Pleb's Medal

When Jimmy Costley of Blackburn Olympians scored a last minute goal at the Oval, Kennington in the F.A. Cup Final of 1883, his team beat their opponents, the Old Etonians. The medal which was awarded to Costley after this significant victory (See Patricians vs Plebians in History Today , May 1983) has recently been acquired by Blackburn Museum and is exhibited alongside the Museum's other Cup Winners' medals, those of 1884, 1885 and 1886, which were awarded to Herbert Arthur, the captain of Blackburn Rovers. The Cup Final gave Jimmy Costley, a cotton spinning operative at Hornsby's Brookhouse Mill in Blackburn, his first chance to visit London - and the greatest moment of his life, when arriving home with the team at Blackburn Station, he was carried shoulder-high by the crowd. Indeed Costley himself paid to have his name engraved on the medal.