cup, The following season, under the competition's original rules, Wanderers, as holders, received a bye all the way to the final. In the final Wanderers beat Oxford University 2–0 to retain the cup, thanks in large part to the performance of A. F. Kinnaird.
The club was unable to replicate this success over the next two seasons, although the team did manage a club record 16–0 victory over Farningham in the first round of the 1874–75 FA Cup, the Club is still the only along with Blackburn who win the FA Cup for 3 consecutive years.

At the same time that he was pioneering the FA Cup and international football, Charles also became the first paid secretary of Surrey County Cricket Club. Appointed in 1872, he held this post for the rest of his life.

Back on the football field, Alcock refereed the first official football international draw between Scotland and England played on 30 November 1872 at the West of Scotland Cricket Club near Glasgow, Although a talented footballer, he did not win his first international cap for England until 1875. Charles scored one of the goals in the 2-2 draw against Scotland.
However, now aged 33 years old, he never played for his country again, he now became a referee and took charge of the 1875 and 1879 Cup Finals.
Charles assumed responsibility for arranging the first cricket test in England: verses Australia match played at the Oval in 1880.
Two years later, the Australian demolition of England that gave birth to the Ashes legend also took place on Alcock’s watch.

Alcock was living at 36 Somerleyton Road, Brixton when, in 1881, he was granted a testimonial by the FA Committee in consideration of his having been the founder of the Association game, By 1891, Alcock, his wife, four daughters and three domestic servants had moved to Heathlands in Kew Road, Richmond. (His son had died as an infant.)

As Secretary of the Football Association, Alcock played a leading role in the debate over professionalism in the 1880s.
Following a controversy over the expulsion of Preston North End from the 1883–84 FA Cup over alleged financial inducements to Scottish players, Charles worked to introduce a regulated professionalism into the game, he was influenced by the model of professionalism that had already been introduced in cricket,
In addition to his multiple roles in sports administration, he was also a prolific and ground-breaking sports journalist and publisher. In his twenties, he wrote for The Field and The Sportsman before founding specialist magazines such as the Football Annual, Football magazine and Cricket. Alcock’s books included Football: the Association Game (1890) and Surrey Cricket: its History and Associations (1902).
Charles W. Alcock died on 26th February 1907, at his home at 7 Arundel Road, Brighton. He is buried alongside his son in Norwood Cemetery, he left us the most amazing present in the history, FOOTBALL
many thanks Charles.

09/05/2021

Someone asked if...

Yes, we does.

Charles William Alcock

English sportsman and footballer back in 1842
coming soon...

02/05/2021

Footballer, Gentleman, Evertonian

Tony Matthews described him as: "A football immortal, strong, dashing with a powerful right-foot shot and exceptional heading ability, he was, without doubt, one of the greatest centre-forwards of his era."

"He belongs to the company of the supremely great, like Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt", said Bill Shankly.

William Dean was born 22nd January 1907 at 313 Laird Street in Birkenhead, Cheshire, across the River Mersey.
He was the grandson of Ralph Brett, a train driver who drove the royal train during the reign of George V.
William grew as Everton supporter thanks to the efforts of his father, William Sr., who took him to a match during the 1914–1915 title-winning season.
Unfortunately his childhood coincided with the First World War, and between the ages of 7 and 11 he delivered cow's milk to local families as part of the war effort, he attended Laird Street School, once he said: "My only lesson was football, I used to give the pens out on Friday afternoons, the ink, and the chalks. That was the only job I had in school, I never had any lessons”.

When he turned 11 he attended Albert (Memorial) Industrial School, in Birkenhead, because of the football facilities on offer, he was happy with the arrangement, since he could play on the school's football team, but at the age of 14th he left school.
He worked for Wirral Railway as an apprentice fitter, his father also worked there, and had been working since he was 11 years old, for Great Western Railway, Dean took a night job so that he could concentrate on his first love, football, once he said: “The other two apprentice fitters, they didn't like the night job, because there were too many bloody rats around there, coming out, big as whippets”.
“I kicked the trespassing rats against the wall”.

Call me Dixie...

Dean's late Godmother, once said: “The name "Dixie" was a corruption of his childhood nickname, Digsy, from his approach to the children's game of tag, where Dean would dig his fist into a girl's back hence "Digsy”.

The sons of Dean's manager at Wirral Railway were directors of New Brighton A.F.C., and they were interested in signing Dean. However, Dixie told the club he was not interested in signing and instead played for local team Pensby United in Pensby, where Dean attracted the attention of a Tranmere Rovers scout, in November 1923 at 16th he moved to the Pro rank, at Tranmere, he was on the receiving end of a tough challenge which resulted in him losing a testicle in a reserve game against Altrincham. Immediately following the challenge, a teammate rubbed the area to ease the pain, then Dixie shouted "Don't rub 'em, count 'em!”.
At the Club he scored 27 goals in 30 league appearances, all 27 were in the second of those two seasons in which he averaged exactly a goal per game in the season 1924/25 at the end Arsenal and Newcastle United were attracted from Dixie.
It was a dream come true for Dixiewhen Everton secretary Thomas H. McIntosh arranged to meet him at the Woodside Hotel in 1925.
Dean was so excited that he ran the 2.5 miles (4.0 km) distance from his home in north Birkenhead to the riverside to meet him.
He signed for Everton in March 1925 for £3,000, then a record fee received for Tranmere Rovers. having just turned 18.

He made an immediate impact, scoring 32 goals in his first full season.
At the end of the season, a motorcycling accident at Holywell, North Wales in summer 1926 left Dean with a fractured skull and jaw, the doctors were unsure whether he would be able to play again.
In his next game for Everton he scored using his head, leading Evertonians to joke that the doctor left a metal plate in Dean's head, it was just the first one.

The perfect season

1927 Middlesbrough's George Camsell, holds the highest goals-to-games ratio for England, had scored 59 league goals the previous season, but in the Second Division.

Then Dixie started the new season with one thing is his mind, be the best, he was just 21 when with 60 goals in one season won the First Division with Everton.
Despite the title, the season 1930 was a disaster, they were relegated in Second Division, but even after that Dixie stayed with the love of his life, and was magic.

The club went on to immediately win the Second Division in 1931,
followed by the First Division again in 1932. then the FA Cup in 1933 in which he scored in the final in a 3-0 victory over Manchester City a sequence unmatched since.
Dixie was captain of the side, in December, 1936, Everton signed Tommy Lawton for a fee of £6,500, it was a record fee for a teenager, when they met for the first-time, Dixie put his arm round Lawton and said: "I know you've come here to take my place. Anything I can do to help you I will. I promise, anything at all."
FA Cup tie with Tottenham Hotspur and it was decided to play Tommy Lawton alongside Dixie Dean in the replay.
In the second minute Lawton scored with a tremendous shot from outside the penalty area, then Dean turned to Joe Mercer and said: "Well, that's it then”. Dean realised that it would not be long before this talented player took his place in the side. At the end of the 1936-37 season Dean had scored 24 goals in his 36 league games whereas Lawton had three in ten, but he was dropped from the first team in 1937.

Dean went on to play for Notts County for one season, in which he scored three goals in nine games.
At age 32, Dean signed for Irish team Sligo Rovers in January 1939 to help the club in their FAI Cup campaign.
After retiring, he went on to run the Dublin Packet pub in Chester.

The end

The legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shanklyand Everton's goalscoring great had enjoyed a lunch together at Liverpool's Moat House Hotel on Paradise Street before the 1980 Goodison derby match, Dean, then 73 and having had a leg removed a few years earlier, had not visited Goodison for several years. But he decided to attend the derby match on March 1, 1980, where he suffered a heart attack and passed away minutes after the final whistle.
Daughter Barbara, who dropped him off at the Moat House before going to work as a nurse, later said: "We say he stage-managed the whole thing. Knowing him he would have to go out in style”; the game later that night, was silenced - a black and white image of the great man filling the screen in silence.

The legend of 60 league goals in a single season and 383 Everton goals in a remarkable career will never be forgotten

Matt Busby said: “To play against Dixie Dean was at once a delight and a nightmare. He was a perfect specimen of an athlete, beautifully proportioned, with immense strength, adept on the ground but with extraordinary skill in the air”.

Dean said: "People ask me if that 60 goals record will ever be beaten. I think it will. But there's only one man who'll do it. That's the fellow that walks on the water”.

28/04/2021

Call me Dixie... coming soon