Manchester’s football history has been rewritten with the discovery of what is believed to be the region’s oldest Association Football Club.

Previously it was believed that Turton FC, founded in 1871, was the oldest club in Lancashire, but researcher Gary James has discovered a long-forgotten side, Hulme Athenaeum, whose roots go all the way back to November 1863.

The club was founded more than a decade before it was previously thought there were any formally organised football clubs in Manchester – in the same year that the London FA was set up, 150 seasons ago.
Gary, who carried out his research at MMU’s Exercise and Sport Science department in Crewe, said: “The club was very much aimed at ordinary Mancunians, which was unusual for the time.”
Football’s public school roots

The findings of Gary’s research has been published in the latest edition of Sport in History in a paper titled: “The Emergence of an Association Football Culture in Manchester 1840-1884”

Gary has been actively researching this period for over twenty years. He uncovered the story of the club through extensive research at archives across the country.

He says that in some ways we now know more about the nine years of Hulme Athenaeum’s existence than we do about the formative years of Manchester City and United.

Because they were the only club in the area in the 1860s, Hulme Athenaeum were forced to travel to find opposition in Sheffield and elsewhere – and it was this position as trailblazers that may have ultimately led to their collapse in the early 1870s.

Gary said: “In the 1870s several prominent football clubs, most notably Turton, were developing in Lancashire and there was a very vibrant football culture, with lots of teams playing against each other, but in the 1860s that didn’t exist yet.

“With a lack of local competition Hulme couldn’t survive, and rugby remained the dominant sport in Manchester.”

Although their existence was short-lived, the side did contribute towards the growth of football culture in Manchester. Many Hulme members went on to help form the second club, Manchester Association FC, and remained involved in football via subsequent teams in Manchester.

And in the mid 1880s, one of the Hulme Athenaeum founders, John Nall, was a key figure in the development of the Manchester FA who made a huge difference to the growth of the game in the region.

Gary said: “It does help to explain Manchester’s interest in football – far from being a football desert in the 1860s the roots were there but it just took a little time to progress.”

As for Turton, the side previously known as the first in Lancashire, Gary adds: “Hulme’s story should not reduce the significance of Turton. Turton may not actually have been the first club, but they do remain very important pioneers in the development of the game.”

Gary James will be talking about the formation of Hulme Athenaeum and the early years of Manchester football at the National Football Museum on Friday 28th March at 1pm. The talk is free but tickets must be booked in advance. Details from:www.cheshire.mmu.ac.uk/sport-history/

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