If I've only got two posts left before I lose my youth I'm going to be completely selfishly nerdish with this the penultimate and flag up a couple of articles about the development of professional football in Bolton, Blackburn and this small piece of the globe decades before the League was formed.
The first is an academic piece by local historian Peter Swain entitled "Cultural continuity and football in 19th century Lancashire" which I came across when I was researching how football evolved from the semi professional and heavily supported 20 a side version of the game popular in the 1820s and 1830s. There was a Bolton team based at the Old Boltonians ground in Turton which is thought to have moved and evolved into Christ Church in 1874 to save the players and massed fans the cart trip to Turton. (Articles in the public domain and further evidence provided in Turton Towers records.)
At this time, the mass melee of the original game between villages had become organised with a fixed number of players, more stringent rules, big crowds, serious gambling and as much as anything, skullduggery - which included paid "ringers" being brought in. It was an interim step towards professionalism.
This bit is about the link between pubs, gambling and football and it starts with legendary Bolton ringer Ben Hart playing for Tottington:
On 9 March 1878, the Darwen News, in a report based on interviews with surviving participants, recalled a match between Darwen and Tottington played in 1830 in the outlying village of Turton. This was a return fixture after a game held on ‘Collop Monday’ (the day before Shrove Tuesday) at Round Barn, near Edgworth, when the competing teams had each fielded twenty players and played for £2 10s (£2.50) a side with the stakes being ‘lodged in the hands of the landlord of the Round Barn Public House’. The practice of publicans organizing football matches and holding stake money was endemic in south and east Lancashire at the time, as will be evidenced below, with their obvious commercial interests being served by so doing. Interestingly, this game was played on what was described as a ‘triangular pitch’. The fixture ended in a dispute, upon which the Darwen players returned to the pub first, claimed the five pounds and ‘spent the whole of it in the Grey Horse Inn before leaving’. Their opponents regarded this as unfair and issued a challenge to play for £5 a side, a match which took place a month later on a pitch ‘a few hundred yards from Turton Church’. (WL: that's the Old Boltonians ground) The Darwen News went on to report that all the players now living agree that there would be 5,000 or 6,000 spectators present. The stakes would have been held by Willey-at- Wood at Chetham’s Arms,Turton, but we believe never were fairly put down. The teams met as at Round Barn with the exception of one or two names different and our opponents had engaged among others Ben Hart from Bolton, the great sprint runner.
Hart was a local athlete, well known for taking part in foot-racing or ‘pedestrianism’, a popular sport in Bolton and district in the 1830s and 1840s. It is claimed that ‘his feats could empty the town’s mills for half a day as people flocked to watch’. His influence on local sport was considerable and also extended to football.
In Bolton itself Ben Hart had become the landlord of the Sir Sidney Smith Tavern from around 1837. Originally a weaver, Hart had become a Bolton legend who as a ‘pedestrian’ racer had made himself a wealthy man and a local hero. As many as 5,000 people turned out to watch him in 1834 when he raced against the famous ‘mountain stag’ from Belmont. Gambling was de rigeur at these events and considerable sums were wagered. Hart and betting were also in evidence when twenty Boltonians were prepared to play at foot-ball with twenty of the best men in the Rifle Regiment now stationed in Bolton, for £10 a side; to come off on New Year’s Day, in the neighbourhood of Bolton, providing the regiment be stationed in or near Bolton. "The veteran Ben Hart is a player, and is appointed to pick out the men of Bolton, and unless approved of by him such person or persons will not be allowed to play in the match. The money is ready at his house, where alone arrangements can be made."
OK it's about landlords arranging matches to boost their own profits, but the articles talk about local teams and the incredible tradition of football in Bolton and our contribution to it's evolution which I thought relevant for contemplation in these troubled times.
If you've not seen the articles before Biggie might be able to signpost you to them if you're vaguely interested as I sent them in a couple of years back.
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