"God answers my prayers everywhere except on the golf-course."
George Williams and the YMCA
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George Williams and the YMCA. A study in Victorian social attitudes, Clive Binfield, London: Heinemann, 1973
The irony about reviewing a book on George Williams to find out about the YMCA's contribution to sport and Christianity, is that the YMCA developed sport in spite of, rather than because of Williams!
The YMCA was formed in London in 1844. George Williams, an employee at a London drapery house, Hitchcock and Rodgers, had started an employees' prayer meeting about three years previously and the YMCA grew out of this. The aim was to reach young men from the lower classes with the Christian message and at the same time to "improve them" through education and instruction in character and values.
In the words of the minutes of one of the early meetings their purpose was a to encourage Christian men "to a sense of their obligation and responsibility as Christians in diffusing religious knowledge to those around them either through the medium of prayer meetings or any other meetings they think proper".
The book records an ironic tribute to Williams: "on the Saturday after George Williams's death was announced the Preston Guardian observed that the local YMCA football team wore black armbands. It was a tribute less to Sir George than to Muscular Christianity" Page 297
Rather than seeing sport as a part of their ministry, many early leaders of the YM fought against it. William Shipton said in1862 "I do not think it is part of the association's work to provide any man was amusements" (Page 298 [Report of the conference of British and foreign Young men's Christian associations London September 1862]). In 1881 William Guest spoke of the danger of "in an evil hour the passion for amusement should enter their association" (Page 298). William Creese wrote in 1909 that the YMCA had been "born of the spirit and now it appears to be yielding to the flesh" (Page 298 [letter to W Hind Smith 1 January 1909])
Yet the other side of the argument was also represented. In 1864 Mr Yellowlees from Stirling Y argued that the gymnasium was a useful part of the YMCA [report of the conference of Young men's Christian associations Edinburgh July 1864 pp82, 86
In 1889 at the Dublin conference WH Newett argued that "in recreation the active member will show that Christ's claims the whole man - the body as well as the soul and spirit - that the right use of athletics is necessary for the purity and strengthening of the body, so that there may be a healthy body to contain a healthy mind...a manly type of Christianity where men will only be afraid of sin". (Page 306 [report of the Dublin conference of the Young Men's Christian Associations 3-6 sept 1889])
The activities of the Ipswich YMCA in 1885 were largely religious but as it set itself the goal of reaching men with the gospel it develop other activities including a cricket club. By 1899 it had a cycling mission and a gymnasium. (Page 306)