“All I know most surely about morality and obligation I owe to football”,
A "favourit" game
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A "favourit" game: cricket in South Wales before 1914, University of Wales, 1992 Andrew Hignell ISBN 708311903
This account of cricket in South Wales contains a number of references to church and Christianity. The author notes that in the 17th century sport was often played in Churchyards. However, following the Methodist Revival and the spread of nonconformity, there was achange in public attitude towards these games in churchyards and playing on Sundays. He continues: "The growth of Nonconformity strengthened the belief that the playing of any games, even on weekdays, was vain and inconsistent with the seriousness of life." (Page 9)
The Non-conformist objections to sport were typical of the period (Pages 9 and 47)
1 Associated with drinking
2 Sunday
3 Inconsistent with the seriousness of life
There is reference to a pamphlet by Rev PM Proctor describing how a miner called Thomas Morgan, who was normally the first on the ground and the last to return home, decided one Sunday to refrain from "heathen tendencies and drinking habits by going to church instead". He was "immediately converted and never went near a cricket ground again. He died deeply penitent and Heaven gained a very good batsman". Page 48
The book also documents the important role of clergy in the promotion of cricket such as two headmasters of Cowbridge Grammar School, Rev Hugo Harper and Rev W Holt Beever. The book adds: "Many [old boys of the school] followed in the footsteps of Harper and Beever and entered the clergy after studying at Jesus College and helped spread cricket after taking posts in South Wales". One example was Thomas Llewellyn Lister who had been in the Cowbridge XI in the 1850s and who as vicar of St Mark's Newport encouraged his congregation to play cricket and ran his own team which played against local teams. In 1861 Cowbridge School Past and present match saw 9 clergymen playing for the Old Boys. (Page 81 and 86)
St David's College is referred to as an "outpost of Muscular Christianity following the introduction of a rule in 1850 that students must spend their spare time in "healthful exercise rather than in clownish lounging about the shops or market place". Page 84
The book makes several references to Muscular Christianity, noting that the church's opposition to cricket in the early 19th century changed in about 1850 and that the spread of Muscular Christianity was an important part of the process Page 85-86, 96-97 and 124)
By the 1850s and 1860s, "with Nonconformist opposition declining, the ethic of Muscular Christianity took hold and cricket was positively encouraged". Page 87
In 1866 someone wrote to the Swansea and Glamorgan Herald expressing concern at the money which was being spent on drinking at cricket matches to the detriment of families. The response was "a wave of protests, especially from the Muscular Christians". (Page 95)
It is interesting how many references to Muscular Christianity there are in the book.
Hignell suggests 4 reasons for the growth of cricket in late 19th Century the economic growth of the area, the emergence of workingmen's teams, the teachings of Muscular Christianity and the disappearance of Nonconformist barriers. (Page 137) Yet there was also some opposition to church sport: "In August 1874 the vicar of Tabor Welsh Independent Chapel at Maesycymmer preached a sermon entitled 'The deadly sin of cricket' telling the congregation 'that it was a positive sin to go into a cricket field, that young men had no time to read their Bibles, all their time being taken up with cricketing'". (Page 125 [Source Western Mail 29 August 1874])
NB This is not a review of the book but a review of the material it contains on sport and Christianity