Selected Portraits 1950-1960
Photos by Barratts ©Empics
Published in When Saturday Comes 220, June 2005

Barratts, a husband-and-wife-managed photography agency, was established in Fleet Street in the 1920s. The business survived the Second World War, while many rivals were literally destroyed. The postwar football boom increased their interest in player portraits. While covering the capital’s pre-season photocalls was easy, they had to wait for more northern teams to come to them. All these portraits of finely chiselled, mainly northern, features were taken before games at London grounds.

It wasn’t straightforward, though. With just six large format glass plates for their cameras, they needed to shoot the portraits and save plates for the game. Hence they doubled up, choosing a star player along with a team-mate to fill the frame. As well as proving footballers could come in all shapes, several of those pictured are notable.

The distinctly unprolific-looking Norman Wilkinson (see key below) was York City’s leading goalscorer, likewise the neatly named Gladstone Guest, for Rotherham. Stan Anderson went on to captain Sunderland, Newcastle and Middlesbrough, and Tommy Taylor was an England centreforward who died in the Munich air crash.

The library fell into disuse in the late Sixties, then passed between owners. For a while it was stored next to an underground river. Despite the corrosion caused to some plates (see No 3), the majority survived intact, still smelling of the fix that was hastily applied when they were developed. Bar a few scratches, they remain an enduring record of the era’s well and lesser-known players.

Pride of place goes to a pair of improbably differing stature, Jack Cunliffe and Roy Sproson of Port Vale before their 1954 FA Cup win at Orient. From deep in Division Three they beat the fashionably slinky holders Blackpool on the way to the semis. With more than 1,000 appearances between them they are captured for posterity on a plate of solid glass – thanks to the efforts of Mr and Mrs Barratt.

Left to right from top row: 1. Jack Cunliffe/Roy Sproson of Port Vale at Orient, 1954 2. Norman Wilkinson/Bill Hughes of York at Brentford, 1959 3. Gladstone Guest/Charlie Tomlinson of Rotherham at QPR, 1951 4. Ted Purdon/Roy Warhurst of Birmingham at Fulham, 1953 5. Joe Hayes/Jack Dyson of Man City at Tottenham, 1956 6. Peter Doherty/Ray Harrison of Doncaster at Brentford, 1953 7. Stan Anderson/Billy Elliott of Sunderland at Arsenal, 1956 8. Ted Burbanks/Alf Ackerman of Hull at West Ham, 1950 9. Tommy Taylor/Jack Rowley of Man Utd at Chelsea, 1954

Doug Cheeseman
Football Photography Writing

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