A friend of mine has been researching my family tree. It turns out that my great, great grandfather was one
George Short who amidst a colourful life made 31 appearances for Small Heath between 1887 and 1895.
He had a brother
Charlie Short who made 19 appearances for Small Heath between 1889 and 1892.
A hint of a possible family redemption was found when we discovered that Charlie played for them in two spells. The first spell was one appearance, no goals, in 1889-90 before moving on to play for Unity Gas. The second spell was 18 appearances, 11 goals, in 1890-92. He appeared twice in the 1890-91 F.A. Cup where they beat Wednesbury Old Athletic 2-0 but were then disqualified for fielding an unregistered player. It turned out they'd forgotten to reregister him when he started his second spell. Same old Blues.
Then things got really interesting with the discovery of this in the Northern Telegraph on the 3rd of February 1892:
THE ARMY AS A FOOTBALL RECRUITING GROUND
G.F. Short, a brother of Charlie Short, of Aston Villa F.C., is to be bought out of the army by Small Heath. He will probably figure as centre forward for the Heathens.
However I can't find any other mention of Charlie playing for us. Does anyone have any ideas of things I could do or sources I could check in my quest to save the family name?