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Aston Unity F.C.

football club

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ112317185
Source-derived summary

Aston Unity Football Club was an association football club from Aston, now in Birmingham. The club was one of the first clubs in Birmingham and entered the FA Cup a number of times in the 1880s.

History

The club was founded by members of the Aston Unity cricket club, as a winter activity to keep them fit. The cricket club was founded in 1868, and the cricketers started to play football matches in the winter of 1874–75, at the instance of Sam Durban, the cricket captain and motive force for cricket - and later football - in Birmingham. In its first season, the club played home matches at Aston Park, had 39 members, and won 4 and drew 1 of the five matches in its first season. At the time the club was called Aston Park Unity. In January 1875 one match became Aston Villa’s first recorded game.

For 1875–76 the club had a second team. Before the 1876–77 season the club left Aston Park and changed its name to Aston Unity.

The club was a founder member of the Birmingham & District Football Association and played in the first Birmingham Senior Cup in 1876–77, losing to Saltley College in the first round after a replay.

Editorial summary

“Aston Unity F.C.” enters the record as football club. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Aston, Unity and football can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1868, 1874, 1875, 1876—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Aston, Unity and football.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Aston Unity F.C.” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Aston, Unity and football provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q112317185. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1868, 1874, 1875 and 1876.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Aston Unity F.C.”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Aston Unity F.C. primary sources, Aston Unity F.C. archive and Aston research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Aston Unity F.C.”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Aston Unity F.C.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.