 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date of birth | 21 November 1857 | ||
| Place of birth | Glasgow, Scotland | ||
| Date of death | 31 July 1916(1916-07-31) (aged 58) | ||
| Place of death | Blackpool, England | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1876–1878 | Partick | ||
| 1878–1880 | Darwen | ||
| 1880–1889 | Blackburn Rovers | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Fergus Suter (21 November 1857 – 31 July 1916) was a Scottish stonemason andfootballer in the early days of the game. Arguably the first recognised professional footballer,[1] Suter was a native ofGlasgow and played forPartick before moving to England to play forDarwen andBlackburn Rovers.
Suter initially played forPartick (not the same club as the modernPartick Thistle). His first moves below the Scottish border into English football were with Partick. On 1 January 1878, he played for them againstDarwen at Barley Bank, and againstBlackburn Rovers atAlexandra Meadows the following day. Towards the end of that year, he began to play for theLancashire club Darwen, following shortly after the arrival of fellow Partick playerJimmy Love.
One source[2] states that Suter left Partick forRangers in 1877, then coming to England in 1878 and signed forTurton. He left Turton and joinedDarwen also in 1878.
Although the game was officially amateur at the time, Suter's move to England to play for Darwen in 1878 was shortly followed by him giving up his job as a stonemason, allegedly claiming that English stone was too difficult to work and fuelling criticism that he was being paid to play.
During the summer of 1880, he caused still more controversy by moving to Blackburn Rovers, a local rival of Darwen. The move again stirred up accusations of professionalism amid claims that Blackburn had offered him improved terms. Suter's move inflamed an already testy local rivalry, and bitter games and crowd trouble dogged future Darwen–Blackburn matches for years.
Suter's career was all but over by the timethe Football League formed in 1888. He made only one appearance for Blackburn Rovers in that competition, on 22 December 1888 againstWest Bromwich Albion as a replacement for the goalkeeperHerbie Arthur. He appeared in fourFA Cup finals and after Blackburn were runners-up toOld Etonians in 1882, he collected three winner's medals in 1884, 1885, and 1886.
Suter was born inGlasgow on 21 November 1857, the son of David Suter and his wife Catherine (née Cook).[3] He married Martha Almond inBlackburn on 22 November 1883.[3] He died of cancer at Branksome, 8 Seafield Road,Blackpool on 31 July 1916.[3] He was survived by his wife, a son Fergus Alexander and a daughter Jessie who later married a Frank Cumberbirch.[4][5] In later life Suter ran the Millstone Hotel inDarwen.
Suter is one of the main characters in theNetflix mini-seriesThe English Game (2020), played byKevin Guthrie.[6] The series depicts him leaving Darwen to join aBlackburn-based club and winning the FA Cup in the same season with victory over theOld Etonians.
Blackburn Olympic did defeat the Etonians to become the first working-class team to lift the cup, but this was not the club which Suter joined and the win did not come until1883, three years after Suter left Darwen.
Suter later joined Olympic's local rivalsBlackburn Rovers in 1880 and was in the team which lost in the1882 Cup Final against the Old Etonians. He would later go on to star in three consecutive Cup Final victories in1884,1885, and1886.[7]
Having watched the Netflix series, viewer Jacqueline McAleese noticed that Suter's grave inBlackburn Old Cemetery had become dilapidated with the gravestone fallen and the plot just a mound of grass.[8] After she contacted Blackburn Rovers they funded a restoration of his grave which was completed in 2021.[9]
Blackburn Rovers