Lives in Cricket No 19 - Frank Sugg

Chapter Five Frank Sugg the Footballer Although he might be better known as a cricketer, Frank Sugg was an enthusiastic and competent footballer and we will pause at this point in his story to tell of his career in his winter sport. By the time of Frank’s boyhood in Sheffield, football had become the most popular sport of the mass of the population, particularly of the working classes in the industrial towns of the North and Midlands. Sheffield emerged as a leading centre of the game and the town played a prominent part in the transformation of football from an anarchic, rough and tumble sort of game into an organised and regulated sport. A major part in this was played by Sheffield Football Club, formed in 1857 and the oldest football club in the world, and the Sheffield Football Association. It was largely the rules formulated by the Sheffield Football Association that were refined and adopted by the newly formed (English) Football Association in the mid-1860s and which brought to an end the previous chaotic situation where matches were played according to the rules of the home side. This can be said to herald the beginning of the modern game. The numerous local football clubs in Sheffield, including, amongst the more prestigious, Pitsmoor and Sheffield Wednesday (which club grew out of the Wednesday Cricket Club), as well as Sheffield Football Club, formed themselves into flourishing local leagues. A number of challenge cup competitions were also organised. Competition among the clubs in the Sheffield area was fierce, with bouts of fisticuffs between players or spectators not uncommon occurrences. Football soon outgrew local clubs in local leagues, but until the Football League was formed in 1888, fixtures for the leading clubs consisted of English cup-ties – the FA Cup having been inaugurated in 1871 and first played for in 1872 – and friendly games of various standards, including inter-town and inter- association matches. The founder members of the Football League were Accrington Stanley, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton 42