This book has been a long
time in the making! The original idea came
from Allan Kristensen in Norway. Allan
found that the early history of the club was shrouded in mystery and set out to
compile his own record of results and players.
When he approached me with the manuscript I was surprised to find that
many gaps existed in the records. I
turned to Alan Shury, co-author of Breedon Books’ Complete Record of Manchester
United. After much diligent checking,
we were able to get the ‘first class games’ sorted out and turned our attention
to other fixtures.
At that stage we were fortunate to meet Brian Landamore. Brian’s contribution has made a big
difference to the book, albeit at the cost of delaying the publication date by
a year or so! Brian has compiled a
record of newspaper reports of all the games he could find, in local and
national newspapers. Armed with this
archive, we were able to revisit the match-by-match records. We were also able to include all the
friendly games and many reserve team line-ups.
The next piece of the jigsaw was to map this data onto what we
knew of the players. Early match
reports, though ‘wordy’ tend not to provide the sharp personal details on the
players that we are familiar with today.
We have combed the reports to give as much information as we can.
Finally, we looked for photographs with which to illustrate the
story. Here we found major
disappointment. There are plenty of
match reports that begin ‘the kick-off was delayed whilst the photographer took
pictures of the teams’. Very few of
these photographs seem to have survived.
Those that we do have are often ‘copies of copies’. Though the authors will be pleased to hear
of more photographs, the museum at Old Trafford is the best place to contact. I know they would appreciate a copy for
future reference.
The responsibility for the final edit of the book was
mine. If any errors remain they are
down to me, not my fellow authors!
Tony Brown
A major undertaking like this
requires the help of many individuals.
The authors would like to thank all those who made a contribution
however large or small. In particular,
Leigh Edwards on player records, Michael Joyce for the use of his player
database, and Mark Wylie of the Manchester United Museum at Old Trafford.
Please note that the
spelling of the original newspaper reports has been retained. There are many examples of minor changes to
player names in the reports. There are
also occasional spelling mistakes!
References to the ‘Evening News’ and the ‘Courier’ are to Manchester
papers of those names. Other extracts
are from the Athletic News unless stated.
NEWTON HEATH RECORDS PAGE
PLAYERS:
Most Appearances |
Football League: Fred Erentz, 1892/93 to 1901/02: 280 All known first team games: Fred Erentz: 399 |
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Most Goals |
Football League: Joe Cassidy, 1892/93 to 1900/01: 91 (152 games) All known first team games: Bob Donaldson, 122 (252 games) |
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Most League Goals in a Season |
Henry Boyd, 20 (1897/98) |
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Most International Appearances |
Jack Doughty, 7 (Wales) |
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THE CLUB: |
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Honours: |
Lancashire Cup winners 1897/98 |
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Manchester and District Cup winners 1885/86, 1887/88, 1888/89,
1889/90, 1892/93, 1901/02 |
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Unofficial champions of the Conference, 1888/89 |
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Best Football League Position |
Last in Division One, 1892/93, 1893/94 |
Best F.A. Cup Performance |
Round 3, 1896/97 |
Most Football League Points |
44, Division Two 1899/1900 (34 games) |
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39, Division Two 1896/97 (30 games) |
Most Football League Goals |
78, 1894/95 |
Most League wins in a season |
20, 1899/1900 |
Best League win |
10-1 v. Lincoln City, November 21 1891 10-1 v. Wolverhampton Wan., October 15 1892 |
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Best F.A. Cup win |
7-0 v. West Manchester, December 12 1896 |
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Best League run undefeated |
12 games from March 19 1898 |
1878
to 1886
1878, the year of the formation of Newton
Heath, was a pivotal year in the development of association football. Before 1878, the game was characterised by
‘local rules’, meaning that the two clubs were at liberty to agree the rules
that would be followed for a particular game.
For example, the game in Sheffield was characterised by having no
off-side law, which led to players permanently positioned near the opponent’s
goal. Handling of the ball was a common
feature of many rules, including those first formulated by the Football
Association in London, in 1863. The
Turton rules of 1873 stated ‘the ball may be caught if has not touched the
ground…whoever catches the ball is entitled to a free kick….with a preliminary
run no longer than three yards’. Turton
adopted the F.A. rules in 1874, but it seems clear that Darwen were still
allowing the use of hands in 1876. The
popularity of the Football Association’s Challenge Cup (from 1871 onwards)
helped to establish a common set of laws; Sheffield came into line in
1877. Thus, by 1878 we had a base from
which today’s game has developed. There
were even rumours of players earning money by playing the game!
The
early players turned out in everyday clothes and nailed boots. A coloured cap might be worn to distinguish
one team from another. Games between
eleven of one club and fifteen or even twenty-two of another were common
occurrences. There was a tape between
the posts, not a bar. By early 1878,
the players were attired in shorts and custom-made football boots were
available.
There
has been a long tradition of ‘works teams’ in England. Until the development of the
semi-professional game in the 1960s and 1970s it was still possible to meet
teams from companies such as Boots and
Morris Motors in the F.A. Cup.
The workers at the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s Carriage and Wagon
Works would thus have had many precedents in 1878 when they decided to play
football; in any case, their was a work’s cricket team playing during the
summer. The workers would be well aware
of Lancashire’s role in the development of the game; teams from Blackburn,
Darwen and Bolton were already gaining a national reputation. The Lancashire F.A. was formed in 1878 with
28 clubs; the Lancashire Cup attracted
40 entries in 1879.
For the
first Lancashire Cup final in 1880, benches were borrowed from local schools,
with some placed on the carts that had brought them to the ground, thus forming
a primitive grandstand. Darwen beat
Blackburn Rovers 3-0. The popularity of
the game as a spectator sport was not lost on the founders of clubs like Newton
Heath; an enclosed ground would allow an admission charge to be made.
This
was a problem for the future; to begin with, a piece of unused ground leased to
the railway on the edge of a former clay pit was selected for the pitch. It was bounded on the south side by North
Road (now Northampton Road). The
surface was not ideal; the idea of using a lawnmower to cut the grass was years
in the future. In any case, solid clay
at one end gave way to ankle deep mud at the other! There were no changing rooms at the ground; players walked half a
mile to the local public house in the Oldham Road.
There
is no record of the first games played by the fledgling club; after all, you
would not expect your local newspaper today to cover the exploits of a new
works’ team. It is reasonable to assume
that the club members arranged matches between themselves, and probably challenged
other departments of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway to a game. The first fixtures we know of came in the
1880/81 season, with five games against reserve teams of local clubs. As a point of comparison, Blackburn Rovers
had more than 30 games in their fixture list for 1880/81, against clubs such as
Sheffield Wednesday, Notts County and Aston Villa. The earliest Newton Heath match report is to be found in the
Bolton Daily Chronicle of January 25, 1881:
Bolton Wanderers (a Team)
v Newton Heath, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
The return match of the above clubs was played on the ground of the
latter on Saturday last, and, as in the previous game, ended in victory for the
former by six goals to nil. The ball was started at 3.30, and soon the visitors
began to press their opponents, but, although having the benefit of the ground,
they were unable to notch above one goal in the first half. On ends being
changed, the Wanderers had all their own way, scoring five more goals before
the call of time, a very pleasant and agreeable game ending in victory for the
Wanderers.
Incidentally, the description of a team that was not the club’s ‘first XI’ as ‘a team’ is probably the origin of the term ‘A Team’ in today’s game.
Newton Heath’s first recorded players are Messrs Minchley and Cramphorn, who scored the goals in a 2-0 victory over Bootle reserves in February 1881. John Cramphorn had travelled up from Shalford in Essex to find work, and was living in digs in Ten Acres Road, Newton, with a friend from the same village. This is what the Ashton under Lyne Reporter had to say about the game Newton Heath played against Hurst at North Road later that month:
The above teams met for the first time this season on Saturday last on the ground of the latter. The visitors arrived in due time, but were kept waiting on the field a considerable time ere