The family of Crediton area's first professional footballer Stan Hurst visited the museum where his cup winners medal is on display.
The family of the first Crediton footballer to play professionally visited Crediton Museum recently to view the museum’s ‘Local Worthies’ exhibition. Over 40 local people who have made an impact on the national or international scene are featured, including Stan Hurst, born in Newton St Cyres in 1911, where his father was the station master. Recruited to play professionally with Exeter City at the age of 21, between then and 1936 Stan Hurst scored 35 goals for City and was their leading goal scorer in 1933/34. In that season City won the Division 3 South Cup competition, with Stan scoring the winning goal. On display at the museum is his Cup Winners medal from that special occasion. Exeter had beaten Crystal Palace, Brighton, Watford (for whom Stan later played) and Torquay to win the competition. When his career in football ended, Stan Hurst returned to live in Crediton, where he died playing golf in 1993.
Visiting were Stan Hurst’s son John, a retired school teacher from Wiltshire, and Margaret Ash who lives in Crediton and is John’s first cousin. John said “I was obviously very pleased to see my late father’s sporting achievements celebrated and was very impressed with the standard of the exhibition. It is amazing what has been discovered and the area is fortunate to have a museum to act as a focus for the fascinating history of the area.”
The History Society’s secretary, David Nation, said “A good deal of the information displayed in our exhibitions is provided by people lending us items from their family collections and this included Stan Hurst’s Cup Winners medal which has been kindly loaned to us by John. However, the bulk of it comes from our extensive archive at Downes. It is quite amazing how much can be learned from scrutinising the papers and artefacts we have there. Anyone wishing to research any particular aspect of local history is welcome to contact us to arrange to use our archive in their studies.”