THE
STORY OF
MAn UTD“ nEWTOn HEATH FIn ISHED
ROCK BOTTOM OF THE TABLE
I n THEIR FIRST SEASOn ”
Above Welsh
winger Billy
Meredith (left,
against Queen’s
Park Rangers in
the 1908
Charity Shield)
was the game’s
first superstar
Left top Action
from the first-
ever match at
Old Trafford, 19
February 1910
Left bottom
The Newton
Heath team
in 1892he club that was to become one of the biggest and
most successful in the world started life inauspiciously
in 1878 as Newton Heath LYR (Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway). Their original aim was no loftier than providing
railway workers with some exercise and entertainment
at the end of a hard day’s labour. At that time, in parts
of the newly industrialised Manchester, average life
expectancy was as little as 35 ; many people’s everyday
lives consisted of work and drink, and not much else. As
it is now, so it was then – the managerial class weren’t
acting out of altruism when they started Newton Heath
so much as trying to get a few more productive years
out of their workforce.
Although the newly formed club did play matches,
they were mostly against other ‘railway’ teams and as there was no
league or formal structure to the sport at that time, results have not
been recorded, or only sporadically in local newspapers. It wasn’t
until 1892 that Newton Heath (by then they had dropped the ‘LYR’,
though in truth the majority of their players were still employed by
the railway) first entered the League. By then it had already been
running for five seasons, and for the 1892-93 season it was expanded
to two divisions to accommodate growing interest in the sport.
Newton Heath’s debut league match, on 3 September 1892, was
at Blackburn Rovers’ famous Ewood Park ground, a tough opener
against one of the top teams of the day who had already won the FA
Cup five times by then. Rovers also boasted in Jack Southworth an
England international who scored 97 goals in 108 games for his club.
Predictably, Newton Heath lost 4-3, although they at least gave a
good account of themselves after conceding three goals in the first
ten minutes. They suffered another, heavier, 4-0 defeat to Rovers in
the first round of the FA Cup.
Newton Heath were not, at that stage, quite ready for League
football, and won only six of their 30 matches that season (a further
six were drawn). However, their first home match was a notable
success: they beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 10-1. Wanderers were
a good side who would go on to win the FA Cup that season, but they
were outclassed on the day, with a hat-trick from the club’s first great
goalscorer, Bob Donaldson.T
Other successes were few and far between though, and Newton
Heath finished rock bottom of the table in their first season, five
points adrift of Accrington. No rules had been set in place regarding
relegation and promotion so it was decided that the bottom three
clubs in the First Division would play off against the top three in the
Second Division. That meant a match against Small Heath (later to
become Birmingham City), which resulted in a 1-1 draw. The replay
went in Newton Heath’s favour, 5-2, thus securing their place in the
top flight for their second season. Interestingly the other two bottom-
three clubs, Accrington and Notts County, both lost their play-offs, to
Sheffield United and Darwen respectively, and were relegated.
Off the pitch, there were problems too. LYR told the club that they
would have to leave the North Road ground – not in itself bad news as
it was not much of a ground, lacking even changing facilities (the
players usually trudged off to the Three Crowns pub some half a mile
away to get changed), but it meant leaving behind two stands for
spectators that the club had bought. Attempts to move the stands
ended in failure, so they had to be left behind.
That first season was to prove a short-lived respite for Newton
Heath. The following season they again finished bottom of the table,
and this time there was no play-off (or test match as they were then
called) to save them. They went down to the Second Division, and
would spend the following 12 seasons there. The most notable event
of those otherwise unremarkable 12 years came in 1902 when local10 The Story of Man Utd FourFourTwo.com