|
I n t r o d u c t i o n
In
1981 my Grandad gave me a book about Aston Villa with the intention
of keeping my interest and hopefully following in his shoes to
become a follower of his beloved team. My Grandad pointed
out that the book contained a squad picture taken from the 1893
/ 94 season, and that the person sitting in the front row was
actually his Great Uncle (being my Great, Great, Great Uncle).
To this day I can still clearly remember the picture and the name
of the player, Albert Woolley (any kid would, being related to
a football player and all), and the fact that he died in his early
20s. However as interesting as this was at the age of 10 none
of this was really sinking in
Sadly that year my Grandad passed away and copies of his books and other Villa
related items were given to the family. On occasions they were taken
out and looked at, however over time they just became part of the furniture as
these things do. They continued to live in a cupboard gathering dust...
Around 4 or 5 years ago I stumbled across the book my Grandad had given me. Browsing
through the book and looking at the squad picture again I started to think about
the first time we had spoken about Albert and his life.
|
|
I was obviously no longer that 10 year old and my work had taken me into
the IT industry. I never really thought about using IT to trace
my family history before and as the Internet was part of my job I thought
it would be the ideal opportunity to try and search the net for more information
on Albert Woolley. Much to my despair I was unsuccessful in my search,
so the book was placed yet again back in the box....
2006 arrived and my sister had set out on a journey to
detail our family tree using the Census data and various other
genealogy and ancestry routes. After only a week or so she
had already made contact with her equivalent on the Woolley side
of the family, where she found out that our new relative had actually
got Albert's death certificate and 3 letters written about him
from Aston Villa and the Football Association.
This finding sparked my interest again and I decided to try again to find out
more about this Great, Great, Great Uncle of mine. The net being a better place
than 5 years ago and a brief scan of the web rewarded me with lots of details
about early Villa teams and players. After a couple of days I had managed
to gather a collection of information about Albert and his life |
|
| |
It quickly became apparent that I needed to
get this information written down somewhere. So I decided
to create a website dedicated to Albert Woolley himself. I've
travelled to 3 cities for my study, Birmingham, Derby and Manchester.
This website will detail everything I have found out and maybe
I'll find out even more
Time will tell...
|
|
|