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The Ley's cricket team for 1912. Bloomer is back row extreme right, Barnes middle row second left, and Bagshaw front row extreme left

Leys Malleable Castings, the huge iron works founded in 1873, was once at the heart of Derby's industrial life. Most men living in the Litchurch area in the late-Victorian age were employed at the foundry, and countless others followed throughout the twentieth century until the firm finally ceased trading in 1987.

The works also had an indelible link with the town's sporting life. After the firm's founder Sir Franicis Ley introduced baseball into Britain, he permitted Derby County Football Club to play on the works' ground, which had by then acquired the American sport's name - hence the Rams' famous home the Baseball Ground, one of the most unusual ground names in world football history.

The works also ran a very strong cricket team and were not averse to raiding the ranks of Derby County to find the best players.

Thus it was that local sides facing Leys shortly before the First World War would find three Derby County players ranged against them.

They were the England international footballers Steve Bloomer and Jimmy Bagshaw, and their Rams colleague Horace Barnes, whose £2,500 move to Manchester City in 1914 equalled the then British transfer record.

The Ley's cricket team picture shown here, thought to be of the 1912 side, includes all three footballers.

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County:  Derbyshire

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