Category Archives: Hulme Athenaeum

Manchester’s Football origins

As we now build up to the first all-Manchester FA Cup final and at a time when Manchester will, regardless of who wins, sweep up all the major domestic trophies, I think it’s worth pausing to think about the city’s earliest clubs. I’ve done lots of research over the years on Manchester’s football origins and published both books and articles about it. Some of these are free to download. So why not take a look at the following article which briefly tells the story of Hulme Athenaeum – the earliest known association football club in Manchester (and Lancashire for that matter!):

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2013.873075

The article also talks about other Manchester clubs, most significantly Manchester AFC who paved the way for City & United.

Worth noting the stuff about John Nall – the Hulme secretary and a founder of Manchester AFC. That man is often forgotten but he remained involved with football from Hulme’s formation through to his death in the late 1890s. He was present at several key moments in the formative years of Manchester City and was a key figure behind the Manchester FA. His story needs to be remembered.

Some have suggested that Hulme played rugby not football and it is fair to say that as the rules of football were developing there were many variations across the country. However, both Nall and others I’ve researched believed they were playing association football and his direct and active involvement with both the Manchester FA & the Lancashire FA proves he knew what ‘football’ was. Hulme played association football.

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Manchester’s Football Origins

For well over a century football has been a crucial and popular aspect of Mancunian life. It’s been part of the city’s identity. So for today’s piece I’m taking a look at football’s early years. Here is a 1800 word overview of the major Manchester clubs that existed before today’s giants, followed by the origins of Newton Heath and St. Mark’s, who both played their earliest known games in November 1880.

This article is available to subscribers to my site.

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Video Talk on History of Football in Manchester

I didn’t realise this was available but here’s film of a talk plus Q&A I did about the early history of football in Manchester. It’s of interest to anyone keen on the origins of football or any of the Manchester clubs… Indeed the social history of Manchester. It lasts about 55 minutes and was part of the promotional work connected with my book ‘The Emergence of Footballing Cultures: Manchester 1840-1919’, published by Manchester University Press.

Here’s the recording:

If you are interested in the book then that can be bought direct from Manchester University Press or via usual retailers, such as Amazon:

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About Dr Gary James

An Audio Interview About Manchester’s Early Football History

I did several interviews about Manchester’s early football history a few years back. Most of these seemed to revolve around the story of Hulme Athenaeum. This is one of those interviews which I hope subscribers will be interested in. Sadly, I cannot recognise which radio station I did this interview for, nor can I find the exact date I did it (I’m guessing it was about 2015).

I hope subscribers enjoy it. If you do I’ll post more like this over the coming months. I’ve lots of interviews (of me and by me interviewing fans, players, managers etc.) which I’d like subscribers to listen to – if they enjoy them of course!

Anyway, here goes…

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The origins debate – how soccer triumphed over other forms of team sports in Manchester

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Manchester’s Footballing Pioneers, 1863–1904: A Collective Biography

ABSTRACT: Association football had become a prominent part of Manchester’s sporting landscape by 1904 when Manchester achieved its first national success. Its journey had been difficult, relying on the efforts of several key individuals whose relentless determination to widen the sport’s participation ensured the game succeeded. This paper provides an analysis of three pioneering figures, John Nall, Fitzroy Norris, and Joshua Parlby, who took the game from its formalized inception in the region through to its first national successes, considering their class, experience, shared history, and connections, while analyzing what these narratives add to the wider origins of football debate. The author concludes that football’s emergence depended primarily on the activities of key individuals from varying backgrounds who provided the energy, enthusiasm, and organizational structures necessary, while relying on cross-class connections, to establish the game within a region.

If you would like to read the full article and other pieces like this then please subscribe below. It works out about £1.67 a month if you take out an annual subscription (£20 per year) or £3 a month if you’d like to sign up for a month at a time. Each subscriber gets full access to the 100+ articles posted so far and the hundreds scheduled to be posted in the coming weeks.

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The Emergence of an Association Football Culture in Manchester 1840–1884

Over the coming weeks I’ll be posting my academic articles here for subscribers to my blog. In the meantime, here’s a link to one, first published in 2014, that is currently free to access on the publisher’s website:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2013.873075?src=recsys