Post by Jon on Sept 26, 2011 18:08:06 GMT
Landing the time machine in 1877, we find that Torquay seems to have fallen under the spell of the men with funny-shaped balls.
We see the formation of what was possibly Torquay’s first rugby football club and we find the athletic club that the current rugby club claims as part of its history starting to play rugby. We also find a very bizarre “report” of a soccer game at Paignton.
The Torquay Times of 13 October 1877 records the formation of “Torquay and South Devon Football Club”. Note that the club is backed by the great and the good of Victorian Torquay – including a Cary and a Kitson:
The same paper records that the Torquay Athletic Club was active at Daddyhole Plain, but at athletics rather than football:
On Wednesday 28 November 1877, the “athletes” put together a rugby football team to challenge the rugby football club – with the rugby football club running out comfortable winners by a goal and five tries to nil. It is probable, going by the comments in TARFC’s “fiftieth anniversary history”, that this was the first football game played by the athletes – although it is interesting that they now seem to be referred to as Torquay Athletic and Football Club.
And now for that infamous soccer match report from the Torquay Times of 24 November 1877:
It isn’t really much of a match report, is it? We are not told who the two teams were or what the score was. What we do get is a lecture on what a barbaric sport association football is - possibly leaving the reader to conclude that rugby is a safer or more civilised pastime.
This conclusion seems to be the absolute opposite to the view reached by just about every football writer of the time. The reason that football was such a minority sport in the mid nineteenth century was that it was so barbaric. Although little football was played, broken limbs were a regular occurrence and deaths not too unusual. It is commonly accepted that the Football Association worked hard to outlaw barbaric behaviour so that football could become as popular in the winter as cricket was in the summer. The clubs that stuck with the rugby code were generally perceived as trying to cling on to at least some of the old barbaric practices.
So why would the Torquay Times take a view so out of kilter with the mainstream?
An innocent explanation would be that the reporter actually did witness a particularly barbaric game of association football (Paignton people are quite rough, aren’t they?) and genuinely believed that what he saw was typical of the game as played under the association code.
A more cynical view might be that the “Torquay establishment” were behind the rugby code and saw an opportunity to head off any competition from a rival code by planting a tall story leading people to believe (wrongly) that rugby was the more civilised code.
That was my first thought and when I bounced the contents of the infamous Paignton association report off a very erudite friend of mine over a very large meal in Shrewsbury, he did come up unprompted with exactly the same thought – although his judgment may have been clouded by the excruciating pain he was suffering from a badly sprained ankle.
Whatever the truth of the matter, rugby was to have a pretty clear run in Torquay over the next ten years.
We see the formation of what was possibly Torquay’s first rugby football club and we find the athletic club that the current rugby club claims as part of its history starting to play rugby. We also find a very bizarre “report” of a soccer game at Paignton.
The Torquay Times of 13 October 1877 records the formation of “Torquay and South Devon Football Club”. Note that the club is backed by the great and the good of Victorian Torquay – including a Cary and a Kitson:
The same paper records that the Torquay Athletic Club was active at Daddyhole Plain, but at athletics rather than football:
On Wednesday 28 November 1877, the “athletes” put together a rugby football team to challenge the rugby football club – with the rugby football club running out comfortable winners by a goal and five tries to nil. It is probable, going by the comments in TARFC’s “fiftieth anniversary history”, that this was the first football game played by the athletes – although it is interesting that they now seem to be referred to as Torquay Athletic and Football Club.
And now for that infamous soccer match report from the Torquay Times of 24 November 1877:
It isn’t really much of a match report, is it? We are not told who the two teams were or what the score was. What we do get is a lecture on what a barbaric sport association football is - possibly leaving the reader to conclude that rugby is a safer or more civilised pastime.
This conclusion seems to be the absolute opposite to the view reached by just about every football writer of the time. The reason that football was such a minority sport in the mid nineteenth century was that it was so barbaric. Although little football was played, broken limbs were a regular occurrence and deaths not too unusual. It is commonly accepted that the Football Association worked hard to outlaw barbaric behaviour so that football could become as popular in the winter as cricket was in the summer. The clubs that stuck with the rugby code were generally perceived as trying to cling on to at least some of the old barbaric practices.
So why would the Torquay Times take a view so out of kilter with the mainstream?
An innocent explanation would be that the reporter actually did witness a particularly barbaric game of association football (Paignton people are quite rough, aren’t they?) and genuinely believed that what he saw was typical of the game as played under the association code.
A more cynical view might be that the “Torquay establishment” were behind the rugby code and saw an opportunity to head off any competition from a rival code by planting a tall story leading people to believe (wrongly) that rugby was the more civilised code.
That was my first thought and when I bounced the contents of the infamous Paignton association report off a very erudite friend of mine over a very large meal in Shrewsbury, he did come up unprompted with exactly the same thought – although his judgment may have been clouded by the excruciating pain he was suffering from a badly sprained ankle.
Whatever the truth of the matter, rugby was to have a pretty clear run in Torquay over the next ten years.
Probably just me of course.....
