Batley go down to Lancashire rivals Salford in the very first season of the Northern Rugby League. | dG1fZHFYaEZEVFRxcTA
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 A rare interior shot, it's of the Salford team's changing rooms in a local pub, situated
00:14 across the road from the new Barnes ground.
00:22 The showman paused the camera for a poster advertising the fact that highlights of today's
00:26 filming of Salford vs. Batley, taken on 2nd November 1901, would be shown at the Regents
00:32 Theatre in Salford.
00:36 The staged nature of the filming continues, with the camera crew setting the scene for
00:40 the players to be filmed leaving for the game.
00:44 The Salford team are guided out of the changing rooms and walk in front of the camera, some
00:48 bashful, some extrovert and some plainly uninterested, with others needing a guiding arm from a team
00:54 mate to walk the walk.
01:07 The Batley team in the white tops then follow, apparently oblivious to the presence of the
01:11 camera.
01:24 Finally the club and match officials bring up the rear.
01:46 The sequence then cuts to the team bus.
01:49 A lavishly impressive horse-drawn shower bank takes the players to the new Barnes ground.
02:01 Batley are led onto the pitch and the sequence cuts to action from the game.
02:15 This is the last but one match Salford ever played at their new Barnes ground.
02:19 By the end of the year they had moved to their current ground, the Willows.
02:24 This match features Jim Lomas scoring a try.
02:26 It was a hard-fought battle as Batley were one of the leading sides of the day, having
02:31 been the first winners of the Challenge Cup, rugby's equivalent of the FA Cup, and won
02:35 it twice more by 1901.
02:38 The match ended in a victory for Batley by 14 points to 6 in front of a large crowd of
02:43 young men and boys.
03:12 Extensive crowd shots feature exuberant fellows and young boys waving for the camera.
03:18 The star of the show is a cheeky little chap who hogs the camera for a full half minute.
03:26 These crowd scenes were greeted with cheers and applause when the film was shown at the
03:30 Regents Theatre.
03:54 [music]
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