How mob football and bloody Holmfirth clash progressed
CONTINUING our serialising of ‘Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants’, Moses Heap, a mill worker, wrote in his diary:
“...we did not know how to pass our time away. Before it had all been bed and work; now in place of 70 hours a week we had 55Yz hours. It became practice, mostly on Saturdays, to play games, especially football and
THE last time Huddersfield giants played a Super League match on April Fool’s Day was in 2013 against Widnes Vikings. cricket, which had never been done before.” Almost immediately, Huddersfield witnessed increased participation in existing activities, such as cricket, swimming, riding, bowling, quoits and foot-races. The barbaric sports of cock fighting and prize fighting had long since been outlawed, but betting-fuelled secret events were still held on the moors.
Professor John Le Blanc, an enterprising ‘Irishman with a long grey beard’, sensed a business opportunity and on 3 August 1850 opened the Apollo Gymnasium in Huddersfield. The only public facility of its type in the district, the Gymnasium provided opportunities for general exercise. As an indoor venue, it was particularly popular during the winter months and was used mainly by young men.
Winter sport was not restricted to the Apollo Gymnasium. There was also an increase in the amount of mob football played, ranging from informal kick-abouts to pre-arranged matches. The earliest reference to such a match in the Huddersfield district is between Holmfirth and Hepworth, played near Whinney Bank, Holmfirth, in 1848. The stakes were £5, each side depositing £2 10s. Hepworth took the spoils from a ‘well contested’ game, each side exhibiting ‘the usual amount of contusions, bloody noses, etc.’
Whilst a growing number of Huddersfield men were becoming accustomed to sporting endeavours on Saturdays, other factors were also aligning to promote the growth of sport, and of football in particular.
Most directly, football was becoming integral to life in the public schools, legitimized, at least in part, as one of the more acceptable means by which boys could vent