Notts Rangers and Meadow Lane

[SwalePie]

This seems promising, despite not being on Meadow Lane. I wonder if the name is simply confused in the record keeping and whether later curators of local footie history have lazily changed 'Meadows Rec' to 'Meadow Lane', thinking they were correcting an earlier error? Fascinating stuff.


"By the 1860s housing had begun to spread across the green fields and the newly formalised and organised football was then played on specially designated grounds. Notts County (founded in 1862) played their very first home match against Trent Valley at the Meadows Cricket Ground on Queens Walk; this pitch was to remain County’s home ground for the next fif**** years. In April 1866 County entertained Nottingham Forest (founded 1865) on the Meadows. At the end of a “pleasant and well-contested game” the score remained nil-nil."

There were seemingly lots of open spaces between the city and the Trent back in those days which could have been contenders. Some teasing hints here too: http://www.ournottinghamshire.org.uk/page_id__277.aspx

[ncfcog]

This seems promising, despite not being on Meadow Lane. I wonder if the name is simply confused in the record keeping and whether later curators of local footie history have lazily changed 'Meadows Rec' to 'Meadow Lane', thinking they were correcting an earlier error? Fascinating stuff.


"By the 1860s housing had begun to spread across the green fields and the newly formalised and organised football was then played on specially designated grounds. Notts County (founded in 1862) played their very first home match against Trent Valley at the Meadows Cricket Ground on Queens Walk; this pitch was to remain County’s home ground for the next fif**** years. In April 1866 County entertained Nottingham Forest (founded 1865) on the Meadows. At the end of a “pleasant and well-contested game” the score remained nil-nil."

There were seemingly lots of open spaces between the city and the Trent back in those days which could have been contenders. Some teasing hints here too: http://www.ournottinghamshire.org.uk/page_id__277.aspx

That's a great shout.Love this sort of stuff so props to Kim for a great topic!

[HaylePie]

Swale - Para 3 of your article (post #3) mentions a second goal adding a 'second point'. Anyone know how the scoring went in those days?

[LilCrazyKim]

This seems promising, despite not being on Meadow Lane. I wonder if the name is simply confused in the record keeping and whether later curators of local footie history have lazily changed 'Meadows Rec' to 'Meadow Lane', thinking they were correcting an earlier error? Fascinating stuff.


"By the 1860s housing had begun to spread across the green fields and the newly formalised and organised football was then played on specially designated grounds. Notts County (founded in 1862) played their very first home match against Trent Valley at the Meadows Cricket Ground on Queens Walk; this pitch was to remain County’s home ground for the next fif**** years. In April 1866 County entertained Nottingham Forest (founded 1865) on the Meadows. At the end of a “pleasant and well-contested game” the score remained nil-nil."

There were seemingly lots of open spaces between the city and the Trent back in those days which could have been contenders. Some teasing hints here too: http://www.ournottinghamshire.org.uk/page_id__277.aspx

Thanks for that Swale! That's a possible explanation, although this pre-1910 Meadow Lane is mentioned in more than one source so if it is a mistake it's one that's been quite commonly made. There's still a recreational area at the Meadows Cricket Ground site today. I'd guess that's the only one of our old grounds (aside from Trent Bridge of course) that there's any trace of now?

Swale - Para 3 of your article (post #3) mentions a second goal adding a 'second point'. Anyone know how the scoring went in those days?

That's interesting. That looks to me like 'point' could be used interchangeably with 'goal' back then but I could be wrong. I know in the very early days you could score a 'rouge' by kicking the ball wide of the main goal (a bit like in Aussie rules) but I'm pretty sure that rule had been eliminated by the 1880s.

[upthemaggies]

Looks like Meadow Lane ran between around 15-20 fields, none of it built up, just a country road to connect Sneinton with the Meadows. Chances are, if Rangers played somewhere off that road, it wouldn't have been where Notts play now, although I'd guess the fields at either end of the road would have been the more likely to have been made into some sort of park for locals use whilst the fields either side of the railway line were more wild.

[upthemaggies]

Mid 1880's, pin points to roughly where our center circle now is.......

[IMG][/IMG]

[SwalePie]

Could this area literally across the road from our 1910 on ground be a candidate? Anyone know what it was? This picture is from 1927