Goodyear team did the double
Star readers have come forward to help Eddie McFerran identify this 1930s football team from the Wolverhampton area – but on one key point Eddie is still scratching his head.
This treasured picture has been in his family for many years, and shows his dad William McFerran, known as Billy or Willy, on the right end of the second row.
Eddie, from Widnes, said: “We were led to believe he played for a Wolverhampton team but we don’t know what the connection is."
A big clue was that the smaller trophy has been identified as the J W Hunt Cup, played for in a competition founded in 1926 by John William Hunt, founder of the Chillington Tool Company, and raising money for the Beacon Centre for the Blind.
The larger trophy is the Wolverhampton Charity Cup.
Following Eddie's appeal in the Star for more information from readers, he has got back in touch to update us on developments.
"I had two calls, but with nothing really specific.
"However the J W Hunt Cup has a Facebook page which I joined and sent the picture out again.
"Last night a gentleman messaged me to say his friend Alan Meddings is 94 years old and remembered the team and recognised the changing rooms in the picture. He remembers some of the players but not names.
"The team was Goodyear at Stafford Road, Wolverhampton, in 1938, as that was the only year they won both trophies.
"The charity cup's official name is the Wrekin Cup.
"This does not help us in knowing why dad was in Wolverhampton though."
That aspect, of why Ulsterman Billy was playing in a Wolverhampton team, remains a mystery, as Eddie says his father definitely never lived in Wolverhampton, and so far as he is aware had no connection with the area, being born in Carrickfergus and moving to Liverpool in about 1945 following wartime service in the Merchant Navy.
