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I spend a lot of time simply going through old newspaper reports and double-checking statistics from the days that didn't exist to many modern rugby supporters. Reading over the same old reports and countless images of Percy Williams or George Hesketh can be a bit tedious at times. But every so often I receive an email from someone who wants to know more about an old player or item.
My ears pricked up like never before on the evening of May 6th, 2024. The words 'medal' and '1883' popped up on my email push notification on my phone instantly it felt like Christmas Day. The short email read:
"I have a medal from the 1883 football of Wigan football club. It appears to be in the name of I Maledy.
Just trying to get more information if you can point me in the right direction."
My first thought was 'is there an attachment?' but sadly there was not. I responded asking for a photograph and even thought that 'I Maledy' was some sort of parody name "aye-m'lady".
"My Nanna’s maiden name was Malady so it’s quite close. I have just found the medal in my mums items she has recently passed away. I have searched the internet with no success."
Of course I felt instantly an idiot with regards the name but all the ingredients were here to have a good search for this lady who had contacted me. I am by no means an expert or collector of such things and will never claim to be. Firstly, the name 'Malady' or 'Maledy' did not rings any sort of bells. An 1883 medal? This was the curious part. I knew that the first Wigan Football competition (not as in the Wigan club of 1879 but as an area) was the Wigan Union Charity Cup. Starting life as a letter to the editor of the Wigan Observer in April 1882 from a football enthusiast from Blackrod (then a rugby stronghold), the Wigan Charity Cup got going at the end of the 1882-83 season and included many local rugby clubs such as Wigan, Aspull, Highfield, Haigh, Blackrod, Pemberton Wanderers, New Springs and Pagefield.
Then came the realisation that a medal from '1883' would be the earliest rugby medal in existance, certainly in Wigan, but quite possibly in Lancashire and the rugby game as a whole. Of course, the Yorkshire Cup was older at this time, but my mind went back to the name 'I Maledy'. I firstly checked over the Wigan team from the 1883 final, played against Pagefield. There was no 'Maledy' or any name that could easily be incorrectly added on to the medal. I then searched through the Pagefield team and again I did not come up trumps. There was no 'Maledy', 'Malady' or any surname that could be easily mis-spelled. I ended that night wondering what this medal could be, a junior competition? There was none. Mis-spelling? I need to read further afield. Check for any Maledy or Malady living in Wigan at that time, what their occupation was? birth records? likely age of the player... I
On May 7th at dinner time, the email I was waiting for came through.
Was this a winners medal or a runners up medal? Certainly, 1883 is clear and it was certainly from the first ever Cup that the Wigan club had won. I knew that the medals were awarded to the winners and runners up later in the year and were made by Vaughton & Sons of Birmingham. These cost 15s. each and were made of silver.
You can only just see through the worn imprint but it all checked out. Vaughton & Sons, Silver hallmark, Birmingham hallmark.
So who's medal was this? It was not a Wigan player, or director. It must only have been a Pagefield player who played as a forward. Now, I headed back into the world of 1883 and rugby match reports that you saw in newspaper articles. The reporting of player names, scores, crowds etc. was not always accurate. Club secretaries would write down their players and do their best to write down the opposition. This would then be sent to the newspaper offices to be deciphered by an editor. It is highly plausible that 'I Maledy' could have been mistaken for a 'J' Maledy for example. Also, with being close to 150 years old, the 'J' would have worn down over time to look like an 'I'.
I got searching old Pagefield match reports and came across 'T. Malady' in a match between Pagefield 'a' and Chorley Athletic from March 9th, 1883. A 'T' isn't a million miles away from being a 'J' when written down in cursive handwriting. An email then came from the owner of the medal, a family tree...
John Maledy, Born 1863. Pagefield was known to be a junior club in those early days and often supplied players to the Wigan team (a stones throw away across Mesnes Park). At the time of the Final, John would have been 19 or 20 years old which is perfect - everything is fitting into place!
It is almost a certainty that John Malady played in the first Wigan Union Charity Cup Final on 14th April 1883 in front of 1,500 spectators.
The brief match report was supplied by the Wigan secretary and as such he would have had a list of names the night before the final to add into his version of events. John may have been a late edition to the Pagefield team and his absence from the match report was simply a case of how reporting was back then.
It is an absolute nightmare sometimes to decipher scantly clad rugby match reports from the early 1880s. For sure though, was that John Maledy did play in the match as a forward and on June 6th, 1883, made his way to the Legs of Man Hotel on Market Place, to receive the medal you see above. During the evening, around 50 people were in attendance, which included representatives of the several clubs involved in the competition, umpires, referees and special guests.
Fast forward 140 plus years and that same medal that John received as a runner up re-surfaced within the belongings of the mother of Lisa Brady, a living relation to John. John, or 'Jack', later became Market Inspector for the Wigan Corporation. His daughter, became Mayoress of Wigan in the 1930s and the article (right) nails down those details that John Maledy (or 'Malcady' as is written) played rugby in 1883. She would have had this medal to supply that information to the paper you'd have thought.
SIGNIFICANCE
SIGNIFICANCE
I have only seen one other example of a Wigan Charity Cup Medal, from 1889 (left).
The Wigan Charity Cup was one of the first cup competitions in the sport of rugby, especially in Lancashire. Not only did the competition grow in the years following to a peak of 18,000 spectators at the Wigan v Aspull final of 1886, the Cup was the first to be won by today's Wigan Warriors, only 4 years after they were founded in 1879 (not 1872).
Miss Brady's medal can certainly be one of the oldest rugby medals in existence in the sport. Of course there is a value to such things but it is priceless and should remain in the family indefinitely for future generations. It is a unique piece of local sporting heritage. I could only assume the only other surviving medals are with the descendants of Jim Slevin, the great Wigan captain of the pre-1895 Northern Union era. Jim was a young pup himself, a founder of the Wigan club and winner of the Wigan Charity Cup in 1883 - and mostly probably went into battle against John Maledy. I am assured that medals exist 'somewhere' in the Slevin estate but I am too nice to push to see them.
Sadly, despite trying and looking, not much is known of John's rugby career. If Crossbar of the Wigan Observer started his 'Football Notes' columns a few years earlier we may have got a better picture of where John came from, who he played against and where he ended up. One thing for sure is that he has left a priceless gift to his family - kept in a drawer for decades - something which Lisa's family should be proud to have for future generations.
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