Surprise Wartime Find Among Fan’s Collection

10/06/2024  -  1.10

Martin Weiler

The programme for a First World War musical evening aimed at recruiting for the Footballers’ Battalion has been found among a large archive of sporting memorabilia collected by an Exeter City supporter.  

The event at Deptford Borough Hall was organised on 3 February 1915 by Millwall Football Club.  Just how the programme came to be in the collection is a mystery. 

Dave Fisher, who died in 2002, was a well known figure at Exeter City’s St James Park selling programmes in all weathers outside the Old Grandstand. He followed The Grecians from 1963, sold programmes from 1971 and served on the Supporters Club Committee for many years. 

Source: Dave Fisher Collection- South West Heritage Trust

Few people knew that Dave, an unassuming character, was building up a priceless collection of items relating to Exeter City’s history. Pride of place among these is a sensational set of dozens of photographs of crowds at games before the outbreak of war in 1914. Often on postcards they record the social history of the time superbly.

For those interested in hats the photographs provide a fabulous resource from flat caps to elaborate female headwear. 

Source: Dave Fisher Collection - South West Heritage  Trust

Writing in the matchday programme after Dave’s death his great friend and programme editor Mike Blackstone said ‘…I shall always remember Dave as being a kind and gentle person, but most of all an irreplaceable friend. We both had a strong interest in the history of the club, Dave through his collection of photographs, whilst I collected written history. We worked closely together, each finding useful leads for one another, this expanding not only our own knowledge of City’s rich past, but also preserving an important historical record of the Grecians for the future. We even became authors in our own right as we wrote about the Club’. Mike Blackstone died in 2022. 

When Dave passed away his parents donated his collection to the West Country Studies Library now held at the Devon Heritage Centre, part of the South West Heritage Trust. In recent months the Heritage Trust has been working with the Exeter City Football Club Museum Trust to sort and catalogue Dave’s archive. 

It was during one of the sorting sessions that a rather battered copy of the 1915 programme was discovered. The document contains the evening’s entertainment ranging from Deptford Borough Band to Coram, the King of the Ventriloquists. 

Source: Dave Fisher Collection - South West Heritage Trust

The evening Rally was attended by The Right Hon Lord Kinnaird KT, Chairman of the Football Association and Mr W Joynson Hicks MP, Chairman of the Footballer’s Battalion (17th Middlesex Regiment) Committee. 

Source: Dave Fisher Collection - South West Heritage Trust

In a box on page 3 the simple wording runs ‘Footballers and supporters of the game are earnestly invited to join THE FOOTBALLERS’ BATTALION’. Overleaf the programme states ‘The Battalion is now training at the White City, and has in its ranks players of the principal London Clubs’. 

Source: Dave Fisher Collection - South West Heritage Trust

Biography

Brought up in London watching Hounslow Town, Brentford and Spurs, Martin studied History and Archaeology at the University of Exeter and stayed on to work and live in the Devon city. This led to following Exeter City and increasingly getting involved as the Supporters Trust became owners in 2003. Martin was a member of the Trust Board for nine years and in 2016/17 was Trust Chair and a Club Director. Martin is a Trustee of the Exeter City Football Club Museum Trust.