By Andrew Beattie
James Maxwell – a further update. You can read the original article on Maxwell here. He was the player who played in 1908/9 but who left of his own accord and was then implicated in issues relating to transfers that clubs did not necessarily wish to allow.
Maxwell played for Sheffield Wednesday prior to the Arsenal signing. 1906/07 Wednesday won the F.A. Cup and, as they did at the time and still do, the Cup Winning team appeared in numerous photographs and also on cigarette cards.
Now we often say don’t believe everything that’s printed in the sports pages of a newspaper. The same may be said for a John Player cigarette card:-
When is William Bartlett not William Bartlett? When he’s James Maxwell!
John Players cigarette card from the 1930 series above, has a photo of a player they’ve named “Bartlett”, except it’s not he, it is a photo of our man James Maxwell.
It is doubtful if Player’s ever corrected their error. Bartlett probably did, because he is properly identified here in the Sheffield Wednesday team which started the 1906/7 season.
and here:
Wm. Bartlett and Jas. Maxwell both appear in this:
http://prints.colorsport.co.uk/sheffield-wednesday-1907-fa-cup-winners/print/6338013.html
So the next time you’re browsing through the cigarette card collectors stall in Petticoat Lane or whatever there is down your way these days, you’ll have some inside knowledge to maybe make yerself a small (very small) fortune should you come across two different cards of the Wednesday FA Cup Winners team of 1907 – assuming the error was ever corrected and a reprint issued ………….
Now all I need is a line up of the 1908/09 Arsenal team to see if my man is in that. I bet Jim’s son had a wee chuckle to himself when he saw that card appear in his fag packet.
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I recently found out that the 1908-09 Woolwich Arsenal team photograph (referred to above) does not include James Morton Maxwell. So that’s a bit disappointing.