IF your great-grandfather, grandfather, father, uncle, cousin or brother played football in Tavistock, or if any of your relatives served on the committee of the club from its earliest days then Sunday, November 17 is a date for your diary.
That is the day when the Langsford Park Club opens its doors at noon with the opportunity of viewing their exhibition of old photographs, programmes, medals, trophies and mementoes of ?Football Yesteryear?.
Tavistock Football Club is 114 years old and the earliest photographs in the collection date back to the reign of Queen Victoria. Team line-ups include many of the forebears of families still living in the area.
Club chairman Robin Fenner said: ?The exhibition provides the viewer with a nostalgic glimpse of days gone by.
?It was the day of the charabanc and pony and trap, with horse-drawn wagons full with people travelling to away games.
?The photographs of people who served the interests of the club are the most precious; those who posed outside their shops and wagons represent not only their connection with the club but also, in terms of social history, the professions of the time.?
The collection includes the Palmers outside their butcher?s shop, Petherick?s hardware shop in King Street, with the two employees who both played for their home town club, father and son Wilton, the bakers with their delivery cart, Bernard Foster and his son with their wagon, Tavistock Fire Service with their first motorised engine outside Court Gate, the crew resplendent in shining helmets and uniforms with as many as seven of the contingent who played local football.
Two pairs of horses pull the overcrowded wagonette stationed outside R N Stranger?s Manchester House store, and there?s even a photograph of Barratt?s Grocers shop and not a soul in sight. The picture is included in the sale because they sponsored many of the events associated with the club.
This is the first exhibition of its kind by the club and as more material becomes available similar events will be held. Robin hopes this event will be the start of a footballing archive.
?With association football the growth sport in West Devon, who knows that in a hundred years? time, folk will be flocking to an exhibition to view the present-day team line-ups of Thistles, Jets and Tavistock girls and ladies.?
Admission is free and later in the day there is a tea party for invited guests, those that played between the 30s and 80s.
Medals dating back to the 1890s are on view as well as the famous Bedford Cup, presented to the club by the sixth Duke of Bedford to be competed for by teams in the Tavistock area, a competition that continues to this day.
l Pictured above is the Tavistock Football Club team 1896-97 that beat the celebrated Surrey Wanderers F C.