
2 Newport boys – James Riley and William Shepherd – were charged under the Police Clauses Act with playing football in South Street, Newport on Sunday 13th December 1891.
James and William were given the alternative of paying a fine of 1 shilling (5p) or spending the day in prison.
A few days later, a similar case occurred. William White and Albert Downer – who were described as ‘Troublesome Junior Footballers’ – were charged with playing football on Hunny Hill ‘to the annoyance and obstruction of the public’.
In their defence, the 2 lads claimed they had just been throwing the ball to a younger child. However, Police Constable Jeremiah Murphy had cautioned White and his mother about the boy playing football on a previous occasion.
White was fined 1 shilling without costs and Downer was cautioned and then dismissed.



























































































From one extreme to another.
They would never have believed how disrespectful and nasty many of the young generation were to become and how powerless the Police and courts, due to filling our country with so many unchecked hardened criminals from the rest of the globe, we have no room for our own now.
Wow, even back then, the under class were up to no good.
Great parenting mother !
There were lots of fields in the oldern days, so why play on a busy main road,
just asking for trouble. (imo).
A busy main road, on a Sunday in 1891?
Yes I reckon at least 1 car might have used that road then
From looking at the current court round up pages it is clear the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree here…
At least all names and ‘criminals’ were then local. And we had room to imprison them to. Keep all but the very bad on the straight and narrow
Unlike now where felons names are unpronounceable much of the time and their crimes are disgustingly awful
Our MP’s have failed us badly
Shall we take a peek at the names of those appearing in court recently?
Russell.
Millington.
Taylor.
Burnett.
Barnes.
Turnbull.
Blazeby.
Chilcott.
Insley.
Eldridge.
Smith.
Mabey.
Weaving.
Fleet.
Osborne.
Edwards.
Coole.
Francis.
Lockwood.
Gallagher.
Hibberd.
Evans.
Turner.
Gower.
Owen.
Ford.
Mortram.
Hounsham.
Damania.
Barker.
Bishop.
I don’t know about you old chap, but I don’t have any problem pronouncing any of those. Maybe your reading age is commensurate with the rest of your, obviously lacking, level of intelligence?
As you of superior intelligence likely already knew, I am referring to the mainland felons as for now the Island has escaped the worst levels of newcomers arriving into the UK.
Unfortunately though we have instead had those who are leaving their homes in this country to come here in search of a society and population where they, once again can feel at home.
An indirect negative consequence of allowing unchecked never ending masses to fill once traditional British towns and Cities to over saturation .
Well i’m in court soon and my sir name is Tooting, and i am a chink,
So that’s blown your theory out of the f’n water !
Those were the days when policemen were policemen.
I knew justice system is slow but damn, that took them some time to do the sentencing.