1948 Farley Football Reenactment1

A memorable event was staged in 1948 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the WFC with a re-enactment of that first game of 1888 played on Farley Common, against the Sevenoaks team to the original rules of the day. This was the town club that had been the first formed, and had now outlived the ‘Birds of Freedom’, the ‘Black Eagles’, and the Territorials to remain the town’s team.

A commemorative brochure was produced for the occasion including an extract from a poem written by a supporter on January 1 1890:
Long may the light and dark blues stand    Ready and steady – hand in hand
Long may old Westerham remain the resort    Of keen old friends of the winter sport
Sometimes the prophets are taken in    And those may lose whom we thought may win
But the Westerham boys make our hopes run high    When we think of their triumphs a year gone by.

This poem was published in the Westerham Herald at the end of the club’s first season.  The commemorative brochure continued:   Sevenoaks have been to Westerham many times since 1888, but never for an occasion such as this. The game will be played in the dress and under the same rules as the original game.