Football and pubs go hand-in-hand, and for the 1930-31 season, East End brewery Charrington circulated a map of footie grounds and their local boozers — likely handed out to drinkers/spectators at both.
Charrington — long since absorbed by larger outfits — had roots stretching back to the early 18th century, and by the 1930s had acquired a number of pubs across London, inside many of which, football fans congregated on matchdays.
Illustrated by Linden Miller (an artist who little else is known about) the playful map — a rare copy of which was recently sold by Altea Gallery in Mayfair — would have been handed out at pubs owned and run by the brewery, and probably at the grounds featured on the map too. You can just imagine fans spreading out the map on a pub table, and splashing it with Charrington's Brown Ale, as they pore over the whimsical illustrations featuring beer kegs being rolled down streets, and someone peering down the barrel of a huge telescope in Greenwich, as they scan the skies for shooting stars.
Alongside a fixtures list/nearest Charrington houses printed on the reverse, the map provides an intriguing insight into the drinking/footballing world of almost a century ago. Though many of the teams are still familiar to us now as high-flying clubs (Arsenal wound up winning the First Division that season, while Man United came last), others stick out.
Shortlived Thames AFC existed only from 1928-1932, seeing out their final season at the bottom of the Third Division. Given this, it is staggering to learn that their ground, West Ham Stadium, had a capacity of 120,000 — that's 30,000 more than today's Wembley Stadium. Already by the time Charrington released a similar map the following season Thames AFC had been scrubbed from it; it's fortuitous that the 1930-31 map immortalises their fleeting dynasty in ink.
'Charringtons Football Club' also appear; the team — known as Toby FC, and flaunting a Toby Jug as their logo — happily still exists today, playing home games in Billericay. What's strange is that the club claims to have first formed in 1932 — a year or so after this map was circulated. Anyway, the team must have existed — or at least planned on existing — when the map was made.
Though the majority of the football grounds (and Twickenham: "They play Ruggah heah") continue in one iteration or other, predictably, many of the pubs are long vanished. You can still find a few, however, including the Greyhound in Peckham (not all that close, in fact, to Millwall's ground) and the Kings Arms in Fulham.
Like the pubs, not many of these maps are still kicking about either. Says Miles Baynton-Williams from Altea: "Unfortunately we have no idea how many were printed; surviving examples are uncommon because few people thought to keep them."
