NEWTON HEATH FC

On this day, 26th April 1902, heavily in debt, Second Division side, Newton Heath FC, was saved, when new investment came their way. As part of a fresh start they decided to make a few changes - their colours were changed from gold and green to red and white and their name became......Manchester United! 

Newton Heath is an area of Manchester, England, 2.8 miles (4.5 km) north-east of Manchester city centre and with a population of 9,883. Historically part of Lancashire, Newton was formerly a farming area, but adopted the factory system following the Industrial Revolution. The principal industry in the area became engineering, although many were employed in the mining and textiles industries in the thriving areas of Clayton Vale and Bradford.

The Newton Heath settlement included what is now Miles Platting and it stretched to Failsworth. It was bounded by brooks and rivers on all four sides – the River Medlock, Moston Brook, Newton Brook and Shooters Brook. With the creation of Miles Platting the remainder of Newton became known as Newton Heath.

 

The parish was the birthplace of the Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club, which was established in 1878 and later became Manchester United. The club began life as a football team formed by Frederick Attock, a Liverpudlian, who was a superintendent engineer of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR). The team played on a pitch at North Road, and were initially kitted in green and gold jerseys. 

On 20 November 1880, they competed in their first recorded match; wearing the colours of the railway company – green and gold – they were defeated 6–0 by Bolton Wanderers reserve team.

Little suspecting the impact they were about to have on the national, even global game, the workers in the railway yard at Newton Heath indulged their passion for association football with games against other departments of the LYR or other railway companies. 

By 1888, the club had become a founding member of The Combination, a regional football league. Following the league's dissolution after only one season, Newton Heath joined the newly formed Football Alliance, which ran for three seasons before being merged with The Football League. This resulted in the club starting the 1892–93 season in the First Division, by which time it had become independent of the railway company and dropped the "LYR" from its name. After two seasons, the club was relegated to the Second Division. (Indeed, when the Football League was formed in 1888, Newton Heath did not consider themselves good enough to become founder members alongside the likes of Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End. They waited instead until 1892 to make their entrance.)

In January 1902, with debts of £2,670 – equivalent to £300,000 in 2022 – the club was served with a winding up order. Captain Harry Stafford found four local businessmen, including John Henry Davies (who became club president), each willing to invest £500 in return for a direct interest in running the club and who subsequently changed the name on 24 April 1902 and so Manchester United was officially born. Under Ernest Mangnall, who assumed managerial duties in 1903, the team finished as Second Division runners-up in 1906 and secured promotion to the First Division, which they won in 1908 – the club's first league title. The following season began with victory in the first ever Charity Shield and ended with the club's first FA Cup title. Manchester United won the First Division for the second time in 1911, but at the end of the following season, Mangnall left the club to join Manchester City!!

Financial problems plagued Newton Heath, and by the start of the twentieth century it seemed they were destined for extinction. The club was saved, however, by a local brewery owner, John Henry Davies. Legend has it that he learned of the club's plight after he found a dog belonging to Newton Heath captain, Harry Stafford.

Davies decided to invest in Newton Heath, in return for some interest in running it. This led to a change of name and, after several alternatives including Manchester Central and Manchester Celtic were rejected, Manchester United was born in April/May 1902.

By 1892, United had been admitted to the Football League. The club remained in the area until 1893, but then it moved to new premises at Bank Street in nearby Clayton. The name was then changed to Manchester United Football Club in 1902.

The area has produced a number of notable footballers who has distinguished careers in both the national and international game. Jimmy Collins played for Newton Heath FC, George Lydon, Nobby Lawton, Cyril Barlow, Harold Hardman, played for United; Charlie Harrison played for the Bolton Wanderers. Ron Staniforth who played in the 1954 FIFA World Cup in Switzerland, was born in the town and went on to play 107 games for Sheffield Wednesday. More recently, former MU footballer Ronnie Wallwork and Blackpool FC's Nathan Eccleston, all came from Newton Heath. Newton Heath FC's biggest successes were its election to the First Division on its expansion in 1892 and winning the Lancashire Cup in 1898.

In 1922, three years after the resumption of football following the First World War, the club was relegated to the Second Division, where it remained until regaining promotion in 1925. Relegated again in 1931, Manchester United became a yo-yo, achieving its all-time lowest position of 20th place in the Second Division in 1934. Following the death of principal benefactor John Henry Davies in October 1927, the club's finances deteriorated to the extent that Manchester United would likely have gone bankrupt had it not been for James W Gibson who, in December 1931, invested £2,000 and assumed control of the club. In the 1938-9 season, the last year of football before the Second World War, the club finished 14th in the First Division. Post war history? I hope you know...my first memory of MU was the Munich Air disaster 

and the revival, being able to watch the 1957 FA Cup Final....Aston Villa's Peter MacParland and so on.