In a World Cup Year, the History of a Grassroots Football Club

The story of Shaftesbury Football Club, founded in 1888, is told through a new temporary exhibition of archives and artefacts at Gold Hill Museum, from July to October 2026. We are indebted to Hilltop Historian Dave Hardiman for much of the research into the Club’s history, and all the content of this blog. On 05 April 1969, aged 15, (Dave writes) I made my debut for Shaftesbury Football Club reserve team at the old Barton Hill ground. I played left wing and, although we lost 5-0, my diary notes that it was ‘Not a bad debut’. I remember being praised by Dave Few at half-time for nearly scoring with a long-range shot that hit the crossbar.

By 1969, the club was already 80 years old. It is said that the first record of football being played in Shaftesbury came about as a result of the building of Motcombe House (now Port Regis school) by a firm of builders called Parnell’s from Rugby in Warwickshire. As well as their own labourers, Shaftesbury men were also employed, which led to a match between the two groups. The team from Rugby called themselves the ‘Mansion Swifts’. Unfortunately, no record of the result survives, but it led directly to an advertisement in the Western Gazette, asking anyone interested in forming a Shaftesbury football club, to attend a meeting at the Old Ship Inn in the town. The meeting took place in October 1888 and ten days later another notice announced the formation of Shaftesbury Football Club.

A pitch was established on what also served as the cricket pitch, which was at the time rented from Mr Jeffery for £1 a year. During the first 10 years or so, only friendly games were played against local teams, although the team did enter cup competitions. In those early days the team were conveyed to away matches in horse drawn wagonettes. In 1897, the team reached the final of the Dorset Junior Challenge Cup, where unfortunately they lost to Poole Town reserves.

Competition was tough with no shortage of rivalry between the local towns. This can be well illustrated by the events that took place when Shaftesbury visited Sturminster Newton on the 11th February 1897, just 9 years after the club’s foundation. It was reported in the Western Gazette as follows:

‘The referee was a Sturminster Newton man, and his match report stated that the score was 3-2 to Sturminster when the Shaftesbury team left the field, having objected to a goal that had been allowed, which the Shaftesbury team maintained, had not crossed the line. The referee stated that in fact the ball had been not inches, but feet over the line (If only they had had VAR). The Captain of the Shaftesbury Football team, Mr Long, who had been playing on the day, sent a long letter to the Association, which put a different emphasis on the events of the day. He said that a great deal of ill-feeling had been directed against Shaftesbury, and long before the match took place the Shaftesbury players were threatened as to what they might expect when they next visited Sturminster Newton. After consideration, the Dorset F.A. ruled that Shaftesbury Football club be suspended for one week for leaving the field of play without the consent of the referee. Sturminster Newton were suspended for two weeks for the bad behaviour of the spectators.’

During these early years, there was one Shaftesbury man who made a tremendous contribution, not only to football in the town, but also to football in Dorset. Harry Sidney Smith (1869-1934) came to be affectionately known as ‘Bumper’ (photographed in 1903).

Harry was born in Wilton in 1869, the family moved to Shaftesbury soon afterwards, and by 1871 they were living in St. James. In 1890, at the age of 21, Harry married Harriet Fanner of Cann and they lived at Hawkesdene. For many years he was a well-known resident in the everyday life of Shaftesbury, where he carried on business as a painter and decorator, but it may also be said (by the Western Gazette) that his short stocky figure and his views, often expressed with disconcerting bluntness, were as familiar on the football grounds of north Dorset as they were in the local councils and the controlling county body.

His obituary stated that football to him became something more than a mere pastime. It was a physical creed, and he gave a passionate devotion to the interests of the game. He played it in his earlier days as a member of the old Shaftesbury Football Club. Later he was a referee and, when his physical condition declined, he identified himself more whole-heartedly in the organisational side.

One aspect that will always be associated with his memory, was the Shaftesbury & District League, of which he was a founder, and for 30 years its secretary. He encouraged the younger players, and the annual six-a-side tournament on Easter Monday was one of the best known and popular fixtures in this part of the country. It can fairly be said that the fine array of cups, trophies and medals for this tournament, the Shaftesbury & District League and other cup competitions, which he was chiefly instrumental in organising, were mainly obtained through his personal appeal to sponsors and others over a wide area. He was secretary of Shaftesbury Football Club, and at the time of his death in 1934, probably one of the oldest members of the Dorset Football Association, and one of the oldest referees under the same body. For many years, football in north Dorset must have owed more to him than to any other man.

At the end of the season in 1921, in recognition of his services to the Shaftesbury & District Football League he was presented with a handsome silver tea service and an electro-plated tea tray, suitably inscribed, acknowledging 21 years’ service to local football. The mayor made the presentation, expressing a hope that Mr Smith would serve for a further 21 years and that the game would flourish in the future, as it had in the past.

Harry replied and, in his speech, he appealed to clubs to stamp out rough and foul play, and to support referees in their duties. He also urged the need to put down the use of insulting remarks to referees. He might have been disappointed to know how that appeal turned out.

He and Philip Pearce were also responsible for getting schoolboy football started in north Dorset and, after a competition in 1931, he remarked that it would be a great credit to some of the men’s teams of Dorset, if they took their lickings in the same spirit as had the boys of the losing teams that day.

Having entered the recently formed Shaftesbury & District League, the club achieved their first honour by winning the league challenge cup in 1900. Then, in 1903, they won the Shaftesbury & District League Cup, which was celebrated by a presentation ceremony of the cup and medals following a match between the team and a ‘pick of the league’ team on Saturday the 4th April at the Town ground.

Players in the Shaftesbury team that day were, A. Munday, F. Gray, R. Powell, J. Tapper, C. Short, H. Weldon, F. Buckland, Ridout, F. Weldon, Keast & Toogood. Harry (Bumper) Smith refereed the game which, despite bad weather, was played in front of a good number of spectators. Shaftesbury won 5-2 with Keast scoring 4 of the Shaftesbury goals. I’ve always known the nickname of Shaftesbury Football club as ‘The Rockies’. Whether this originated at the foundation of the club, I don’t know, but the 1903 match report in the Western Gazette, states that ‘The visitors were the first to score ….. but Keast followed for the homesters soon after. Burrington scored the second for the visitors, but before the interval Keast placed the “Rocks” on terms.’

There were many successful teams during the ensuing years, winning both the Challenge Cup and the league in 1906; then their first county honour in 1909 when they won the Dorset Junior Cup; as well as the league again. In 1912 they won the Shaftesbury Open Cup.

Here’s the team that won the Shaftesbury & District League and Dorset Junior cups in 1909.

Unfortunately, World War I (1914-1918) brought football to a temporary end in Shaftesbury. As a sad footnote, at least two of the 1909 team (Bert Keast & Hubert Weldon) were killed serving King & Country during the war, while another (Frederick Toogood) died of wounds soon after the war ended. Ernest Short served and survived the war years but died in 1920 at the age of only 32. Details about the lives of these four can be found on the Shaftesbury Remembers website: Bertram Keast died as a PoW in Germany, having been wounded and captured at Passchendaele in October 1917, while Hubert Frank Weldon was presumed killed in action at Ypres in March 1915. His name is one of thousands recorded on the Menin Gate. Frederick George Toogood was wounded in Mesopotamia in December 1915 and hospitalised in India until June 1916. He died and was buried at Yeovil in January 1919. Five brothers also served. Ernest George Short died at Enmore Green, Shaftesbury.

After the war, in 1923, the team started playing at the Barton Hill recreation ground, which remained the town’s football ground for the next 51 years, and  where, 46 years later, Dave started his first game for the club.

This exhibition is free, as is entry to Gold Hill Museum, and on display outside our Library until the end of October.