Into crusade of organised sport
Well their next game was a Challenge Cup victory over Batley Bulldogs, a 13-4 victory highlighting the new emphasis placed on defensive solidity.
This was followed up by the closest game in April 2013 for Huddersfield, an impressive albeit nerve-jangling 28-20 win over Catalans Dragons in France, the result was only put beyond doubt for twelve-man Huddersfield after a 79th minute Shaun Lunt try.
Results-wise, this result rounded off a perfect April that started on April Fool’s Day.
It was also a pivotal period in the season as Huddersfield became a more defensively sound unit, one that would eventually lift silverware in September. their energy and aggression.
If the educational and religious establishment baulked at this crude if practical justification for this barbaric sport, they took succour from perceived highbrow ethical benefits. The rules and moral codes of sport were, it was argued, a means through which boys could practise and learn the rules and moral codes of life. Football was in the vanguard of this crusade of ‘Muscular Christianity.’
Different public schools applied different football rules, but all played rudimentary hybrids of what we would recognise as rugby and association football. Crucially, there was common ground, so that compromises about rules could be agreed, allowing football to expand. The formation in 1857 of Sheffield FC, the world’s oldest surviving football club, is evidence of the metamorphosis from mob football to organised sport. Football in Huddersfield was less advanced, but an apparent setback to sporting participation in the town would ultimately kick- start organised football.
Next week, the birth of the Huddersfield Athletic Club.
The heritage site address is http://www.huddersfieldrlheritage. co.uk/index.html.