Lancashire weekend

Needless to say our little road tour took in views of the Reebok and Ewood. Meanwhile the Rivington area is full of associations with William Lever, founder of the soap company Lever Brothers, who was born in Bolton.

After spending the weekend on the far tip of Trafford Park - another few rooms along the corridor and we would have been in the ship canal - I found plenty about the sporting venues of the opposite end of Trafford in a wonderful book called Played in Manchester published by English Heritage. It's not a brilliant reproduction but, in the map below, you can see Manchester United, Lancashire County Cricket ground, the old White City and - where the Lowry Museum now stands - New Barns race course (replaced by docks early in the 1900s):



This picture from the early 1930s shows Manchester United (top left), Old Trafford cricket ground (bottom left) and - over the to the right - the former White City dog and speedway track which functioned until the 1980s:



A few miles further north is the Irwell Valley, home of Manchester's main race course Castle Irwell, The Cliff (which was once Manchester United's main training ground) and a host of other sporting facilities:





Then, over towards the east of the city, lies Belle Vue which still has dogs but once had speedway, boxing, amusements and a zoo. And, as this 1931 map shows, it also had a football club called Manchester Central which was a short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful attmept to create another professional club in the city:

Barton Downs

Boxing is still alive and well at Belle Vue, already this year it has hosted the big Sheridan v Hughes showdown... although I am told that Chesterfield is now the most likely venue should there be a re-match.


www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1160506/Oldham-striker-Hughes-bust-gaffer-Sheridan-boozy-night-out.html

To add to Merse's points about the old Manchester race course I've posted a few pictures from Played in Manchester. The first two are past and present shots of the original entrance on Cromwell Road which now forms the entrance to student accommodation. Apparently there's a laundrette somewhere in the building:



The 1902 and 1961 racecourse stands:



The 1961 version was designed by an architect called Ernest Atherden and was one of the earliest cantilevered sporting stands in Britain. Its design encouraged Manchester United to hire Atherden to work on new structures at Old Trafford - later known as the United Road and Scoreboard End stands - as shown on the cover of the programme of the very first game I saw in Manchester:




Our trip to Manchester was by coach leaving Torquay at around 11pm on the Friday night. We were there by 7am and I remember a few of us - including the future Rear Admiral Leaman - knocking on the doors of Maine Road at breakfast time asking to inspect the facilities. We were let in by a kindly cleaner who had fond memories of ex-City and Torquay player John Benson who - little did we know - would become a Manchester City manager of the 1980s.

The outing - for followers of the two Manchester clubs and a few assorted travellers such as myself - was something of a forerunner of the Torbay Reds. I was reminded of this recently by a friend - who has no Torbay connections - telling me how he met one of the original protagionists in the airport lounge en route to the recent final in Rome. This friend, who has a broad enthusiasm for football (to put it mildly), made a point of saying how wonderful it was to see Torquay United back in the league. The Torbay Red apparently turned his nose up as if a foul smell had entered the room. Oh dear. It was ever thus.

There's much of interest in that 1973 programme. It's all a bit folksy in its own way - almost like a football club to be honest - and seems to recall a less commercial era. Or does it?

Whatever we think now, football was a business in those days just as it was long before we showed a concern for the game or were even born. In those days Manchester United would have appeared a very commercialised concern and there would have been plenty of complaints about football being awash with money. But, unlike today perhaps, there was little money to be made by anyone other than the players themselves. The owners, often small businessmen (of the kind who might have been found on the council of the British Man-Made Fibres Association), never quite brought their full commercial expertise to the table. Manchester United, from what I remember, were something of a shambles behind the scenes although - once World in Action got on their case - all was not how it seemed and one or two esteemed individuals were alleged to be profiting in a way which wasn't entirely above board. The Doc's notes certainly provide a few talking points for future reference :

In the churchyard at Heapey, the next village to White Coppice, are buried my grandparents. My grandfather grew up there and must have played cricket on the ground at White Coppice. He used to tell me that to get to away fixtures the whole team would set off in the morning on a horse and cart.

As a youngster he helped out a number of local tradesmen including the undertaker and at the abbatoir. When working at the slaughterhouse he used to earn a few extra ha'pennies by selling golf balls he had removed from the stomachs of cattle from a field next to the golf course.

It certainly is a beautiful area and I'll be dropping in there when we play at Accrington so long as the weather is better than for our last visit.