B17 Footballers

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Flamingo
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B17 Footballers

Post by Flamingo »

There are some posts in another thread. Some of the club names didn;t last very long on their original locos: Newcastle United for example lasted only a few weeks on 2858. It was then removed in favour of The Essex Regiment and never re-used. Quite surprising really for a big club. Are there any known photographs of this B17 with its football club name?.

Some other clubs in the LNER's area never had locos named after them at all - Ipswich Town and York City for instance. Was this because those clubs were in the lower divisions?
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Post by soupdragon »

I always wondered why the likes of Man Utd and Man City were included, surely Manchester wasn't in the NE region?

I asked this on another forum, a football forum) and it came back with some classic remarks about how the loco spent its working life running between Stalybridge and Bury via Guide Bridge, but like Man Utd its passengers were all from Bristol, Oxford etc etc

B17 2860 'Hull City' was withdrawn from service in June 1960 but the match programme for the last ever game at Boothferry Park shows the name plate in place over the players tunnel in November 1959. I assume between those dates she was laid up awaiting disposal?
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Post by Flamingo »

The 2 B17s named after Manchester clubs were allocated to the GC section when they were new before the war but they certainly didn't spend much time there if any after 1945.

Perhaps even more surprising is that both Liverpool and Everton names survived. Liverpool was probablyeven less of an LNER city than Manchester but their 2 club names lasted while Newcastle's didn't..

I have to admit to being a Spurs fan in years gone by. I believe that one of 61630's plates is in the board room at White Hart Lane.
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Post by Wainwright »

I don't know much about Ipswich Town, but the club only came to prominence post-war, IIRC (particularly in the periods it was managed by Alf Ramsey and Bobby Robson, particularly Robson - ie 60s and 70s). Unlikely to be first in the mind of an LNER naming committee in the 30s, even if the B17s were intended for the GE section.

York City FC wasn't founded until the 1920s and has never really managed to gain huge prominence.
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Post by 2398 »

York City were founded in 1922, so were around when the B17's were introduced. The Chairman of the Naming Committee was probably a Hull City or Scarborough fan...!!
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Post by 2398 »

PS - despite this and for those of you with more taste than the said Chairman, you can get a small repro 'York City' nameplate from the North Yorkshire Moors Railway shop at Grosmont - even though it never existed .
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B17s and Manchester

Post by 9E »

The two Manchester clubs were fairly obvious choices for those naming the B17s. As already mentioned Footballers were allocated to the GC section (including 39A Gorton in East Manchester) from new and dominated Manchester-Marylebone services amongst others. However in addition the Sandringhams when first introduced on the GE section a little earlier were common in Manchester working the Liverpool-Harwich boat trains from Manchester Central (and thus coming within a stone's throw of Old Trafford) through to Ipswich, with Gorton and Ipswich sheds sharing the turn. On occasion B17s also worked the last leg into Liverpool. This service and the LNER's 2 thirds share of the CLC explains the naming of B17s after the Liverpool clubs. I think Liverpool was one of the last B17s at Gorton shed leaving at some point in 1946/7 as the B1s took over all the former B17 turns. Although the boat trains continued to be worked by B17s as far north as Sheffield until the late 1950s, Manchester's connection with the B17s effectively ended in 1953 when the last B17 to be overhauled at Gorton works (Gunton) departed.
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Post by redtoon1892 »

Picture of Sunderland on shed here

http://www.phantasrail.co.uk/eastern_region_(2).htm
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Post by silver fox »

There's Huddersfield Town on the page before aswell, I like the picture of 60003
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Post by giner »

I think Norwich City's name plate is mounted over the players' tunnel at Carrow Road.
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Post by 61650GTFC »

61650 Grimsby Town's nameplate can be found at Blundell Park in what used to be known as the findus stand (they keep changing the sponsors name). Also a nameplate of the original B1 Mayflower can be found in Boston Town Hall
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Post by giner »

Just spotted 'Middlesbrough' over the players tunnel at the Riverside Stadium today.
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Post by 60041 »

The plate from Sheffield Wednesday is in the Boardroom at Hillsborough. A friend of mine saw it once when he was helping his girlfriend deliver a buffet!
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Post by Flamingo »

This might have been posted before I joined this board, if so please excuse repeat.

Several Footballers and other B17s in this set of pictures from the Neville Stead Collection:
http://steamingback.fotopic.net/c1417052.html

Lots of other LNER locos also on other pages.

I met Neville once way back in the days when there were still J27s and Q6s around in the north east. He was involved with the NELPG which saved examples of both those classes.
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Post by Flamingo »

giner wrote:Just spotted 'Middlesbrough' over the players tunnel at the Riverside Stadium today.
Can anyone clarify what colours Middlesbrough FC were using in the 1950s? I thought Middlesbrough played in all red shirts which should have meant an all-red splasher panel like those of Arsenal (61648) or Man U (61662). But in a photograph of 61655 taken at Stratford in Ocober 1958 which wasa few months before this loco was withdrawn the club colours on the centre splasher panel below the nameplate are clearly the red/white stripes of a club such as Sunderland (61654) or Sheffield United (61649). Part 2B of the RCTS series says 2855's panel was red, not red & white. Was it officially changed to red & white at some stage or did someone perhaps get the numbers mixed up?
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