The Boys from the Bush: The Original Lost Club of Loftus Road

Here’s a pub quiz question for you. Which was the first English football club to play at Athletic Club de Bilbao’s original San Mamés stadium? When the original San Mamés was opened in August 1913, it was Spain’s first purpose-built football stadium. Los Leones had only in recent years taken to the red-and-white stripes and black shorts for which the club is now famous and adopted its unofficial Cantera policy of only fielding players with Basque heritage. 

 

The answer is Shepherd’s Bush FC from West London or, as it was also referred to back then, Middlesex. The Torneo San Mamés was a round-robin tournament to make the stadium’s opening and was attended by the Spanish King Alfonso XIII and his wife. Football aficionado Alfonso is the man behind the Real (Royal) prefix of so many Spanish clubs. ‘The Bushmen’ were joined in Bilbao by hosts Athletic Club and fellow Basque side Racing Club Irún from up near the French border. Athletic Club’s XI featured the prolific striker Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, better known by his nickname Pichichi, after whom La Liga’s top scorer award is named. 

 

It was not uncommon for amateur British sides to visit the continent at this time, as the game was still young in many countries, and the level between visiting sides and their hosts was more equal. South London clubs Bromley FC and Nunhead FC had also visited the Basque Country in 1913, and the Bushmen themselves had toured Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany in the previous five years1. 

 

Shepherd’s Bush beat Irún 3-1 in the first match and defeated Athletic Club 1-0 in the second game, witnessed by the Spanish royals. The event barely got a mention in the British press, although the Wimbledon News noted that the Spanish press praised the Bushmen’s midfield play2. However, the Bilbao visit was the Bushmen’s last overseas tour. Impacted by the onset of the Great War, Shepherd’s Bush FC folded in 1915.  

 

So who were Shepherd’s Bush FC? The club started out as Old St. Stephen’s Football Club, founded in 1880 by former pupils of St. Stephen’s School in Westminster. In 1892, the club was one of the selected founding members of the Southern Alliance amateur league, alongside now household names, like Tottenham Hotspur and Luton Town, plus Erith, Polytechnic, Windsor Phoenix, Westminster Criterion, Chesham, West Herts and Upton Park3. Despite the name, East Londoners Upton Park are not related to West Ham but were involved in the creation of goalkeeper handling laws in 1871 and also represented Great Britain at the first Olympic football tournament in Paris in 1900, winning gold. 

 

Old St. Stephen’s FC moved around and, in 1898, settled in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, changing its name to match its new neighbourhood. Its ground was the Loftus Road stadium. During its time there, London hosted the Olympic Games just down the road at White City in 1908. The White City stadium was also used for greyhound racing and one 1966 World Cup match between France and Uruguay, switched from Wembley due to a greyhound meeting schedule clash! The stadium was demolished in the 1980s to make way for new BBC TV studios. Its passing was lamented in The Pogues’ song White City, and there is a plaque on the wall where the 1908 athletic track finishing line was, immortalised by the photo of exhausted Italian marathon runner Dorando Pietri being helped across the line by officials. Pietri was later disqualified.  

 

Here's another pub quiz question for you. Which English football club has moved grounds more than any other? Apparently, the answer is Queens Park Rangers. 

 

The Bushmen’s local rivals had been nomadic in the North-West London suburbs since Christchurch Rangers (founded 1882) and St. Jude’s Institute merged to form Queens Park Rangers in 1886. QPR moved into Loftus Road in 1917 but also had spells at White City in the coming decades before moving permanently back to Loftus Road in the 1960s. Now, when one thinks of football in Shepherd’s Bush, one thinks of Queens Park Rangers. 

 

In the 1930s, there appears to have been an attempt to reboot Shepherd’s Bush FC. In 1932, a new Shepherd’s Bush FC was set up, with the West London Observer reporting that the organisers were “anxious to hear from members of the old Shepherd’s Bush Football Club that disbanded years ago”. The club moved to Acton in 1933 and rebranded again to Acton FC, playing in the Spartan League.  

 

There is a current club called Shepherd’s Bush FC, founded in 2021, that plays in the Middlesex Premier Division (Step 7). 

 

 

Chris Lee is the founder and editor of the football culture blog and podcast, Outside Write, and author of two books on football history, Origin Stories: The Pioneers Who Took Football to the World and The Defiant: A History of Football Against Fascism.