A piece of Market Drayton’s sporting history has been uncovered by a Staffordshire man who is asking for help in tracing its roots.
A medal won by a former member of Market Drayton Football Club has been passed down through three generations of the family of Tony Caton.
The medal is inscribed with the name J. Jones and dates back to the 1893-94 season when the town’s football club played in the Staffordshire Junior Cup.
Mr Caton, 53, from Stoke-on-Trent, said: “The medal has been kept and passed down from my grandparents and mother to me.
“I had it after my mother died in June 1989 and initially when I looked at it, I thought it was something to do with my grandfather whose name was Isaac Jones.
“But it couldn’t have belonged to him because he was born two years after the match was played so we’re probably looking at an elder brother of my grandparents or a great-grandfather.
“I don’t recall my granddad mentioning anything about it because he was a quiet, passive gentleman and I’ve not researched the family tree.”
A match between Market Drayton and Blackburn Rovers is believed to have been played around the same time of the competition after the Lancashire club was formed by two Shropshire businessmen in 1875.
Mr Caton said: “To me, it’s not just an inheritance of sentimental value and I’m proud of it because no one else in my family has done anything sporting so it’s unique in that way. I’m very excited because it’s unusual for anything like that to have survived intact when you consider the passage of time, wars and everything else.”
Stoke historian Peter Richardson, a friend of Mr Caton, said: “We believe the medal was probably made in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter as some sort of official issue for the Staffordshire Junior Cup.
“Could it be that Market Drayton produced a team so far and above anyone else that they needed to enter other competitions? I’d like to see where it leads and if we can find out the medal’s history, it’ll be of interest to everybody.”
Anyone who can shed more light on the medal and its history can contact the Advertiser on 01630 698113.
