Football 100 years ago: Thursday football under way

This is the first of an occasional series of articles in which we look at what was happening in football one hundred years ago in the run up to the outbreak of the Great War.

In the early months of 1914, most people fortunately had no idea of what lay ahead later in the year. Their focus was rather more on how they could make the best use of their valuable spare time. The retail sector was a large employer in a town like Leamington, a medium-sized town in Warwickshire in the heart of England.

This is the first of an occasional series of articles in which we look at what was happening in football one hundred years ago in the run up to the outbreak of the Great War.

In the early months of 1914, most people fortunately had no idea of what lay ahead later in the year. Their focus was rather more on how they could make the best use of their valuable spare time. The retail sector was a large employer in a town like Leamington, a medium-sized town in Warwickshire in the heart of England.

Workers were expected to work all day on Saturday, but in compensation they were allowed Thursday afternoon off, ‘early closing day’ as it was called. There had been a number of attempts over the years to reduce the working week of shop workers and this was finally achieved with the Shops Act of 1911. Thursday was the most common afternoon for early closing, although in some towns it was a Wednesday.

With the new half day holiday established, there was a strong demand to have a chance to play competitive football and the ‘Thursday League’ was gathering greater momentum at the beginning of 1914. Most of the teams in the league were from the nearby city of Coventry, which was to become a centre of the British motor industry.

Some of them were works teams: Coventry Co-op, Coventry Butchers, Coventry Police and Coventry Trams. Others represented areas of the city such as Stoke Early Closing and Foleshill Early Closing. Te nearby towns of Nuneaton and Atherstone also entered teams. Leamington was represented by two teams: Leamington Spa and Leamington Park View.

The secretary of the Thursday League claimed that ‘wonderful’ progress was being made with Thursday football, particularly considering that the league had got off to a late start. However, he admitted that the early nights of January and February posed a real problem for the teams that were from outside Coventry, Atherstone and the two Leamington teams. They found it difficult to get to matches and complete them before darkness fell. I can’t be certain, but I assume that they made their way to games through a combination of train and bicycle, using the service from Leamington to Coventry.

The local newspaper, the Midland Daily Telegraph seemed very keen to promote Thursday football and had set up a challenge cup competition. The newspaper was warmly thanked at a meeting of the Thursday league for presenting what was described as a ‘handsome’ cup. In reply it was said that it would be sufficient reward if Thursday football, which had encountered difficulties in the past, continued to develop. It was felt that there would be even more success in the following season when an early start would be made to the programme of fixtures. Sadly, that never happened and many of the footballers would go on to enlist and to sacrifice their lives in the service of their country.

The Leamington Spa team did well in the challenge cup, reaching the semi-finals, but were then drawn away to the league leaders Hanson’s for a game scheduled for the end of February. Leamington Spa had already gone down 1-3 at home to them in an entertaining match at the end of January 1914. The standard of play must have been reasonably good because this match attracted a crowd of 300 at a time when many would have been at work. Having said, there was probably not that much else to do on a Thursday afternoon in a town like Leamington in 1914 and there would have been the attraction of seeing friends and workmates play.