Fred Beardsley

Fred Beardsley
Personnel
Surname	Frederick William Beardsley
birthday	1856
place of birth	Nottingham ,  England
date of death	1939
position	goalkeeper
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1884	Nottingham Forest
1886-1891	Royal Arsenal
1 Only league games are given.

Frederick “Fred” William Beardsley (* 1856 in Nottingham , England ; † 1939 ) was an English football goalkeeper and was one of the founding fathers of the “Dial Square Football Club”, now known as Arsenal FC .

Beardsley was born in Nottingham and initially worked in a state munitions factory in Chilwell . In his spare time he was also an amateur goalkeeper for Nottingham Forest . He was also in the FA Cup semi-final against FC Queen's Park in 1884 between the posts. The game, which was repeated at Merchiston Castle in Edinburgh , Forest lost 3-0. After Beardsley was dismissed from his employer for unexcused absence, he moved to London to work there in Woolwich for the Royal Arsenal armaments factory . He was later joined by Morris Bates , who had also previously played for Nottingham Forest.

Since he wanted to go back to the soccer game quickly, he participated in the establishment of a soccer team and still played in 1884 for a team called "Woolwich Union", which was dissolved a short time later. Only the arrival of more football enthusiasts in the company, including David Danskin and Jack Humble , led to a much more successful start-up process. Under the leadership of Danskin, a works football team was created, which initially called itself "Dial Square" and is now known in modern football as "Arsenal Football Club".

Beardsley was the first game of the new club on December 11, 1886 against the "Eastern Wanderers" in the gate. Although he was regularly used in the club, which was later renamed "Royal Arsenal", Beardsley also made frequent guest appearances for his old team in Nottingham Forest - especially in FA Cup games. After one of those trips to his old club, to which he was often accompanied by Bates, he came back with a set of jerseys , setting red as the club color, which is still used today.

Beardsley played for Royal Arsenal until the 1890/91 season and was then replaced by Edmund Bee . It was used in a total of 67 regional league and cup games during his career, when Arsenal had not yet joined the Football League . He also played in two FA Cup games, including the club's first cup game against FC Lyndhurst . In 1890 he won both the Kent Senior Cup and the London Charity Shield with Royal Arsenal .

During his entire career, Beardsley was an amateur footballer and worked in parallel in his engineering profession (he also worked for Siemens , where he was fired because of his frequent absences). After he had already been active as a player at the same time often in functionary functions, he was appointed vice-president after finishing his sporting career. In the two decades that followed, he worked on the board and also in the scouting area . His involvement with Arsenal ended in 1910 when the club got into financial distress and initiated a voluntary liquidation process. A consortium led by Sir Henry Norris used this to buy out the club in full. Beardsley then no longer belonged to the newly formed board.

When Arsenal moved to Highbury in 1913 , Beardsley joined the Charlton Athletic club , but left again after failing to identify with the team's style of play (which he found to be too defensive). He eventually opened a tobacco shop on Nile Street in Woolwich . Beardsley died at the age of 82 in 1939.

literature

• Jeff Harris, Tony Hogg (ed.): Arsenal Who's Who . Independent UK Sports, 1995, ISBN 1-899429-03-4 .
• Alan Roper: The Real Arsenal Story: In the Days of Gog . Wherry, 2004, ISBN 0-9546259-1-9 .
• Phil Soar, Martin Tyler: The Official Illustrated History of Arsenal . Hamlyn, 2005, ISBN 0-600-61344-5 .

swell

• Famous Football Relatives - A brief account by a descendant of Beardsley's.