This film is part of Free
Mining Review 6th Year No. 5
An intriguing blast from soccer's past: Wrexham meet Beighton Miners Welfare in FA Cup First Round.
Overview
Action highlights of a 1952-53 FA cup first round match form the centrepiece of this fine edition of the cinemagazine Mining Review. It's an intriguing blast from soccer's past: the days when a miners welfare team (from Beighton, S. Yorks) could face a third division club (step forward, Wrexham FC). An zealously even-handed commentary stresses that despite Wrexham's 3-0 victory, Beighton put up a highly respectable defence. Not only that - Wrexham's goal-scorers are fellow coalminers!
In a characteristic Mining Review mix, the football story is bookended by a 'technical' opening item, and a 'social' closing piece, part of the series' ongoing sequence of pit 'Profiles'. The opener, from Lanarkshire, re-packages footage from an internal technical training film, 'Surface Mechanisation (Kingshill Colliery)', as the peppy and pleasurable 'Rope Trick'. The Profile, meanwhile, is of the NCB's East Midlands Area medical officer, based at Thorseby (later, incidentally, among the very last UK pits to close, in 2015). It's framed as a family story: the doctor and his brothers, all university graduates, are sons of a miner who's worked 43 years underground (i.e. since 1910!). It's a touching illustration of the social mobility, resulting from social reform, that marked the last century.
Related
Miner Miner
Documentary 1950 36 mins Silent Location: Featherstone
Absorbing overview of coalmining in the early years of nationalisation.
Thud and Blunder in Knock off Time Thud and Blunder in Knock off Time
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1964 2 mins
Miners' safety training - marked by stylish animation and gallows humour.
Energy Energy
Advert 1935 42 mins Silent Location: Cardiff/Caerdydd
Coal, between the world wars, makes the industrialised world go round and Cory Bros & Co Ltd, with collieries in south Wales and oil refineries across the globe, is a major player.
Big Pit Big Pit
Industry sponsored film 1978 7 mins Location: Blaenavon
Memories of Blaenavon Colliery, Monmouthshire, as it nears its end.
Guilty Chimneys Guilty Chimneys
Documentary 1954 18 mins
Elegiac sponsored film imploring viewers to "allow the sun to penetrate the haze of ignorance" and relieve British cities of pollution.
People Will Always Need Coal People Will Always Need Coal
Advert 1975 1 mins
Deliriously kitsch recruitment ad for the implausibly glamorous world of coalmining.
Getting it Back: The Story of Cymande - Q&A Getting it Back: The Story of Cymande - Q&A
Inside Film 2024 22 mins
The director of a documentary about British funk pioneers Cymande joins the band at BFI Southbank to talk about the film.
The West Case The West Case
Action and Adventure 1923 28 mins Silent Location: Tilbury
Plotting world domination, Devil Doctor Fu-Manchu steals plans for a new aero-torpedo in this earliest surviving thrill-a-minute serial instalment.
Enter the Scala!!! Enter the Scala!!!
Inside Film 2024 16 mins
Filmmakers Jane Giles and Ali Catterall discuss their documentary Scala!!!, revisiting the legendary and inspirational cinema venue and some of the most notorious films that screened there.
Smith Smith
Charity appeal 1939 10 mins
Long thought lost, this Powell-directed promotional short for a veteran’s charity was only rediscovered in 2003.
An Airman's Letter to His Mother An Airman's Letter to His Mother
Documentary 1941 6 mins
A poignant, stirring letter from a recently deceased pilot to his mother is read by John Gielgud.
The NHS75 Celebration The NHS75 Celebration
Short documentary 2023 3 mins
Former Bristol Poet Laureate, Miles Chambers reads a poem specially commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the NHS.