Sheffield Wednesday and Hillsborough in the 1960's

[Sheffield History 478]

 

 

 

 

 

 

This amateur film gives a revealing picture into top flight football in England, the old First Division, in the mid-1960s. The film shows action from Sheffield Wednesday playing at home at Hillsborough Stadium to Arsenal, possibly the match in March 1964: the Scottish centre half Ian Ure looks to be playing for Arsenal.

The other two games have quite small crowds, so are probably both reserve team fixtures, possibly against Manchester United and Blackpool.

These films were taken by keen Sheffield Wednesday supporter Harry Wilson of Barnsley, who also filmed around the same time the world champion potato grower, George Brook, also from Barnsley. There is also amateur film of the West Germany v Uruguay World Cup game played at Hillsborough.

This is of course a much different looking Stadium to the one that was re-built in the wake of the tragedy there of 1986. It isn’t clear what the connection is, if any, between the football matches and the photograph of the Manchester United Busby Babes displayed at the end, just before another football tragedy, the Munich air crash of February 1958.

[DaveJC 18]

The 1960s, when the game was not a million pounds away from the average supporter. None of the current shower of losers would have a snowball’s chance in hell of making a 1960’s starting lineup.