A great discovery has been made by Peter Seddon, a freelance author, back in 2008 when he was searching for documentation about Derby County and England National Team star player, Steve Bloomer. During his research in the Derby Local Studies Library, he found a photo in an old newspaper dedicated to football named Derbyshire Football Express. He soon realised that the photo was dating from March 4, 1876 and depicted an England team of 10 players and a referee before a match against Scotland. It was England’s fifth international match. Apparently, the photo has been sent to the newspaper in 1926 by a former player who is in that line-up, Edgar Field.

Player Team Edgar Field Reading Walter Scott Buchanan Clapham Rovers FC Charles Eastlake Smith Crystal Palace Frederick Thomas Green Wanderers William John Maynard 1st Surrey Rifles FC Arthur Henry Patrick Savage Crystal Palace George Hubert Hugh Heron (C) Wanderers Ernest Henry Bambridge Swifts FC Charles Francis William Heron Wanderers Rev Beaumont Griffith Jarrett Cambridge University AFC James Turner (umpire) Swifts FC

“It was a huge slice of luck that I found the picture. At the time, I was trawling through articles in the local studies library, looking through pictures to do with Derby County and England star Steve Bloomer and just happened to stop at the picture of the 1876 team. It was a real needle-in-a-haystack job because there is so much on the archives that it would have been easy to miss.” – Peter Seddon