'Stories from the Stones'
Please visit the Contents Page for this section where you will find other 'Stories from the Stones.'
These same stories are also published on Penistone Archive Group's Facebook page, their Journal and in 'The Bridge' magazine issued by St John's church, Penistone. Many thanks to their tireless author, Mr Steve Lavender, for his worthy contributions to local history and this website. - JB.
Story 18 - The PCFC Book
This story touches on people buried locally who had been part of football history, such as John Marsh and Arthur 'Spinner' Lee. It refers to 'Penistone Church Football Club 1906 - The Inspirational Story of a Grass-roots Football Club' a book published in 2022 which was launched at Penistone Paramount in October 2022.
The Story of the Book
The beginnings of the story of the book about Penistone Church Football Club are closely linked to the Burial Ground Project which Richard Galliford and I had been working on during 2019 and 2020. During this time we had (with the help of Atlantic Geomatics) created an interactive map of all the historic graves within the burial ground of St John’s Church Penistone. We had mapped out over 850 graves which reflected over 2000 individuals. Whilst we were creating this resource we became interested in some of the people buried here and decided that once our work had been completed we would start to look at their stories. In due course I would begin a series of articles called ‘The Stories of the Stones’ which as well as being published by Penistone Archives and which may be found on ‘Penistone Pictorial.’
Then, around October 2020 a number of events took place which led to the formation of the writing team. A few of the graves appeared to be linked to articles written by Kevin Neill who had written academic articles concerning the links of Penistone men to the formation of association football in Sheffield. The discovery of the grave of John Marsh – the very first captain of Sheffield Wednesday (or The Wednesday as it was at his time) in St John’s was particularly important. The family graves of John Charles Shaw, Rev Samuel Sunderland, John Ness Dransfield and others also became a part of our story. Then one afternoon Richard Galliford was down at the football club looking at some of their old team photographs located under one of the bench seats in the lounge bar. He asked Club Secretary Dave Hampshire about the history of the club and discovered that apart from a collection of photos and documents that there was nothing to see.
Richard asked me if I was interested in looking at putting a history of the club together and bring back to life the various people who we know were not only associated with Penistone but who also had a wider influence in the development of association football in Sheffield and beyond. I agreed and we met with club officials who agreed to support us in our venture and then we contacted Kevin Neill who was only too keen to become involved. Kevin lives in France and so most of our meetings were done over Zoom. At our first meeting we set up the criteria under which we would hopefully create our work and then we were on our way. Little did we know where our journey would take us or how much we would discover about Penistone’s contribution to the football story, but we persevered.
We would base our early chapters on the work which Kevin had produced. Richard would put in the hard graft searching archive material, chatting to locals and following up on local tales and urban legends to see if there is anything concrete to them. My role was to write the book and hopefully create a text which people would find interesting and easy to read.
We worked in this way for 18 months and arrived at a completed text and hundreds of illustrations, drawings, photographs, news bulletins and personal experiences. Once the text was agreed (we had 8 chapters of around 25,000 words), we needed help to design it, format it and generally make it look good. We were lucky enough to find Stuart Gibbins who agreed to work with us on the same terms we had all agreed to work on and that was for no payment in any way, with all profits going to the club for their sole use. Stuart transformed our words and illustrations into what you see today and we are most grateful to him. He provided us with the design expertise which we could never have matched. We had to create the Season-by-Season list, the Acknowledgements, the Bibliography and the Resource list. Thanks to Keith Hackett for the Foreword. And then we realised we had no front or back cover and to be honest the way in which these were created are stories in their own right.
Eventually the work was completed and we needed to make decisions over the printer and how we would fund the whole project as we had not been able to secure a publisher. Finally on October 11th 2022, around two years since our first discussion 1000 books were delivered to my house. With the help of Gary Sidebotham and Adam Galliford a launch video was produced which can still be seen on YouTube and a launch night at Penistone Paramount Cinema organised. The evening was a great success and the book was born.
'Penistone Church Football Club 1906 - The Inspirational Story of a Grass-roots Football Club'
We have had some wonderful support in creating this book and once again thank them all for their contributions. We hope you get chance to read the book and enjoy the final outcome. The video was filmed and edited by Adam Galliford and Gary Sidebotham and can be seen on Richard Galliford's Youtube. The book can be bought online at pcfcbook.sumupstore.com or in person from Clarke’s Chemist Penistone, the Royal British Legion, Penistone Church Football Club and Penistone Archive (Penistone Community Centre on Thursdays) for £10 with proceeds to PCFC.
Steve Lavender - January 2023
sjlav1952@gmail.com
The Book Launch
A special event took place on
Wednesday 19th October 2022, 6.30pm at Penistone Paramount to launch the book to a rather full house. The event was supported by an excellent promotional video. Two and half years in the making, the book had been researched and authored by Stephen Lavender, Kevin Neill and Richard Galliford, who were all there for the launch with Steve Lavender on the mike as Master of Ceremonies. Stuart Gibbins, the local webmaster and graphics designer who had been closely involved in the book's design, had been unable to attend this event because of illness. A further presentation for the book took place on 22nd March 2023 in the PCFC clubhouse with its three authors.
The book brings to life Penistone's historical contribution towards modern-day football and the PCFC story from 1906 to the present day. It is available from the football club, Penistone Royal British Legion and Cafe Creme. It is also available by post from the football club. Penistone Church FC, Facebook.
Leaflet Launch - This event took place inside Penistone parish church on 16th December 2023, again with the three authors of the PCFC book, and the compelling case was presented for Penistone and district people being in at the beginning of what became out national game. The talk was supported by a leaflet and new video entitled 'Penistone, the Cradle of the Modern Game of Association Football.' As Wayne Chadburn, Penistone's correspondent for the Barnsley Chronicle, had put it in the newspaper of 5th January 2024: 'Many of those who played a major role in the development of Sheffield FC and Hallam FC had their roots in Penistone, Thurlstone and the surrounding area.'
Subtitled 'St John the Baptist, Penistone - Seven Graves, Many Lives,' the leaflet showed the locations in the church graveyard of those connected with the game. The PCFC History Page (on their website) covers much the same ground as the leaflet.
The names listed in the leaflet were: 1. Captain Adam Eyre; 2. Captain William Rich; 3. Rev Samuel Sunderland; 4. John Charles Shaw; 5. John Ness Dransfield; 6. John Marsh; 7. Canon William Stephenson Turnbull; and, 8. Thomas William Stainrod.
This picture of the football crowd at Penistone Church FC was taken in the 1970s.
William Wordsworth - "Rest and be thankful"