Dimming of the Day

14 organised very much like the football clubs of the day, dominated by the mercantile middle class, rather than the gentry and professional classes. Even by this time the bigger league clubs could lure players away from county cricket to a more reliable source of income with a season’s contract and the certainty of playing every week. Sydney Barnes was the classic example but there were many others. One very significant difference was that league clubs might well make payments to amateurs as talent money or expenses: that would have been totally out of the question for ‘club’ sides. There were leagues at many levels. The Manchester Guardian published fixtures for the Manchester and District Association, Lancashire League, Central Lancashire League, South Lancashire League, Manchester Federation, Manchester League, Bolton League and “miscellaneous” which was the club rather than the league circuit. The clubs playing to the southern “amateur” ethos tended to be located in the leafier areas with Cheshire well represented. In particular the Manchester Club played at Old Trafford and many county amateurs would turn out for it. The Manchester Guardian of 27 July saw substantial reports on Lancashire League games – Cecil Parkin (about to make his Lancashire debut) took 7 – 44 against Burnley. The paper also looked at the South Lancs League and the Yorkshire Council. On 30 July Longsight had beaten Manchester under the heading M&D Association. The 31 July results in full include Shropshire Gentlemen v Free Foresters and the first match of the Shavington Festival at Market Drayton between Captain Lonsdale’s XI and Liverpool Athenians. On 31 July fixtures include M&D Association, Lancashire League, Central Lancashire League, South Lancashire League, Manchester League, Bolton League, High Peak League, Manchester Federation (and a hefty list of miscellaneous matches). Full scores are given as late as 27 August for Manchester and District Association, and reduced scores for M&D Federation, where Manchester Press played South-West Manchester at Old Trafford. In the middle of the county scores was Old Rossallians against Malton Club and Ground. The Sports Argus in Birmingham reported Birmingham League games, suburban league games and friendly matches. It reported too on the final of the Aston Schools Trophy, where Gower Street had beaten Canterbury Road. There were league tables too from the Birmingham Works League and the Parks Association which ran to eight divisions: not to mention the Kidderminster League, the Prudential League and the Wesleyan League. The final of the Dudley Works knock-out was played at Palethorpe’s and Netherton Ironworks at the County Ground before a crowd of about 1,000. Throughout the country, however, leagues were the rule rather than the exception at a level below that of the best clubs. They existed for villages, for works teams, for elementary schools and for the Sunday Schools. Large factories ran internal leagues. To take just one example the Grantham The Structure of Cricket in 1914