Quote:
Originally Posted by stalybridge sheepshagger
Football has always been the working mans game. Most teams have either a works or church background. Arsenal from the military foundries, Man United were originally Newton Heath Loco works, Everton and Celtic were Sunday school teams, Sheffield Wednesday were shop workers who only had a half day off on Wednesday, hence the name. Don't we always chant "Scabs" whenever we play an East Midlands team! We were originally a cricket club, but for many years we were the only team to kick off at 3.15pm and not 3pm to give the early shift of Gresford miners the extra 15 minutes to get to the ground
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I don't think it was that simple in our case.
The working classes had already caused the Wrexham Races to be stopped a decade earlier, due to drunkeness and violence, and the town had also been going through hard times in the 1850's.
There were lots of groups and meetings going on with the churches, the temperance movement, the united volunteer services club and town officials, as well as members of banks and insurance companies trying to find ways of keeping the working classes from spending all of their wages in public houses, in order to improve health and eleviate poverty; particularly child poverty.
When Edward Manners announced his intention to buy a football, it was in conjunction with a conversation he had with the mayor, and was in line with a movement that sought to bring athletics to the masses, for the reasons mentioned above' hence- Wrexham Football and Athletics Club.
The first years profits were used to establish an annual Athletics meeting, which survived into the 20th Century.
Most of those involved in the cricket club were tories, and the land was owned by a wealthy tory land owner and mp. The cricket club was made up almost entirely of staunchly royalist military men, so-much-so, that it was suggested that games and meetings were arranged to fit in with military business.
From my understanding, it was due to land-owners and accountantants like Charles Edward Kershaw and wealthy tories, like Evan Morris, who believed that people could show that they were equal on a football field, which established the football club. From the outset, the club was very closely linked to the local banks, and particularly The Provincial Welsh Insurance company. In Wrexham, the sport became a spectator sport for the working classes, but the club would not have got going when it did, if it were not for the circumstances as mentioned
20th August 2017, 17.29:04
