"God answers my prayers everywhere except on the golf-course."
Sport and identity in the north of England
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edited by Jeff Hill and Jack Williams, Keele University Press, 1996
The book consists of eight chapters by different authors including:Football, sport of the north? - Tony Mason
Cup finals and community in the north of England – Jeff Hill
Heroes of the north - Richard Holt.
Ironically there is a chapter “Sport and racism in Yorkshire: a case study”, a topic which was to come close to bringing down the Yorkshire County Cricket Club in the 2020s.
This is not a review of the book but of the chapter “Churches, sport and entities in the north 1900-1939” by Jack Williams.
Williams begins by stressing the importance of the topic given that a high proportion, if not a majority, of those playing team sports in the first 40 years of the 20th century did so in church clubs. While the impact of Muscular Christianity on sport in England prior to the First World War has been documented by Mangan, Mason and others, little attention has been devoted to the connections between churches and recreational sport in the 1920s and 30s.
Data for 9 towns in the north of England showed several with 70-100 church based cricket teams and a similar number of football teams in the 1920s and 30s. That in 1935 in Bradford there was a women's cricket league of 16 clubs but only one was a church club, suggests that the gender balance was very uneven. Indoor sports such as billiards and table tennis were also popular with 21 of the 35 teams in Bolton table tennis leagues affiliated to churches.
The author notes that while church cricket teams were common, they tended to be at the lower level of organised cricket with no team making it into the prestigious Lancashire or Central Lancashire cricket leagues. The article also suggested that the standard of the facilities was often very poor.
In the 1920s and 30s churchgoing was common so most players had a real association with the church they represented. Some league rules requiring regular church attendance. The data suggests that when church clubs managed to join one of the prestigious leagues they often severed formal links with the church and became open clubs in order to find it easier to recruit better players. On the other hand the article notes evidence – for example from the Bolton Sunday Schools League – that the church attendance requirement was being ignored. But overall the article suggests not only that this was not the case but rather that the football team was often good at bringing men into the church family. Walkden Congregational football team was said to have several players who “joined the Sunday School in order to play for the football team”. Some churches allowed players to play if they were church-goers even if it was at a different church.
The article states that league competitions encouraged the formation of church clubs and that some leagues depended on church clubs to be viable. The article notes that Mason had written that the majority of football clubs in the north and Midlands from the 1860s onwards were either church, workplace or pub teams, and the Williams adds that from 1900 onward there were a lot more church teams than pub or workplace.
The article note that " the strength of Sabbatarianism in the north which reflected the role of organised religion and popular culture restricted opportunities for some to participate in sport. Although recreational sport was played on Sundays in southern England between the wars, league football and league cricket was hardly ever played on Sundays in the north”.
The author noted that there is no data which makes it possible to determine how often clergy were the prime movers in the establishment of clubs.
The article states “written evidence shows that church teams were as likely to resort to sharp practice as other teams” - such as playing unregistered players under false names, a team threatening to abandon the game as a protest against a decision by the umpire, players being suspended for fighting, kicking opponents or insulting the referee.
The author notes that in one local newspaper reports of women's hockey or rounders generally referred to the players as " Miss”, suggesting that women were discouraged from playing after marriage. That most churches were male-led may have reinforced this culture.
The data shows that the denomination with most teams was CoE and intriguingly that Roman Catholic churches were more likely to have football than cricket teams. The article also suggests that there was some opposition to Catholic teams playing in interdenominational leagues which may have discouraged the formation of Catholic teams.
In the final paragraph, the author states that “church-based sport was only one cultural institution which influenced senses of identity among working people… Church-based sport not only demonstrates the varied and fragmented senses of identity among working people but also helps to explain why the social consciousness of many working people did not express a mass solidarity which implied hostility to other classes or precluded cooperation with them”.
The chapter is supported by 54 footnotes which indicate great deal of useful source material