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11 April 1955

AAC v Bank of England, 1955.

A newsreel cameraman filmed AAC beating a touring Bank of England side 5–3 on 11 April 1955. It is the fullest post-war match film currently in the archive.

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The match

On 11 April 1955 AAC beat a touring Bank of England side 5–3 in Amsterdam. A Polygoon-Profilti cameraman recorded the match in a newsreel item of one minute and thirty-six seconds.

A short Polygoon newsreel of AAC against ARVC from 1933 is now the earliest verified film of the club. This 1955 recording remains the fullest post-war match footage in the archive.

What the film shows

Four frames from the film, in timecode order. The whole recording runs one minute and thirty-six seconds.

Black-and-white close view of an AAC rugby player in a broad-banded long-sleeved shirt holding a worn leather rugby ball in Amsterdam in April 1955. 00:03.000
The broad-banded shirt and the leather match ball, just before kick-off.
Black-and-white wide view of AAC in broad-banded shirts and Bank of England in pale shirts contesting a scrum in Amsterdam in April 1955, with spectators behind the far touchline. 00:18.960
The packs meet at a scrum, with spectators standing behind the far touchline.
Black-and-white newsreel frame of an AAC rugby player in a broad-banded shirt carrying the ball towards three Bank of England defenders in Amsterdam in April 1955. 00:29.320
An AAC ball carrier runs at three Bank of England defenders.
Black-and-white newsreel frame of five AAC rugby players in broad-banded shirts taking refreshments beside the pitch in Amsterdam in April 1955. 00:53.760
Five players take refreshments beside the pitch.

All four frames: Polygoon-Profilti (producer) / Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision (custodian), via Open Images / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 3.0 NL.

How the film survives

The film is held by the Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision and published through Open Images under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Netherlands licence. That is what allows AAC to show these frames, with the required attribution.

The four frames were converted from the source’s anamorphic 352×288 pixels to square-pixel 384×288 for the intended 4:3 display. Nothing was cropped and no tonal changes were made.

Sources. Newsreel item week number 55-16, Polygoon-Profilti (producer) / Netherlands Institute for Sound & Vision (custodian), via Open Images and Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 NL. The full attribution and derivative disclosure are recorded in docs/photo-credits.md.

The history of AAC → Back to the archive →