My name is Han, I originate from The Netherlands and I’m a passionate football chroniqueur; not by profession but by nature. In the past, I’ve been covering nationwide amateur and professional football for a local Dutch paper as a part-time correspondent. A major Dutch football weekly has published various of my contributions, dedicated to the Premier League, the origins of English club’s nicknames, their sartorial sagas and their history. I have been corresponding for a British magazine, resulting in various series such as the Dutch ground scene and the coverage of major football grounds in Egypt.
I wrote a 400-page manuscript about the history of club crests, colors and nicknames of each and every football club that has appeared in the English football league since 1945. Unfortunately, it was never published . Consider yourself lucky I’ve decided to create the resulting blog after six years of blood, sweat & tearing desk and field research. I thought I’d share it though, to save it for posterity.
Han
The Beautiful History 
Hi Han,
I love this website, really thorough, fun and informative. quick uestion though is why you never published this as a book? it seems you did mountains of research and had a great concept but what was the final reason for not having gotten it published?
Best,
harry
Hallo Harry,
Please jump to The Book That Never Was tab, featuring in the main menu on the home page:
https://thebeautifulhistory.wordpress.com/the-book-that-never-was/
Scroll down to Publishers Anthology subsequently.
Cheers
Han
Hi Han, I’m a producer for the BBC in Cambridge. We like doing a little footie history feature ahead of our clubs big games. Cambridge United are off to Wembley to play Gateshead and we’ve discovered a link with our county. Peterborough United voted Gateshead out of the football league in 1960 and we’re looking for a football history expert to chat to us about it. I’ve been looking at your blog and you’d be ideal. If you read this please call 01223 287134 or e-mail me at Katharine.park@bbc.co.uk. Many Thanks Katharine
Hallo Han,
just wanted to say that I am very impressed with your blog. I live in Serbia and I have great passion for England lower leagues. It would be nice to have book like this, dont give up, I hope that you will publish it eventually.
Best of luck, Aleksandar
Thank you for your kind comments, Aleksander!
hi han, would it be possible to purchase your photos from you. mark
Han,
I’m in the process of writing a book about ex-football league teams and wondered if it was possible to use some of the photos of the grounds? I will credit you as the source. Please e-mail to latics@webservicesbc.com
Thanks,
Dave
Thank you Dave,
For moving reasons I’m not in a position to grant you use of some of the photos. Thank you for your understanding.
Han
Hello Han ,Please could you call me? 00441914824950.
Hello Han!
It’s trully amazing what you’ve done. I can imagine the amount of efforts, the hours spent on gathering, editing and publishing all the info I found here – I’ve been through something similar (and I still am) with my own website, which is also football-related.
Your work shouldn’t go unnoticed, on the contrary – it should be developped. What I can offer as free support is to start translating all the articles into Polish, Russian and Bulgarian. I’m sure others will be willing to contribute in similar way, providing translation into numerous different languages.
Let me know your thoughts,
Ultra
Hello Han, I love what you have created here and have recently added a couple of small pieces to the Workington .
Please don’t give up on getting this published – it’s good, very good.
Kind regards,
Andrew
Really excellent work Han, hope you get to have your book published. I’d buy it
Is it possible to find anywhere the team lists for Queens Park Rangers probably during the 1940s or 1950s. My Dad’s brother, Joseph Hammond played for QPR and I would love to find out if there is any record of him playing. My dad is now dead. Thanks for your help. Penny Bedwell My email is pennybedwell3@timetalk.co.uk
Han
Would like to recreate some of the stuff here on a new website and link to yours or possibly a partnership. Can you drop me a line so we can talk?
hi han just found your site fantastic
Hi , I still own the Park Royal Station built in 1903 which was opposite the Queen park Rangers Foot ball ground .
Regards
James Johnson
Hi Han
Great site. You should maybe look into crowd Funding the book.
Stumbled onto site looking into why Cambridge United (home club) have such a God awful badge and why Leeds United (boyhood club) have parking chevrons on theirs!
FA cup 3rd round has drawn Cambridge v Leeds which is ironic. Got to support underdog.
All the best
Martin
Hello Han, i have just discovered your website and i am interested in what you are doing, as my grandfather was the Liverpool reserve goalkeeper 1924-25 season but he did play a few first team games when there legendary regular keeper (Elisha Scott) got injured. I have a few newspaper clippings and photos from some of the games at the time,and i am always on the look out for anything i can find , i know there won’t be much out there so if it’s any interest to you get in touch.
Great stuff, Dave Hughes. I’d be truly delighted if you could please forward thise newspaper clippings and photsos!
Good day Han
My name is George. I am Greek, born in Athens, grew up in South Africa and now live in the USA.
Like you, I “worship” at the church of football. I don’t know why; my father was a professional player in Greece for a single pre-season match in 1959 and was badly hurt, which ended his “career”, so he banned me from ever playing when I was younger.
That being said, I just love watching great football and I marvel at the game’s origins and history (I wonder if those early pioneers even dreamed what they were creating?).
But I digress; I just wanted to thank you (for what it’s worth) from the bottom of my heart for YOUR efforts and for what you have created. I’m sure I speak for most of your visitors here when I say your work is very much appreciated.
All the very best bud. Thank you again.
Hi Han, thank you for this wonderful website! I have a question regarding the Rotherham United if you be kind enough to reply. It states ‘There’s an early mention of a Rotherham Football Club in 1870 playing at a field opposite Eastwood House, Doncaster Road’
Would you be able to advise where this was stated and the source?
Many thanks
http://world.themillers.co.uk/page/ClubHistory/0,,10360~67115,00.html
Hi Han, There’s quite a few updates to do on the pre-1926 history of Rotherham Clubs. The page you refer to has many errors for that period. I will update you from time to time. My records are fully referenced to reports of the time.
The Rotherham United has been proofread, amended and approved by the then Media & Communications Officer Gerry Somerton in 2003.
The heraldic excerpts have been kindly submitted by Anthony P. Munford, Manager Archives & Local Studies at the Rotherham Central Library.
It may come as no surprise that, in spite of meticulous desk & field research, fact checking, amending, proofreading, consulting, official club approval, etc, almost each and entry of my book has been subject to criticism, not seldom bordering on pedantry, semantic delusions and sheer contradiction.
Subject to controversy:
https ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLowXXpxhdQ&t=0s
Kind regards
JTM
Hi Michael, I’m the author of the “Kicking Uphill” series of books – Football in and around Rotherham before 1926. The first recorded matches between clubs in Rotherham took place in Dec 1865. If you are a RUFC follower, you may well be very suprised where these matches actually took place. As to the 1870 – Only “on the ground in Doncaster road” was mentioned
Hello Han
I’ve just found this website / blog. It’s wonderful.
I don’t suppose there’s anything else you could add, unless a Club is promoted from the national League for the first time, but I’m going to add this to my favourites and read my way through it all.
Cheers
Love this Han,you’ve done a great job
Cheers!
Han! The Rakers fans salute you, my friend
I’m writing to say I wish that there could be some way to purchase a manuscript or book, with this kind of info.
My Grandad (Charlie Hewitt) played professionally for a number of teams in early 1900s, ( Middlesbrough, Tottenham, Liverpool,West Brom, Crystal Palace and Post WW I, Hartlepool)
I am very interested in getting this, so I can pass on to my children. We now live in Canada, but still onto our roots.
Rick MacFarlane ( mom was Charlie’s daughter)
hi han , I am an old time shots fan , looking for info regarding aldershots record score in a game including penalties , seem to recall a game in either the 70s or 80s , all I can remember is it was a cup tie in some competition and after drawing the game it went to penalties Aldershot eventually winning some thing like 13-12 or 11- .10 or something , can you help
Hi Han, Ever heard of Behind the Badges. It was also to be a book but due to many clubs starting to use business logos it was not possible as it would cost more than it would make. The website had to close too due to someone buying the domain name at the second it ran out and then tried to sell me it at an inflated cost but I told him to go away. The similarities between your site and mine are uncanny at times as your sense of humor is very British for a Dutchman. I came across your site while updating my work which incidentally was started 20 years ago after I had an idea while explaining our club badge to a fellow Southampton fan on the train up to London one day where I now live. I then wrote a letter to all the football clubs asking for help and got a great response some even asking me to send them my findings as they didn’t have a clue themselves. Anyway I was wondering why do you put a mark through your pictures when, 1. They are freely available if no profit is to be gained. 2. Any images of coat of arms or arms related belong to the people and can not be copyrighted. 3. The marks are easily covered in paint or sketchbook. As I am updating and rewriting as a lot has happened in the last few years I was wondering if you had a valid reason for doing it and know something I don`t know. I would appreciate any help in case I am missing something. If I can be of any help to you please let me know as I have spent a lot of time in research due to the early habit of using arms in the early days and their evolution in our badges since. 20 years ago I made some videos about some of the clubs badges with a view to seeing if any sports production teams would be interested
but this was before high quality cameras on mobiles etc so they are very amateurish. I may try again as a friend has lent me a TV HD camera with sound equipment for another project. All the best and I will leave you some links to a few of the videos. Hopefully you will be equally amused as well as educated.
ARSENAL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDlD5xgk4Z4
DERBY https://youtu.be/CHUaIYtrH60
OXFORD https://youtu.be/IiH_RiUWFXE
SOUTHAMPTON https://youtu.be/6Mn1poPILuM
WATFORD https://youtu.be/HpXM4t5VkGY
Dear Paul, after having received permission in writing from each and every club to reproduce their previous and current emblems in my book I gave up on the project because I couldn’t find a publisher meeting my ‘demands’. I am not into vanity publishing at all cost. I did my desk & field research between 1999 and 2004.
I marked my pictures to disencourage charlatans, poseurs, rippers and leechers who claim spiritual or intellectual property of my Sisyphean labour of love. I have seen rip-offs of my work without proper credit.
I quite like your idea of video footage!
Yours sincerely,
Han
Hi Paul, very interesting videos imo. Any reason you’ve not done more? And if you’d done all that work in preparation for a book, and someone ‘stole’ the domain name, have you published it anywhere else after giving up on the physical book? It seems to me there is a fair amount of interest by other people whose passions are with the English game, and yours and Hans’ tireless work would be appreciated surely!
Hi Han. Any chance to have a contact email? Cheers
Why? Please be specific and to-the-point. Cheers.
Hello Han.
My name is Gavan Bergin and I am a freelance writer about Irish Football history. My articles, which are regularly published in the local paper here in Dublin, are most often about past Irish footballers who played for the IFA Ireland team in the late 1800a and early 1900s. One such story which might be of interest to you and visitors here was about the great Sheffield Wednesday player Eddie Gannon, and I was hoping if it would be possible to contribute it to your excellent archive. The link is below.
Thank you
Gavan Bergin
http://www.newsfour.ie/2017/05/eddie-gannon-a-joy-to-watch/
Hello Han
Your research on Sheffield Wednesday’s ground being a pig slaughter house is from the Sheffield United fanzine ‘Flashing Blade’. This is inaccurate and just banter between the two sets of fans.
The land was once part of Hillsborough Hall. It passed on to a Sheffield silver smith and was left fallow for many years until Sheffield Wednesday bought the land for £4,000.
Ok Rob. Your insinuation/assumption Flashing Blade is my source is unfounded and simplistic really.
Your version of ‘facts’ is just as ‘reliable’ as those that are contradictory.
Good day!