Early development of football (all codes) in Coventry

Just found this forum whilst looking for interesting historical stuff to show my mum. She's 88 and as a child lived in Craven Street, Chapelfields. She keenly remembers things like going to Canley Ford Milk Bar after church on a Sunday with a group of other children, so this forum contains some gold dust and I can't wait to show her. Will bring back happy memories for sure. As a family we lived in Broad Lane from '68 to '74, so I too have a lot of memories of Coventry as a kid. Afternoons spent down the Ponderosa or mucking about in Jardine Crescent woods for instance.  But on a totally unrelated topic, as someone with an interest in the history of football (all codes) I'd be really fascinated to know more about its growth in the city. - For such an historic medieval city, I'm guessing Coventry, like Atherstone, must have held games of mass Shrovetide football in its past. I know these were heavily clamped down on due to general mayhem in the streets, particularly after the 1835 Highway Act, but is there much recorded evidence of these games being played in the city ? - Coming forward to the early days of officially organised football, was there ever a team just called Coventry Football Club ? I guess if there was, it would likely be an early incarnation of Coventry RFC, or have they always had "rugby" in their official name ? AI Overview tells me Stoke FC were the first organised football club in the city, founded in 1869, albeit not necessarily playing regular fixtures and playing a mixture of Association and Rugby rules. It was quite common for early football clubs to do this as the two codes were a lot closer together in those very early days, but I'm not sure if this is the same team that grew out of Stoke Cricket Club in 1874 to become Cov RFC ? AI Overview is very useful, but it can't (and shouldn't !) be taken as gospel, so I thought I'd check this with any experts out there. I'd be very interested to know of any book or website that covers the Victorian era development of both codes of football in the city in some detail. Who were the first teams, how often did they play each other, under what rules etc. ? I thought I may as well start a new topic on this, for any interesting facts people may have on the very early growth of football in the city.

Hi Neil, welcome to the forum and to your Mum. I'll have a bit of a look for early football on some of the history sites but offhand I haven't noticed anything very early. There are others far more interested in that aspect of the history, so finger's crossed for you. I do know that there was a fair amount of sport carried out within and between businesses but I'm not sure how far back that dates.

The site British History Online says here - "Association football was being played about 1870 on the 'Old Gentleman's Green', Stoke, near Kingsway, Binley Road, but apparently hardly anywhere else in Coventry, for a contemporary press report remarked that 'this excellent outdoor game is so little participated in about Coventry that it is a rare occurrence to hear of a match'. One such occurrence was met with in 1873, when a game was played between a Royal Artillery team of fourteen from the Barracks and a Stoke team. The gunners played in their jackboots. By 1888, when the Warwickshire Football Association was formed, most Coventry districts and several works had their representative teams. In 1897, when the Coventry and North Warwickshire Football League was constituted, local amateur clubs were numbered in scores." There is more at the linked page.

Yes welcome Neil. I can't tell you much about codes but there is some excellent early Coventry football imagery on Coventry Digital. I help out along with Rob and Steve Orland who run this site to add to that. It's a site run by the Uni and is basically an image database which we are scanning to for the massive photographic collection kept at The Herbert. It's free to use but you'll need to register yourself on there first.

Many thanks for the warm welcome Helen and for pointing me to that site....wow, it's got some very interesting stuff on it ! That is fascinating. It really does sound like Stoke was the key hot spot in the very early days for the development of both Association and Rugby football. I wonder what type of football was being played in that game in 1873, when the gunners brought a team of 14 players to Stoke ? Interesting that the RA played in their jackboots ! It's amazing to consider how much growth there must have been between 1870 and 1888. I wonder how popular each code was during that time ? My grandad was a coach trim fitter for Jaguar and born in the Edwardian era. He was very much a Cov rugby fan and always preferred "rugger" to "soccer"...he only called each by its abbreviated name. Well come to think of it "rugger" is longer than "rugby" !

Many thanks too NeilsYard. It's exactly resources like that I was after. Will have fun looking through the images ! As the link Helen sent shows, by 1888 I think we can say that both rugby and soccer, although still in their relatively early days, were now very firmly established as distinct codes under governance from the RFU and FA respectively with county level associations/unions under that and a large number of affiliated clubs. It's the very early primordial development of codified football that really fascinates me. Not sure why it does, but it does !

Another link from British History Online might explain why football was a late addition here - "Sabbatarianism was also growing during this period. In 1588 the opening of shops, playing games, or idly walking about were forbidden during service time on Sundays. (fn. 194) In 1599 these orders were intensified, indoor games and idly sitting in streets or fields being added to the other forbidden activities. (fn. 195) Football in the streets would incur gaol after 1595 and children's games in the street were forbidden in 1605. (fn. 196) This suggests that the earlier prohibitions were being disregarded, as does the complaint of churchwardens that, in spite of their efforts, many 'do lie in bed', while others went to neighbouring villages where they could spend the Sabbath profanely, drinking and enjoying themselves 'to the great dishonour of God and the offence of others'. (fn. 197) In the same year church attendance on Sundays was made compulsory (fn. 198) and listening to sermons and theological debates replaced the more frivolous recreations of the past. The first weekly lecture, which was to become a feature of the Commonwealth period, was established in 1609. " In the newspapers 2nd Feb 1776 there was an article about people playing cricket and kicking a football about at the Swanswell Pool (frozen over?). There's a Coventry newspaper article from 19th July 1839 that mentions a Birmingham riot where a jeweller's goods were kicked about like a football - so it was a common enough issue to be used locally. 23rd of February 1844 there's an article about football being played at Meriden but it seems to be a sideshow to the real event which was a ploughing match. 31st January 1851 there's an 18 year old guy arrested for nicking a football being kicked about by a bunch of kids at Shilton and took it away with him to Bulkington. There's an article 02 January 1852 about a 9 young men a side match at Barnacle against Sowe. Barnacle won and they all ended up at the Fox Inn. 14th December 1855 a bunch of 8 guys are charged with damaging 'herbage' playing football in Bulkington. 11th March 1859 an article mentions that on Shrove Tuesday there was a tradition of throwing a football in Bond Street Nuneaton and 'Nuneaton' hopes that that the uncouth sport will die a natural death if left alone. And so on. There were a lot more mentions of football in other towns. Kids and youngsters seem to have started the trend in Coventry's surrounds.

Just occurred to me that the lads in that photo were probably all back from the battlefields..........................

You put my researching skills to shame, Helen ! Some excellent references there. Yes, going back in time, not even that long ago, working people were very limited in any free time they had for recreation and I think, with Sundays being given over to the worship of god (very strictly upheld in some cases, as in your example) then it was only on the few public holidays that any organised game could be played, very often Shrove Tuesday. These tended to be the classic "uppies vs. downies" game where one part of town took on another, or one village a neighbouring one, generally with the aim of getting a ball or other item into agreed "goals", often miles apart, like streams. They were typically a mass of people, a mass of civic pride but very few rules other than getting the ball into the opponent's goal. You can see why they weren't universally popular, particularly in the more urban areas ! With the growth of public schools, there was often an attempt to come up with a shorter version of these mass games that could be played on a school field, with each school coming up with some sort of rules. But at university, as they'd all played different rules at their various schools, there was a further need to come up with a single set of rules that all students could play. Eton school still has two unique football games for instance (the Wall Game and the Field Game) and Harrow still has its own version too. But the mass development in football was when former students from these elite institutions took these more concise (in terms of playing area, playing time and number of participents) forms of the game, still with some variations in rules, back to their towns and places of work. The "hoi polloi" liked them too ! Sheffield, in particular is very important to the development of what would become the Association game. This is just my take from what I've read and is undoubtedly over-simplified and flawed ! The Code War: English Football Under the Historical Spotlight by Graham Williams is a very good book on the subject if anyone's interested. I would be interested to know if there ever was an entity known as Coventry Football Club, even if very briefly.

"............but very few rules other than getting the ball into the opponent's goal." The etymology of "goal" in soccer, I find interesting too. When playing, my goal (as in aim) was to get the ball in the opponent's net. So in those terms what we now say is the opponent's goal is actually also my goal and vice versa ! But that's a complete digression !

Hi Neilw. The first mention of the word "football" I can find on the newspaper archive site was in 1726, it was 6 a side football played by women !

The earliest I can find in a Coventry newspaper was 1829 played in a field in Exhall between 10 players from Foleshill and 10 from Fillongley for £5 a side. Foleshill won.

Anne and I know where the Coventry skeletons are buried and Neil can find a photograph of the grave diggers

This is truly excellent stuff, ladies and based on today's evidence I'd put money on either of you finding the grave diggers photograph before me ! Very interesting that early 18th century 6-a-side game played by women. Any game played on foot using a ball could be classified as football in those days, but it's actually the fact that a game with so few players a-side is mentioned that I find really interesting. I'm sure small groups of kids all over the country were playing ad-hoc football games amongst themselves, but for a group of 12 people to organise themselves into two teams and for it to be deemed worthy of a newspaper mention, notwithstanding the paper's angle that they were women, does makes you wonder if there were other organised 6-a-side games already happening ? And if so, what kind of game were they playing ? I love this sort of social history !! What was just normal stuff at the time, people like me find fascinating now.

Hi NeilW My wife and I migrated to Australia in 1973 and I was soon invited to a pre-season trial Aussie Rules match. I was instructed to play "left pocket" (??????!!!!!), and my Croatian soccer-playing mate whispered "he means play inside left!". I found I could run rings around the defender and scored six goals in twenty minutes - but never played it again! But, in Aussie Rules "your" goal is the one you want to score in - exactly as you say. Took a while to sink in! An "own goal" in Aussie rules, where the ball goes through the posts after being touched by a defender, is only worth one point to the attacking team, while they would get six without the defender's intervention.