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Originally Posted by steve
Interesting thread east sussex and thanks for sharing on here.Remember reading in some old wxm book which I no longer have that the football and athletics club was set up by the Wrexham cricket team and weren't we one of the first football clubs in the country to advocate 11 a side rather than the 15 a side or whatever it was at the time? Loads of history around the club and town and this thread is a great read.
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The cricket club have been credited with founding the football club in 1864 (which is true) Steve, but it was another organisation- The United Volunteer Services Club, which laid the foundations on which the club would be built; and this also links back to the days when the races were abandoned.
Horse racing at The Racecourse was stopped in 1858, due to anti social behaviour, which was mostly brought on by the consumption of alcohol, during the annual local holidays, when the race meetings were held.
In the early days, the races had been a more sober event, which was frequented by the gentry of the land, but the growth of industry during the industrial Revolution had meant that by the mid 19th Century, the population of the town and surrounding area had been greatly increased, by an influx of people who sought work. Subsequently, the mood at the annual races changed, and they were eventually stopped, by a campaign of local residents, who sought to bring an end to the affects of huge numbers of people drinking alcohol in the town. This kind of problem was a major issue in many industrial towns of the day, where poverty was rife; working conditions were frequently dangerous and generally very poor, wages were low and the working day was long and very arduous for the masses. As is often the case in such situations, many of the working men and women would try to escape the hardships of their lives, by drinking in public houses, but the affect of this was that anti social behaviour increased massively, peoples mental and physical health deteriorated, generally, and poverty increased even more. In Wrexham, as in other towns, civic leaders sought to end this destructive pattern, and athletic activities were championed as a saviour for the masses.
It was amidst this atmosphere that The United Volunteer services Club was founded, to provide athletic sports for the townsfolk, almost a year to the day, before Wrexham Football and Athletics Club was founded.
The massive Wrexham AFC history thread (The sad case of a founding members and player of Wrexham...)
Edward Manners, Charles Edward Kershaw and Evan Morris (Sir) plus others, had all been members and regular players of the cricket club, and while Edward Manners was credited with greatly improving the cricket club, it was Charles Edward Kershaw and Evan Morris, in particular, who had sought to create an athletics club; Evan Morris was also passionate in his belief that athletics and football helped to improve moral behaviour, ease social tensions and bridge the huge void between the different social classes ‘football should be encouraged, for it brings men together; high and low, rich and poor, to contend on an equal platform, where one man is as good as another, and the best man wins’.
So while The Denbighshire County Cricket Club (formerly Wrexham Cricket Club) should be credited with founding the football club; the birth of the club itself has its roots in a much wider movement of the time; of which, The United Volunteer Services Club played a major part. Ironically, the club was abandoned after its first year as it was no longer needed, specifically, as it had attained its aim - to provide athletic sports for the townsfolk of Wrexham; hence the name ' Wrexham Football and Athletic Club'.