Taking No Prisoners: the Story of Frank Barson, Football's First Hardman by John Harding

Author:John Harding
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2019-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Despite all this, Barson objected, insisting that there was nothing in his contract that stipulated such domiciliary arrangements. Villa then asked him to spend a month living in a hotel in Birmingham as part of pre-season training. Barson agreed, apparently under the impression that once the season began, he could move back to Sheffield. The Villa board, however, came to the conclusion that if he wanted to do that he would have to pay his own expenses, something they had been doing thus far.

‘I was upset. The insistence on the part of the Villa directorate was beginning to irritate me.’

It was at that point that Barson and team-mate Clem Stephenson (who was also now being charged expenses for travelling to and from his home near Newcastle) decided to take drastic action. They failed to turn up for a match at Bolton against the Wanderers which Villa lost 5-0. In effect, they had gone on unofficial strike.

‘I spent the afternoon in Sheffield. I went to a picture show. I was not worried. I knew that there would be a sensation. But I was not alarmed. I was convinced that this was the best way in which to show my determination about the matter.’4

He claimed later that he had no idea that Stephenson had also decided not to play at Bolton, which seems rather odd in the circumstances. It was headline news, however, and the Sheffield Daily Telegraph interviewed him. He explained:

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