117. Huddersfield
To be honest, I really don't know what to do with this. Is it rugby or association football? The ball is most definitely spherical, but what is the 'claret' reference? Is it for the year Town wore red shirts and were 'The Scarlet Runners'? Or is it the rugby club who wore claret and gold hoops? To make matters worse, it would seem that Sharpe made a series of these cards which featured a mixture of association and rugby clubs, including Grimsby Town and Stockport County. And to make matters worse, Murray Cards tell me that the cards were produced 1905 to 1907, which makes it a year before Town were 'born'. But then ... nobody can be absolutely certain when these early cards were produced. LDC auctions tell me that the cards were produced before 1900 and it's more likely that the card is representative of soccer at local or minor league level - perhaps even schoolboy level?! Oh well - I like it so I'll leave it here!
John Ward - a Town historian - offers the following information ...
"There was a Huddersfield Association Football team as early as 1895, which shared the Fartown ground. The team was formed by the Huddersfield Cricket and Athletic Club and was inaugurated in the club gym on 31st August that year. Home fixtures were played on the Fartown ground until 1903 when the club acquired a ground at Marsh. However, in 1904 when Fartown Rugby Club were relegated to Div 2, the association team was invited back to Fartown to swell the coffers. In 1905 the Northern Union (Rugby) governing body ruled that no association matches would take place on any of their grounds and on 2nd June 1905, because of the above ruling, and lack of support, the HCAC abandoned the association game. This led directly to the formation of a local company devoted to finding a suitable ground on which to play the district finals and for establishing a first-class association team in the town. And from that point on - it is Town's history. I suspect this trade card was produced to reflect the combination of the two codes played at Fartown."