Seaton Delaval v New Hartley, Northumberland - 1912
16mm Cine Film of Football Match

At Northumberland Archives we hold many records detailing the regions love of Football. Our first record from the Quarter Session indictments (Ref: Q/S/B/1) provides information on a match at Bothall held during Easter in 1680. This resulted in broken bones, spilled blood and bruises, while not typical of our Football archive material it certainly depicts the passion a Northumbrian footballer plays with. A more typical match can be seen in the early cine film (left) filmed at New Hartley in 1910, it shows a match played against Seaton Delaval with local supporters seen before and after the match cheering their teams on.

Among our photographic records we have hundreds of glass plates and negatives from the 1880’s onwards profiling the local teams of the county. Among them are school, workplace and community teams as well as the all female teams of Blyth Spartans Munitions (1914) Barrington Womens (1921) and Allendale Ladies (1930) demonstrating that football crossed gender boundaries some time ago in our region. Many of the local areas represented in our archives still have football teams active today and their continuance demonstrates how this sport has been an integral part of Northumberland's community life.