The wheel really has come off!

I have always had a mental image of this happening at the Iron Bridge. Luscombe mentions coming "to a standstill in collision with the bridge" in North Street. The Iron Bridge is in North Street, isn't it? Joining up the dots, I had the wagon careering down St Davids Hill before coming to grief on the Iron Bridge.

You can't just join up the dots to "make" history and it was certainly a schoolboy error to lay too much store on Luscombe's account in the first place. Accepting what you read and then putting two and two together is the kind of lazy history I would usually complain about.

We can rule out Babbacombe-based football hooliganism as Babbacombe FC wasn't even a twinkle in Mr Dear's eye in 1901. I wonder if it could have been a politically-motivated sabotage?

This happened in the year after Torquay had ruthlessly annexed Babbacombe and St Marychurch.

Rumour has it that the brains behind the Babbacombe and St Marychurch Liberation Front fled to Exeter to lead the resistance in exile - changing his first name from Babbacombe to Barton to avoid detection.

A wagon full of footballers representing the oppressive imperialist occupying force passing the end of his road might have been too big a temptation to resist.

Contemporary reports mention the culprit singing "We want our steamroller back" as he watched the chaos he had caused.

Fascinating stuff.

I used to live in the large building pictured at the city end of the Iron Bridge (a cheaply converted former butchers warehouse – it was bleddy freezing in winter!). Our address was No. 6 Iron Bridge rather than North Street. Have always kept around that area of Exeter and now live in Exe Street.

For what it's worth, my guess would also be the accident taking place on the steep section at Holloway Street.

So North Street is just that little stretch by where Caterpillar Records used to be? Looks like another one for my list of Luscombe errata.

As you live in the area, are you up for taking part in our reconstruction of this one Jon?

Barton will be playing the part of the Babbacombe radical. I will be putting any amount of dash into my portrayal of Keeling and Stuartb has got a pantomime horse outfit for him and Chelston.

He tends to get his deserved wider audience during the summer months when the Red Coat guide tours visit the catacombs. Can't think of a part for him to play in our reconstruction - maybe we could invoke the memory of Artful Thomas instead?

www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/_people/thomas.php

An Italian? We now need Jon to supply evidence of a suitable connection with the Torquay United of the early 1900s....

Narracotti?

(my apologies for deleting part of the Farmer's Friend's earlier post. That what comes of clicking the wrong button at the wrong time when you're an administrator. It made reference to Artful Thomas having twenty-one children).

As England didn't start playing amateur internationals - according to my 1974/75 Rothmans - until 1906 I'd be surprised if France fielded a distinctly amateur XI before they slipped to a 15-0 defeat against the English in Paris on 1 November 1906. Did our lad play in this game or his country's 12-0 defeat in 1908 or the 11-0 slip-up in 1909? Perhaps he scored in France's 1-10 reverse at Brighton in 1910...