July’s Twitter Digest

Welcome to the Twitter Digest for July! And in Matlock, we also had a few sunny / sweltering days last month. So, in the hope of an Indian Summer, if you should find yourself needing to cool down, just imagine yourself on an 1820s arctic expedition, cutting a path through the ice for your ships. …

A Kick-about down Memory Lane

When looking for a suitable subject for an Archive of the Week over tweet, I came across a collection of typescript volumes entitled "Looking Back: Football in North Derbyshire in time gone by" by S. B. Fox (Reference D5693/1/1-38). In amongst the impressive record of match results and league tables you'll find an array of …

Willie Foulke: Blackwell Miners’ Welfare Football Club’s Famous Goalkeeper

Colliery companies offered many activities to their workers in an attempt to promote the health and welfare of their workers. Sports were a popular way of doing this, ranging from the more usual football and cricket, to more unusual ones such as hockey, tennis and fishing. Welfare grounds were a common feature in pit villages, …

30 Years ago this week in the Derbyshire Times

Here's a selection of news and events from this week in 1986 as featured in the Derbyshire Times: It was election time in West Derbyshire and the candidates were: Bill Moore- Labour Patrick McLoughlin - Conservative Robert Goodall - Independent Christopher Sidwell - Rainbow Alliance (Loony Crocodile Tears) Mr Sidwell was from Coventry, but had set …

Advent Calendar – Day 17

A week to go until Christmas Eve. We will be closing at 1pm on Christmas Eve and reopening at 9.30 on Tuesday 29th December. It will be a three day week though, as we will also be closed on the Friday for New Year's Day, reopening as normal on Saturday 2nd January at 9.30. Until …

On this Day: ‘The Week’s Sports’

From the Alfreton and Belper Journal, 2nd December 1892: The Week's Sports The football shown on Saturday by the different clubs was surprising and goes to show that football (like cricket) is a game upon which you cannot place much confidence as to the results, as the different matches lately played tend to show... ...Last Saturday …

Explore Your Archive – Get the Ball Rolling

As we await kick-off of the first Explore Your Archive week, here is a vigorous selection of images for sporting ladies and gentlemen.

Derby Olympian: Horace Bailey (1881-1960)

With the Olympic football tournament having already kicked off around Britain, we look back at Derby’s gold medal-winning goalkeeper from the first time London hosted the Games. Horace Peter Bailey was born in Derby on 3rd July 1881 to Peter Bailey, an iron and brass moulder/iron foundry foreman, and his wife Sarah.  By 1891 the …

Smedley, Duesbury and the football

[2018: images from the "Thank You For Your Letter" project have been deleted to make space for new posts.  The images have been retained within Derbyshire County Council's internal records system so that we may re-use them in the future.] D6808/3/1: St Andrew’s Middle Class School, Derby, April 14th, 1882 [Pupils who fell foul of …