As revealed in last Friday’s Chronicle, Cheshire sports historian Paul Lavell claims to have uncovered evidence that suggests Chester City were formed in 1879 – six years earlier than originally thought. However, official club historian CHAS SUMNER sees no reason to rewrite history.

THE whole history of the formation of Chester FC seems to hinge on exactly what happened at the inaugural meeting held at the Crown Vaults in summer 1885.

I advocated the formation of the club as 1885 on the basis that a new committee was formed comprising members of both Chester Rovers and Old King’s Scholars, even though the players were essentially from Rovers.

In the early 1930s, The Chester Chronicle printed a series of articles on the history of the club which included an interview with Mr AC Lockwood, one of the founders of the club.

His story was as follows: “Alf Tatler, WJV Walley and myself belonged to the Old King’s Scholars. We realised that there was difficulty each week in raising a team to fulfil home and away engagements. We thought it would be better to try and get a decent team in the city to displace the smaller teams such as the Rovers and St Oswald’s.

“The Rovers were in a poor position financially and in other respects. For that purpose negotiations were carried out at the meeting place the Crown… There were two schools of thought in connection with the new team.

“One section of the new committee who had belonged to the Rovers hesitated before agreeing to expunge the Rovers’ name and a compromise had to be arrived at. For some time afterwards our title was Chester Football Club (later Chester Rovers).”

The Chronicle also quoted from the last Chester Rovers fixture card produced in 1884/85. This listed the committee, which can be compared with the holders of the same positions the following season.

In the Rovers committee the main offices were as follows – president: H B Saulsbury; vice-presidents: Mr H Thomas and Mr William Gandy; captain: J Tomkinson; vice-captain J Higginson; hon secretary: Mr W Bradshaw; hon treasurer: Mr J Shortt.

The following year the same positions for the new club were held by the following – president: Captain Fluitt; vice-presidents: Mr J B McMillan and Mr W Marsh; captain: J Hack; vice-captain J Tomkinson; hon secretary: Mr AC Lockwood Jnr; hon treasurer: Mr W Wilks.

Captain Fluitt, Hack and Tomkinson had all been associated with Rovers, but the other positions and the vast majority of the rest of the committee do not appear on the list of Rovers officials.

With regard to the club being formed as early as 1879, I can’t comment about the Cheshire Observer article in September 1880 referring to Chester St Oswald’s adopting the name of Chester Rovers. However, it should be pointed out that Chester St Oswald’s certainly existed alongside Rovers in 1883/84 and 1884/85 and they played regular fixtures against Chester from 1885.

The Chronicle articles feature the reminiscences of Mr L Bebbington, one of the founders of St Oswald’s. He refers to the rivalry between Chester FC and St Oswald’s and there is no mention of them adopting the Rovers name.

It is fair to say that the roots of Chester FC go back before 1885, but it seems to me that the Chester formed in 1885 was essentially a new entity, even though most of the players and indeed the ground were exactly the same.

Certainly the evidence above suggests that the intention was for Chester to be considered a completely new club.

In fact rather than 1879, a case could probably be put together placing the formation of Chester as early as 1874 when a team representing The King’s School played Chester College with the school team, eventually becoming Old King’s Scholars.”