Early History of Manchester United
There exists a song about the town of Manchester written by Ewan MacColl in the early 1960s which is called “Dirty Old Town”, the now anthem of Manchester.
Heard a siren call from across the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the Salford wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
The chorus of this song show reflects pretty well the living circumstance of the workers in Manchester in 1878, the year of birth of ManUtd.
On an unoccupied land at the North Road in North Manchester Business park between new pavilions of commerce the team’s birth place can be found. Yet under a complete different name Newton Heath LYR (Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway) , which is not surprising because nearly every English football team was named differently in first place. As the club’s name suggests, the team was a factory team of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s Newton Heath (urban area of Manchester) carriage works.
The company saw football as a moral guide for the workers who had to work under harsh conditions and were affected by the evils of Victorian Society, such as drinking and masturbation. Team sports were seen as a muscular activity to it, therefore the LYR established a football team.
The playing conditions cannot be compared to today’s one, the surface on which the team played was for most of the years ankle deep in mud, there exist no team roster and it is not known who the coach was and how the first games against other factory teams ended however the team had already an official kit coloured in green and yellow.
The oldest surviving piece of the ManUtd is the fixture list of season 1882/83, this season was the first team the team reached the final of the local Manchester and District Challenge Cup but lost. Following this, they outstripped their opponents the next year by winning several times the cup, not surprising therefore that they wanted to become bigger.
In 1891 club official used their little financial resources to
Heard a siren call from across the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the Salford wind
Dirty old town
Dirty old town
The chorus of this song show reflects pretty well the living circumstance of the workers in Manchester in 1878, the year of birth of ManUtd.
On an unoccupied land at the North Road in North Manchester Business park between new pavilions of commerce the team’s birth place can be found. Yet under a complete different name Newton Heath LYR (Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway) , which is not surprising because nearly every English football team was named differently in first place. As the club’s name suggests, the team was a factory team of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway’s Newton Heath (urban area of Manchester) carriage works.
The company saw football as a moral guide for the workers who had to work under harsh conditions and were affected by the evils of Victorian Society, such as drinking and masturbation. Team sports were seen as a muscular activity to it, therefore the LYR established a football team.
The playing conditions cannot be compared to today’s one, the surface on which the team played was for most of the years ankle deep in mud, there exist no team roster and it is not known who the coach was and how the first games against other factory teams ended however the team had already an official kit coloured in green and yellow.
The oldest surviving piece of the ManUtd is the fixture list of season 1882/83, this season was the first team the team reached the final of the local Manchester and District Challenge Cup but lost. Following this, they outstripped their opponents the next year by winning several times the cup, not surprising therefore that they wanted to become bigger.
In 1891 club official used their little financial resources to