Centenary of Ebenezer Morley’s death to be honoured at historic football site in Barnes
On the nearest match day to November 20, the enthusiasts currently steering the revival of venerable Barnes FC will join players to pay tribute to their club’s founder. They won’t have to go far, for the grave of one Ebenezer Cobb Morley lies hidden amid the undergrowth near a corner of their training pitch at Barn Elms.
With no children or descendants, Morley’s endeavours are not only remembered here but are being rekindled by those involved in this recently established volunteer venture. Reborn in 2021, the senior XI now plays in the Kingston & District Saturday League, tier 11 of the league pyramid. While games take place elsewhere for the time being, the aim is to bring Barnes back home to Barn Elms.
The centenary of Morley’s death is one of several anniversaries signifying the historic importance of this club and its founder. This Monday, November 11, marks the Saturday in 1871 when Barnes played the first ever game in the FA Cup, a 2-0 win over an eight-man Civil Service XI.
Just as there’s more to this location than a picturesque spot on the Thames, a backdrop to the Boat Race across from Craven Cottage, Ebenezer Cobb Morley was not just a Hull-born solicitor with a last wish to be buried at Barnes FC.
“He wrote the rules of the game,” Commercial Director of Barnes FC Matt Schofield tells Libero. “They call him the Father of English Football.”
They’re not wrong. At a first meeting on November 17 1863, and then at a second the following November 24, Morley and his fellow footballing pioneers kicked their rugby-favouring counterparts into touch by drawing up the first FA rules, insisting on one vital detail: “No player shall carry the ball”.
Sitting at home in Barnes, Morley then annotated these essential points, the original draft in his curlicued handwriting on display at the National Football Museum in Manchester.
The first game played according to these rules was between Barnes and neighbours Richmond at Barn Elms, where the two teams had met the previous November. Morley was team captain on both occasions, drawing up the rules for Barnes’ first match just he did a year later at the Freemasons’ Tavern. He was, after all, the first secretary of the Football Association.
The game was replayed at the same site 150 years later in 2013 as part of the FA’s anniversary celebrations. At Ebenezer Morley’s grave, the then FA chairman Greg Dyke said: “None of this would have been possible without Morley. We all owe him a great debt. What he did to set football on its incredible journey to become the only true global game was a truly remarkable achievement. It is only right we pay tribute to him”.
“I fell in love with the club and got consumed with all its history,” explains Matt, who occupies a seat on the board at Barnes alongside his day job managing leisure facilities. “The story just gripped me.”
He isn’t alone. In recent times, Barnes had blipped in and out of existence until an auditor by the name of Ranko Davidov was at a family picnic.
“Ranko was at Barn Elms, and there was plenty of sport going on,” says Matt, referring to the various rowing and rugby clubs still based at this sprawling 52-acre parkland, a bucolic getaway described by Samuel Pepys in 1667 as ‘mighty pleasant’.
As a football-loving Serbian resident of Fulham living beside Craven Cottage, Ranko wondered why Barnes didn’t have a football team. “He put the word out,” says Matt, “asking if anyone knew about Barnes FC. That’s how he found Julie”.
“This was 2021,” says Julie Burgess, now club secretary of the since reformed Barnes FC. “We met for coffee and I explained that my grandfather, Leslie Kilsby, had been chairman of Barnes from 1926. He stayed involved with the club until he died in 1972.”
Much like the Victorian polymath Morley – a keen rower involved in the Barnes & Mortlake Regatta – Leslie Kilsby played an active role in the Barnes community, taking wounded soldiers out for day trips in the 1940s and organising fund-raising events.
Both Julie and her cousin, Janice Kilsby, had heard many stories of their grandfather’s activities and were keen that he be remembered in the best way possible. Part of this is to set up a Barnes FC museum filled with the trove of memorabilia Julie found in her mother’s attic, painstakingly being catalogued and documented. She has recently taken out a lease on a building, earmarked for the Barnes FC clubhouse, next to the Red Lion pub on Queen Elizabeth Walk at Barn Elms.
As chairman, Ranko worked the many contacts gleaned from his 20 years’ experience at top-level accountancy firms. The goal was, and remains, to develop the club into a sustainable, semi-pro operation for the benefit of the Barnes community.
A multinational squad of 30 – players with experience in the Serbian Second Division, Italy’s Serie D and Portugal’s third tier – are captained by the redoubtable Dannie Walton and coached by Ben Lewis, who once kept goal for Gloucester City.
In 2022-23, Barnes FC joined the Surrey South East Combination League, Division 2, before being invited to the Kingston & District Saturday League. Barnes are now neck and neck for top spot with Surbiton-based Parkside, with only one promotion place available.
“If we win this league, we can either go to a Surrey FA League or Middlesex one,” explains Matt. “In our history, we’ve played in both.”
Barnes’ dilemma is more than just one of county designation. While the youth team plays at Barn Elms, where the seniors train in midweek, most first-team games take place across the Thames at the Quintin Hogg Sports Ground in Chiswick.
Though an attractive location, and one where the Boat Race finishes, it’s an awkward bus journey for those living in Barnes. Pitches at Barn Elms are at a premium on Saturday afternoons and part of the site is protected wetlands, home of rare birds and bats.
“Within five years, we need to be back at Barn Elms,” is how Matt puts it. “We want our own little ground. To go semi-pro, which we need to be to enter the FA Cup, we have to charge admission.”
It’s currently free to watch Barnes in Chiswick, with drinks and merchandise sold on match days. Blue-and-white shirts, mugs, pennants, scarves and hats are also sold by the club online.
More people through the gate means more funds to rent pitches, hire referees and keep the dream alive. As the club’s Social Media Manager Chris Dennis points out: “We’ve got a strong online following but you can’t beat the feeling of a crowd at a match. The players, the managers, they would love to see regulars coming, to build a community here”.
Julie Burgess, whose grandfather breathed new life into the club a century ago, is best placed to sum up the situation: “We need to bring everything back to Barnes, to where it all began, and get the community involved”. Ebenezer Morley would surely concur.
Barnes FC, Barn Elms Sport Centre, Queen Elizabeth Walk, London SW13 0DG. Match days Quintin Hogg Memorial Sports Ground – River Pitches, Quintin Lane, Chiswick, London W4 3UJ. Train to Chiswick or Mortlake stations then 10min walk.
Between Mortlake station and Barn Elms, the riverside White Hart pub has been in place since 1662 and was used by Barnes FC in Ebenezer Morley’s day to store equipment.
Julie Burgess is keen to hear from anyone who may have any more archive material or information about Ebenezer Morley and Leslie Kilsby. Contact Julie through the club website.
