Bristol City FC

After being made a limited company and turning professional in 1897 a decision was made to employ a manager, so contact was made with Sam Hollis at Woolwich Arsenal. One of his first assignments at Bristol City was to assemble a squad of players to take part in the Southern League - he was given a transfer fund of £40!

In 1899 Bob Campbell succeeded Sam Hollis as manager in May.

In 1900 the club merged with local rivals Bedminster, who had been founded as Southville in 1887 and were a professional club which played their matches a mile away from St. John's Lane - at Ashton Gate.

Sam Hollis returns for a second spell in charge in 1901 and leads City into their first season in the Football League, following their election to Division Two in May. They were the only non-London League side south of Birmingham until 1920. They play their first League game on 7th September away to Blackpool, winning 2-0. Billy Jones becomes the first City player to win an England cap.

After one season (1900/01) playing at both St. John's Lane and Ashton Gate, and then three seasons back at St. John's Lane, the decision is made to adopt Ashton Gate as the new permanent home of Bristol City FC in 1904.

In 1905 City gain 14 successive wins in Division Two, still a joint League record held with Preston North End and Manchester United.

Harry Thickett takes over as manager and promptly leads City to the 1905/06 Division Two Championship, which includes a club record 30 League wins, and as newcomers became known as the "Bristol Babes", a nickname that would last into the thirties.

The Club were runners-up to Newcastle in Division One, 1906/07 their first season in the top flight, and to date the club's highest League placing. Centre-half Billy Wedlock wins the first of his 21 England caps.

In 1909 they reached the FA Cup final, where they were beaten by Manchester United 1-0 at the Crystal Palace in London.

But these achievements were not consistent, and in 1911 City were relegated back to the Second Division. They have not repeated the heights of the 1906-1909 era since, and did not even return to the top flight for 65 years.

Bristol City 1909 – A Parting Of The Ways

By David Woods, Bristol City FC Historian

With Bristol City reaching the 1909 FA Cup Final, in what was only their third season in the First Division, they appeared to have fully established themselves as a top flight side.

After winning the Second Division in 1905-06 with a record number of points, an impressive season followed when the League Championship could have been won, but for a disastrous Easter period. Whilst 1907-08 failed to live up to the highs of the previous two seasons, the 1908-09 campaign brought all the excitement of an FA Cup run that took City all the way to the Final at ‘The Crystal Palace’, to face old rivals Manchester United, who had finished second Division runners-up to City in 1905-06.

However, both clubs could consider themselves to be rather fortunate in getting this far. United were losing late on at Burnley in the 4th round, when the game was abandoned, but City were even more fortunate to survive their Stamford Bridge semi-final with Derby. It took Wallis Rippon’s spot-kick in the dying seconds of the game to bring a replay, which City won 2-1 at St Andrews.

With both teams reaching their first final, and only separated by a point in the League, the game was really billed as a north v south tussle. United were considered favourites as they were current First Division champions, but in many ways the clubs could, at this time, be considered somewhat similar in terms of ambition and potential.

Unfortunately, for City this game brought a parting of the ways as defeat brought an end any pretensions the club had of becoming a major force in the game. For United, the opposite was to prove to be the case, though even for them there were to be hard times ahead, notably in the early 1930s when their very existence was in jeopardy.

Thus the 1909 FA Cup Final ended City’s golden era which started with the formation of the club as Bristol South End in 1894. Joining the Southern League in 1897 they thrice finished runners-up in four seasons, before gaining admittance to the Football League for the 1901-02 campaign when they finished a creditable sixth. Three successive placings of fourth then followed until the amazing 1905-06 season when City became the first ever League club to win 30 games in a season as well as having the pleasure of equalling Manchester United’s record of the previous campaign in winning 14 consecutive games.