Manchester v Liverpool St Helens *THIS SATURDAY*

From Our Archives...

A Centenary Match programme between combined teams from Manchester & Liverpool and Blackheath & Richmond has recently come to light. That programme is now well over 50 years old but still makes fascinating and timely reading as we welcome our oldest opponents Liverpool St Helens to Grove Park once again for the 2015-16 season...

Club Rugby Football, and how it all began
Liverpool v Manchester, 21st December 1857
This centenary, to be celebrated by the Liverpool and Manchester Football Clubs on the 21st of December 1957, is an outstanding milestone in the history of Rugby Football. It marks the first occasion on which men met to play the game, which, up to that time in England, had only been played by schoolboys and students.
On December 1857, a William Mather of Bootle Hall, Liverpool, who had played Rugby football as a boy at Rugby School, felt that it was a game which might well be played and enjoyed by men. He formed a side of Old Rugbeians and Cheltonians living in Liverpool, and invited Richard Sykes to bring a similar side from Manchester. Sykes, who was then in his last term at Rugby School, was also asked to provide a ball as no one in the North knew how to make one.
This great match, unusual in that it was a trial of a game rather than a trial of players, took place before a large crowd on the ground of the Liverpool Cricket Club at Edge Hill, Liverpool.
Of the match itself, little is known, except that over fifty men played on each side, and that it was considered to be highly successful.
From contemporary accounts we know that the groundsman used white chalk for the lines as he did not wish to cut the turf. There was a long discussion about rules between William Mather, Richard Sykes and a nephew of Mr Gladstone. The writer also recorded that the game was watched by the leading citizens of Liverpool, who impressed him “by the bearing and dignity of the gentlemen “ and the “elegance and charm of the ladies.” He ends by saying that the ball was to be sent to Balliol College, Oxford, to start the game there.
It was two years before the match bore results. In 1860, Richard Sykes completed his education at Heidelberg University and returned to Manchester. He started training his friends in the playing of Rugby football at the Western Cricket Club, Pendleton, and was assisted by Major White of the 84th Regiment of Foot, on garrison duty at Ashton-under-Lyne Barracks.
At this time the Manchester Football Club was formed, with Richard Sykes as its first captain. Matches were few and far between, as opponents were hard to find. Games were played against Liverpool (where a club was also formed shortly after 1860), Sheffield and F.P. sides from Edinburgh and Glasgow Academies.
The Manchester Club acquired a ground in Whalley Range which soon became well known, not only for the excellent t club matches to be seen, but also as a venue for England’s international games with Scotland and Ireland. It was here that the Calcutta Cup was first won by Scotland in 1881-82.
William Mather’s ideas were sound. From his one game many clubs were formed. Within fourteen years the Rugby Football Union was founded, and by 1896 there were over sixty clubs in Lancashire. The Rugby Football Union worked hard for many years to make laws which were acceptable to all; hacking was abolished, also tripping with the heel and much unnecessary rough play.
In celebrating this Centenary of Club Rugby, the members of the Liverpool and Manchester Clubs doff their hats with respect to the gentlemen who played Rugby football before 1857 in Ireland, Scotland and on Parker’s Piece, at Guy’s Hospital and at Blackheath Preparatory School.