Fivemiletown Football: 1920/21
AGM
The general meeting of Fivemiletown Comrades Football club was held in October 1920, Mr Robert Bloomfield, Captain of the post, occupied the chair.
The following officers were appointed for the season- Captain, Hugh Hetherington; Vice-captain, R. Anketell; Secretary and Treasurer, Mr R. S. Tavener, Mr Leonard Stansfield was appointed to represent the Fivemiletown Club on the Council in Enniskillen and Mr John McLoughlin was appointed the referee.
There are only five teams who have entered the Mercer League this season.
Fivemiletown 1-0 Bedford Regiment
The first game in the Mercer league, Fivemiletown seen the Bedfords arrive in the town; the short report only said the result with no other details.
Injuries
The following week Fivemiletown Comrades were to travel to Enniskillen to take on the Corinthians in a league game. The Comrades were unable to travel owing to three of their principal players, Anchetell, Armstrong and Martin, being unable to travel owing to injuries received at the match the previous Saturday. Fivemiletown asked Corinthians if the match could be postponed and they agreed.
9th Lancers 3-5 Fivemiletown
No details available other than it was played in Enniskillen.
Challenge Match
Bedford Regiment 3-3 Fermanagh League.
A very interesting match between the above teams took place on the Broadmeadow Enniskillen. The League was composed of players from Corinthians, Fivemiletown and Irvinestown.
The Regimental team of the Bedfords travelled from Finner and included Lieutenant Nicholas, who played for England on the previous Saturday against Ireland at Belfast. He has also represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games in Antwerp.
‘The Fermanagh League are to be congratulated on a fine result’ said one paper, and another paper reported;
‘The Fermanagh team were lucky in making a draw and we venture to think that had Lieutenant Nicholas spent his time in looking for goals instead of coaching his players a very different result would have been given.’
Neither report said why this game took place, perhaps just to showcase the sport.
Fivemiletown players involved; Cameron, Morrison and Anketell (who scored)
Fivemiletown Comrades 3-0 9th Lancers
The 9th Lancers from Enniskillen travelled to Fivemiletown in the return fixture of the Mercer Cup.
The report stated that ‘the ground was in very poor condition, being very wet and slippery and very little good football was seen.’ It was Fivemiletown who scored the opener a few minutes before the half time whistle. The second half was mostly all Fivemiletown with the Lancers only managing a couple attacking moves, after fifteen minutes play Cassidy scored and it was the same player who was brought down near the goal a few minutes later, a penalty was awarded and it was the Fivemiletown captain, Ancketell, making no mistake in scoring their third.
Other Mercer League game results
(No reports or information)
Fivemiletown Comrades 0-6 Corinthians
Irvinestown 3-0 Fivemiletown Comrades
Club Dance
March, and ‘A very successful dance in connection with Fivemiletown Comrades football club was held in the Comrades Hall, where there were between forty and fifty couples present.
I found two other mentions of football in Fivemiletown:
Clogher Scouts came to the town to take on the local Scouts, with the home side winning by a single goal scored by ‘Wright’.
The other was reported as ‘An exciting football match’
between teams representing Fivemiletown Citizens v Foreigners
with the Citizens winning by 4 goals to nil.
Not sure if this would be acceptable today, with all this political correctness, maybe under different team names!
Where too?
