West Auckland's Edwardian world cup stars recalled
Nov 25 2008 by Neil Mckay, The Journal
A NEW play about a County Durham village football team winning the first world cup is set to entertain theatre audiences next year.
Durham’s Gala Theatre will team up with South Tyneside playwrights Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood for Alf Ramsey Knew My Grandfather – a play about West Auckland’s winning of the first ever football world cup in 1909.
The tournament was initiated by businessman Sir Thomas Lipton, who had wanted to see a competition between the leading football clubs of Europe.
Italy, Germany and Switzerland sent their most prestigious professional club sides to the competition, but the Football Association of England refused to be associated with it and declined the offer to send a team.
Not wishing to have Britain unrepresented in the competition, Lipton invited West Auckland FC, an amateur side from County Durham mostly made up of coal miners, to take part. West Auckland won the tournament and returned to Italy in 1911 to defend their title.
In this second competition, West Auckland beat Juventus 6-1 in the final and were awarded the trophy outright.
But the cup later went missing from the local working men’s club in the village where it had been on display for many years. It remains lost to this day.
The story of how the County Durham club came to win it has already been told in The World Cup: A Captain’s Tale, a 1982 Tyne Tees Television dramatisation which featured Dennis Waterman in the starring role of Bob Jones, who led his team of fellow pitmen to an unlikely triumph in the Turin tournament.
Sir Thomas Lipton had, apparently, been impressed by a letter sent to him several years earlier by a youngster from the village.
That young man, David Rhys Thomas – Ticer Thomas – played in the 3-1 semi-final win against Red Star Zurich in 1910.
His grandson Dave Thomas starred as a winger for Burnley, Queen’s Park Rangers, Everton and England during the 1970s.
Alf Ramsey Knew My Grandfather runs from April 16-25.
For further information and to book tickets contact Gala box office on (0191) 332-4074 or visit the website at www.galadurham.co.uk.
