Celebrating 120 years of the Grecians – The St Sidwell’sUnited Story

15. The Originals: our first players

When St Sidwell’s United played their first-ever game, a friendly at home to Dawlish on 21 September 1901, little would those who wore the green and white shirts have realised that their club would still be going strong over 120 years later. So those originals were trailblazers worthy of note, and we highlight a few of them here.

Interestingly, many years later, one of the 1901 debutants wrote to the Exeter Football Express. London-based George Campbell wondered whether the paper ‘could find a corner of space for the purpose of dealing with the whereabouts of the old timers who formed the team in our first match on the Pinhoe-road ground’.  But this request was in May 1939. Sadly, war soon intervened, and the idea was forgotten.

In the Dawlish game, George, a full back, was hailed as ‘very safe’ by the Evening Post and went on to be a regular for St Sidwell’s, also playing a couple of seasons for Exeter City after the 1904 name change.

He was not alone in making it through to the Exeter City days. Indeed, two of the originals were on the books, albeit as amateurs, when the club turned professional in 1908: Sillick(or ‘Sellick’ as the press often had it) and Eveleigh particularly deserve recognition.

There’s a profile of Jimmy Sillick, the then City captain, in the Football Express in 1907. It reveals he was born in Exeter and started his football career with St James’ Church Lads’Brigade and then St Thomas Past.

A forward, he joined the new St Sidwell’s United club at the outset and ‘the first year shared with Eveleigh the honour of heading the goal list. That season he scored 34 goals, while for two seasons afterwards he shared a similar honour with Sid Thomas’. The Express said Sillick had ‘a fine turn of speed and centres of deadly accuracy’. He was one of the scorers in the Dawlish game.

Another was Edward Eveleigh. After featuring for the club for several seasons, work took him to Portsmouth in February 1905. It’s possible he’s the ‘Eveleigh’ who had a trial for Portsmouth FC in a reserves game at Fratton Park in March 1905, but that’s as much as we know. In January 1907 he was back in Exeter and playing again for City.

He was top scorer in the Plymouth and District League campaign of 1907-8 with 15 goals. And both he and JimmySillick played in the first game under the Exeter City name v 110th Battery in 1904.

Their fellow leading goal-scorer was Sid Thomas; and in a previous article in this series, we paid tribute to him. He continued playing for Exeter City until the 1907/1908 season. Not only was he an excellent player but for seven decades also held an amazing array of posts from Secretary to President.  

At least three other players – the goalkeeper Robinson, midfielder Morgan and the above-mentioned Campbell all also went on to play under the Exeter City name.

The fact that so many players from that team of September 1901 had such good careers shows what a strong group had been brought together under the St Sidwell’s United banner.