LIKE many Newcastle United fans, one supporter was still nursing his disappointment yesterday at the club’s failure to land a new striker.
But the fan, who wishes to remain anonymous, could soon be feeling a whole lot better after striking it rich at a car boot sale.
The man who lives in Newcastle, described how he bought a box of football programmes at the sale and got home to find an old medal at the bottom of the box.
It has turned out to be a winners’ medal from what many consider to be the first World Cup in 1909 – won by West Auckland from County Durham after they beat Swiss side F.C. Winterhour 2-0 in the final.
Now the medal will be sold on September 13 by Newcastle auctioneers Anderson & Garland with an estimated value of £3,000 to £5,000.
The fan bought the box of programmes for £20 seven years ago. He said: “I saw the date 1909 on the medal but never thought much about it and put it away in a drawer. My wife said a couple of times that I should throw it out because it was old rubbish.
“I tried to find out more about it but always hit a brick wall. My wife took it to a jeweller but was told that it was worthless.
“Then a couple of months ago I was messing about on the computer, found a football museum and saw that they had a medal the same as mine.
“It turns out my medal is the real thing. It was a shock to realise what I had and makes you wonder how a medal with so much history behind it got to be in the box of programmes.”
The medal is one of only three which are known to have survived.
Steven Moore, from Anderson & Garland, said: “This is one of the rarest football medals in the world. It is an amazing find.”
The story of West Auckland’s triumph was told in the film A Captain’s Tale.
In 1909 millionaire tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton organised what is now often referred to as the ‘first World Cup’.
The Thomas Lipton Trophy competition was held in Turin and brought together leading club teams representing Italy, Switzerland and Germany.
But the Football Association decided not to send a team to represent Britain. For reasons that are historically unclear, Sir Thomas chose a team of amateurs from the Northern League mining village of West Auckland as our representatives.
Two years later they returned to Turin and beat Juventus 6-1 to win the right to keep the trophy. Most of the players paid for the trip to Italy out of their own pockets, and on their return the team was forced to pawn the trophy to a local landlady in order to pay for the debts it had run up in order to take part in the competition.
