Skip to main content
BFI logo

Home

Film

Television

People

History

Education

Tours

Help

  search

Search

Screenonline banner
Mitchell and Kenyon: Newcastle United v. Liverpool (1901)
 

BFI

Main image of Mitchell and Kenyon: Newcastle United v. Liverpool (1901)
 
Mitchell and Kenyon 109, 110, 111 & 121: Newcastle United v. Liverpool
35mm, black and white, silent, 372 feet total
 
Production CompanyMitchell and Kenyon
Commissioned byArthur Duncan Thomas

Crowds watch a Newcastle v. Liverpool match at the St James' Park stadium.

Show full synopsis

These four rolls of film were commissioned by A.D. Thomas and shot on 23 November 1901 at Newcastle United's St James' Park football ground, on the occasion of Newcastle's match against Liverpool that day.

Several different camera operators were apparently involved. While some of the football films in the Mitchell and Kenyon collection use one roll of film to take several different shots, each relating to different aspects of the match, in this case the four rolls each relate to different aspects of the match. One captured the teams emerging onto the pitch, two more different stages of the game in progress, while one concentrates solely on the crowd.

All of the films in the collection reveal an interesting dynamic between 'actuality' captured by the camera and events staged by the filmmakers. The football films illustrate this. While scenes of the match itself reduce the camera largely to the role of reactive observer, shots like these give the filmmaker more control, here used in a way very reminiscent of Mitchell and Kenyon's 'factory gate' films to fill the screen with faces (here, virtually all of them male, reflecting football's overwhelmingly male following at the time).

Patrick Russell

Click titles to see or read more

Video Clips
Mitchell and Kenyon 109 (0:54)
Mitchell and Kenyon 110 (2:15)
Mitchell and Kenyon 111 (1:50)
Mitchell and Kenyon 121 (1:58)
GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO
SEE ALSO
Cup Final 1911 Newcastle United v Bradford City (1911)
Mitchell and Kenyon: Everton v Newcastle United (1903)
Mitchell and Kenyon
Liverpool: Days in the Life