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In this current climate of
changing-Captains, with Fabio Capello relinquishing the role from John
Terry and handing it to Rio Ferdinand. It is more than interesting
to go back 108 known-Captains to the very first one. Of the six
matches that we at England Football Online believe are disputable, there
are two that remain undoubtedly so... those two Scottish games led by
Cuthbert Ottaway, the first in 1872, the second in 1874. One
drawn, one lost. So by no means a victorious England Captain, but
nevertheless, intriguing.
Intriguing - How so? Because four years after leading England
against Scotland.... Ottaway died in 1878. He died after serving
as a Barrister for only two years - and even more tragically, he was
only married for eight months to Marian. Who was pregnant with
their first child at the time of his death.
In his time, Ottaway was a true
gentleman. If I may, I choose to quote the penultimate paragraph
from the Appendix, following on from his honours with England and Oxford
University and Old Etonians, and the cricket sides, and rackets, and
fives... 'Ottaway also participated in countless other, minor
sporting encounters - the vast majority of which, it must be assumed,
went undocumented; and he enjoyed and he excelled in them all purely as
an amateur, there being no record of him receiving payment for
anything other than expenses.' - Modern-day footballers sit up and
take note...
Essentially, this is a tale set in
Victorian times. Ottaway was born to well-to-do parents. But he never
got the chance to live out his life - he never got the chance to see his
child born and grow-up. He gained so much, he learned and earned
so much and yet he missed out on even more. He missed out on
middle-age. He missed out on growing old. He missed out on
life.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is Ottaway,
at the time of writing, had nine living descendants. The first
England Captain has no living descendents in his home country. An
intriguing story to say the very least in this easy to read, easy to
follow publication.
____________________
Cuthbert Ottaway was an all-round sportsman in the
heyday of the gentlemen amateurs. Educated at Eton
and Oxford, he played first class cricket, excelled at rackets and
athletics, and was England’s football captain for the first official
international with Scotland in 1872. His early
death from pneumonia perhaps caused his sporting achievements to be
overlooked, a matter rectified by Michael Southwick’s study.
The book contains details of his FA Cup matches and
international appearances.
His
cricketing achievements are also described.
Amongst them is a trip to Canada and America with Fitzgerald’s team,
where he opened the batting with WG Grace in many games.
- Tony Brown synopsis
To buy: Tony
Brown Soccerdata site
Amazon
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England
Football Online
