Football Amongst Railway Workers on the GCR (1905-06, 06-07 seasons)

Sports were one of things that socially drew together late 19^th and early 20^th century railway workers. However, in the late 19^th century cricket was the sport of choice for many individuals, as testified by the vast swathes of cricket scores found from 1881 onwards in the London and South Western Railway’s Staff Magazine, the South Western Gazette.[1] By comparison, football was still in its infancy, and while there were a great many large clubs in existence in by the early 20^th century,[2] the formation of teams at grassroots level was still prolific. With highly inter-connected organisations, cooperative working and a sense of loyalty to railway Companies, it isn’t surprising that railway workers began to form teams and leagues of their own. Thus, this Blog post is about football amongst Great Central Railway employees.

Cricket was seemingly the sport of choice for many employees of the Great Central Railway (GCR) in 1905, and the first edition of the company’s staff magazine, the Great Central Railway Journal, detailed the matches that the Nottingham, Sheffield and Leicester Great Central cricket clubs played. Interestingly, many of these matches were against teams from other railway companies, revealing that inter-railway rivalry spread beyond just the speed of trains, the quality of the service or the shine of railway worker’s buttons. In May 1905 the Nottingham Club lost by 120 runs to 76 against the Nottingham Locomotive Department of the Midland Railway. However, they won against the Great Northern Railway’s Nottingham clerks by 82 runs to 45. The Leicester GCR team beat some London and North Western Railway men by 66 runs to 23. Furthermore, in addition to the inter-company games, the GCR cricket clubs also played teams from surrounding villages and groups.[3]

Yet, since the late 19^th century, football had become a far more popular sport and the April 1906 edition of the Journal gave reports of Football matches that were occurring amongst GCR railwaymen. The team from Ardwick Station beat their colleagues from Openshaw, 3-0. The Doncaster District Superintendent’s Office (DSO) team beat Liverpool DSO staff members by four goals to none. Lastly, Blyton Station staff stunned the Sheffield Bridgehouses Goods Accounts Clerks by inflicting on them a 13-0 defeat.[4] This was unsurprising though, as the Blyton team was beaten only once in the 1905-06 season.[5] With footballing activity at a high level, it is interesting to note that the May 1906 edition of the GCRJ stated that there were not only teams amongst the GCR staff, but there were clubs also.[6]Indeed, a later correspondent cited that teams and clubs were established at Doncaster DSO, Hexthorpe, Mexborough, Wombwell, Stairfoot and Barnsley Goods Depot.[7] As a community of footballers, their undoubted crowning achievement of the 1905-06 season was that a united GCR team won the Hampstead and District League West London Charity Cup.[8]

In the May 1906 edition of the GCJ there was a description of the Doncaster DSO’s team that gave details of the nature of a GCR football team. It seems that its formation was a reflection of the community spirit that existed amongst the men. The team was formed because of ‘a desire on the part of some of the members of the office to meet in friendly games with the staff in the other district offices of the company.’ While the article didn’t specify a date of formation, it suggested that the team, while new, was one of the more established clubs. Growing from a small start it had become ‘a team capable of meeting many of the amateur teams in the district.’ Its star players were the Captain, Mr Storer, and the Vice-Captain, Mr Fennell, two players who were ‘capable of leading the team onto victory.’[9]

Amongst all the GCR teams the Blyton Station team stood out as being a well-established (and not to mention formidable),[10] as they were already partaking in a local league.[11] Thus, in the April 1906 edition of the GCRJ a Mr A.E. Bales, of the company’s Carriage and Wagon Workshops at Gorton, had a letter published suggesting that a company league be started. On the basis of the Blyton example he posited that ‘a league could be formed composed of employees from the GCR system.’ He suggested establishing more than one league, to be arranged in divisions, as well as a cup competition for the whole of the system. He felt that the cost would low and welcomed suggestions from ‘admirers of the winter pastime.’[12] This, therefore, would move the activities of footballers in the company to a more advanced phase of organisational development.

Many of the views were positive. E. Kimmery of the Blyton team offered his support and the use of a ground for teams that did not have their own.[13] He was supported by ‘W.A’[14] and a ‘would be football team’ from an unknown location, who suggested that it was ‘about time something was being definitely decided upon.’ They hoped that a league could be formed by the start of the next season.[15] ‘J.S.S.,’ ‘A.K.D.’ and ‘H.O.’ from Liverpool supported the idea, but raised the point that because of the size of the GCR the distances some teams would have to travel to play matches would be impractical. As an alternative they suggested two or more leagues in the districts, with occasional test matches being played between teams that constituted of the best players from both. They also suggested a central organisation to coordinate the leagues which would be based at Sheffield.[16] Subsequently, Kimmery took it upon himself to marshal the organisation of the league, writing to twenty-two stations about the proposals.[17]

Unfortunately, Kimmery reported in the November issue of the GCRJ that of the twenty two stations that he had written to, only four had replied. Subsequently, the idea was ‘to rest for the present time.’ However, he was willing to fix up friendly matches for Blyton with any GCR team.[18] Blyton in the 1906-07 season continued to be on top form, beating Chapeltown 5-1 on November 18^th and the Hull Kingston Street team 11-0 on December 8^th.[19]

Unfortunately, my research hasn’t taken me far enough to establish whether a football league was eventually formed in the 1907-08 season or beyond. However, it is hoped that this will be discovered soon. What this case study suggests is that football by the early twentieth was an increasingly popular pastime and that communities were arranging more than just individual matches. Cricket had dominated as the sport of choice in the 1900s. However, presumably because of the increased free time that railway employees had due to legislation that limited their working hours, football, a sport that was far more accessible and shorter in duration, quickly became popular amongst them.

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[1] The National Archives [TNA], ZPER 11/5, The South Western Gazette, June 1885, p.8

[2] TNA, ZPER 16/2, Great Eastern Railway Magazine, March 1912, p.73-74

[3] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, July 1906, p.7

[4] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, April 1906, p.240

[5] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, January 1907, p.185

[6] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, May 1906, p.275

[7] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, July 1906, p.23

[8] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, March 1907, p.238

[9]TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, May 1906, p.268

[10] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, April 1906, p.247

[11] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, May 1906, p.275

[12] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, May 1906, p.275

[13] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, May 1906, p.275

[14] TNA, ZPER 18/1, The Great Central Railway Journal, June 1906, p.298

[15] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, July 1906, p.23

[16] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, August 1906, p.54

[17] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, November 1906, p.134

[18] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, November 1906, p.134

[19] TNA, ZPER 18/2, The Great Central Railway Journal, February 1907, p.234

"A Typical Hotspur Crowd" - The Great Eastern Railway's Football Arrangements - 1912

In my work on the London and South Western Railway I frequently come across references to how it managed the movement of thousands of passengers to race courses such as Kempton, Hurst Park and Sandown. However, I have never encountered anything related to the transportation of football fans, presumably as this was only a small proportion of its traffic. While having a leisurely comb through the pages of The Great Eastern Railway Magazine (GERM) from 1912, I found an article that detailed how that company moved fans to and from league games.

The Great Eastern Railway’s (GER) territory was not small. Its trains ran out of Liverpool Street Station to most of East Anglia and it also served the north east London suburban district. However, because of emergent nature of the football league it only served a handful of major clubs. These were Tottenham Hotspur, Clapton Orient, which is now known as Leyton Orient, Woolwich Arsenal, well, I’ll let you guess their current name, Leyton, West Ham, Southend and Norwich City. Of these clubs it was Tottenham that drew the biggest crowds, and the article suggested that for first fixture of the season, ‘with, say, Newcastle United, or the North Londoner’s neighbours and keen rivals, Woolwich Arsenal’ the number of passengers attending would be around 40,000. On cup-tie days this number was exceeded. Thus, the majority of the article focussed on the movement of fans to and from White Hart Lane.

Being the only form of mass-transportation in Britain, the conveyance of away fans to the ground was a huge logistical effort. Thus, the company had to lay-on “special trains” to accommodate them. Railway managers not only had to take into account the extra locomotives and carriages required, but also had to operate these services around the regularly scheduled ones. The process of arranging these trains began when GER managers met with club officials a few weeks before match. By using figures from previous games they ‘computed’ how many fans could be expected at the game and by what routes they would travel. Subsequently, the number of special trains required would be worked out.

The next stage was for the company’s Chief Rolling Stock inspector to be consulted. He would arrange for the required carriages ‘that were lying idle at one or other of the suburban sidings’ to be placed at the disposal of the running department who would make them up into trains. A close inspection of the working time table was then undertaken and the arrival and departure times from Liverpool Street Station, and the paths the trains would take, were then worked out. All the company’s staff along the route of these trains, the stationmasters, guards and signalmen, were then appraised of the trains’ times. Lastly, at the station extra inspectors, ticket collectors and police were employed on the day to handle the swathes of fans.

Ticketing for these matches also took on a ‘special’ character. In the case of Tottenham games, cheap tickets were issued to what the GERM referred to as ‘Park’ Station, which I now suspect is ‘White Hart Lane Station.’ These tickets were issued on match days from Hertford, Ware, St Margarets, Ryde House and ‘all points between Ponder’s end and Broxbourne.’ In the Magazine’s opinion the availability of cheap tickets was ‘entirely justified’ as it drew crowds to the football from far and wide. However, it wasn’t just cheap tickets that were used to entice fans to the games, and the advertising department was also ‘rendered busy’ producing ‘placards, handbills and booklets etc.’ Indeed, special tickets were offered for Leyton and Norwich games also. In the latter case, the club also cooperated with the railway company to offer reduced-rate fares from surrounding stations. The large number of people patronising the trains was evidence that the ‘“sons of the soil” appreciate and support high class football with enthusiasm only equalled by their town-bred brethren.’

It was after all these plans were put in place that the real action began, and the second half of the GERM gives a rather poetic account of the melee that occurred on a Tottenham match day. On the platform at Liverpool Street Station the fans crowded waiting for the “White Hart Lane Special.” Even before the train came to a standstill they crowded in with ‘a little horseplay – a little pushing perhaps – but more from sheer exuberance of spirits than necessity,’ filling the trains beyond capacity and converting every compartment ‘pro tem into a smoker.’ Some trains went direct from Liverpool Street to White Hart Lane. However, some were dispatched half full, picking up fans on the way.

The activities of the fans on the trains would not seem a million miles away from the antics of today’s supporters; ‘a snatch of a song…a comic chorus, intermingle with the loud jests and banter of the noisy contingent.’ Yet, not everyone was as loud and ‘with difficulty’ the quieter element settled down to ‘talk football.’ Indeed, the topics of conversation are more than familiar to us today; ‘the chances of rival teams are carefully weighed, individual players criticized or praised’ and the prices of the latest editions to the transfer list were ‘debated as eagerly as stockbrokers might discuss the variation in “home rails”’

After a journey of half an hour the extra staff at White Hart Lane Station was ready. The trains pulled up and the passengers alighted, ‘each individual anxious to be the first to gain some coveted point of vantage on the stands or terraces.’ Hurriedly, they travelled downstairs where their tickets were collected from them in an expeditious manner and the platform was cleared in the ‘space of about two minutes.’ The now empty train steamed on, with another coming up behind it. The last special trains arrived just before kick-off.

‘It has been asserted by close observers’ the article went on ‘that the fortunes of the home team can be gauged by the demeanour of the crowd upon its return.’ With the final whistle blown the first arrivals from the ground began to appear at the station. Before entering they were taken in hand by ‘mounted patrols of the Metropolitan Police’ who lined them up in a queue at the entrance. They were let into the station, as one “Geordie Tripper” described it, “like t’animals into t’ark – two by two.” If one of the ordinary trains was not due a waiting ‘special’ would be brought into the platform. As soon as enough passengers to fill the train had passed through the gates they were shut, and those left outside had to await the next train. The virtue of this arrangement, which the GERM stated was unique, was that in the entire time that it had been in operation there had not been a single accident.

It seems that the GER particularly impressed observers with the speed with which they dispatched the fans after the games. Amongst the regularly scheduled services, the special trains were brought in at five minute intervals. Should a train not be available the stationmaster would message Enfield Station who would send another empty one from Liverpool Street. The result of so many trains arriving in a short space of time was that the company could clear crowds of seven or eight thousand in 35 minutes. Should the match be a cup-tie, between fifteen to seventeen thousand fans were apparently transported from White Hart Lane in just under an hour, a fact made even more impressive as this was from only one platform.

Indeed, this arrangement was not limited to the Tottenham crowds, and at Woolwich Arsenal, West Ham, Clapton Orient and Leyton, the same arrangements were operated. Overall, it seems that by 1912 the GER had honed their skills of organisation, advertising and ticketing to get the maximum return out of the football fans, but at limited cost to the company.

All information Taken from: The National Archives [TNA], ZPER 16/2, Great Eastern Railway Magazine, March 1912, p.73-74, Original article written by George A. Fisher, Secretary's Department.