UMIST
Probably few readers will have seen the original document I produced in 1978 identifying the aims and objectives of the British sports history bibliography project. In brief, it described my intention to produce for the sports historian, a series of publications listing all the various primary and secondary sources available for their research. Originally, there were plans to publish around fourteen separate guides and listings. The overall aim has remained the same although the nature and scope of the publications has changed. This has been partly to do with cost (economy of scale having forced me into grouping some works which for the convenience of the end user were intended originally as separate volumes eg the bibliography of secondary works as National, Local and Biographical studies) and partly to do with the changing technology over that time (now with the availability of CD-ROM, World Wide Web, etc). For almost the first decade of the project nothing was published although in the early 1980s a few small scale publications/typescripts found their way to the printers. This included listings of recently completed theses on the history of sport, foreign theses on the history of British sport and theses in progress. These were soon followed by Sport: A Guide to Historical Sources in the UK (London: The Sports Council). With the launch of the British Journal of Sports History in 1984, I started what became the annual bibliography of publications on the history of sport and an abstracting service (which lasted three years but ceased when the British Journal of Sport History became the International Journal of the History of Sport). These publications were, however, only sub-sets of the much grander plan to create three large volumes discussing source materials in general and documenting all printed primary and secondary sources on British sports history.
Having now published the first volume in the series History of Sport: A Guide to the Literature and Sources of Information in 1994, volume 2 - Sport in Britain: A Bibliography of Historical Publications, 1800-1988 in 1991, you may be asking when volume 3, a bibliography of published primary sources, is due to appear. The answer is within a matter of months, but unfortunately, no longer in the same format. The problem has been that a bibliography of published primary sources proved too big a project for me as a one man band to finance and there were no publishers willing to take on board such a large and expensive volume to produce with limited sales potential. However, rather than leaving all of this information to lie fallow I took advantage of publishing a select list of 19th century sporting books in the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. The plan is to publish other specific sets of primary source information as specialist indexes based around particular sources of information. The first of these, Index to Sporting Manuscripts in the UK which indexes sporting manuscripts such as minute books and accounts, held in public and private repositories around the country, was published last year. Other volumes planned are an index to select 19th century sporting magazines and a listing of three dimensional artifacts in public and private collections throughout the UK, providing a resource for the researcher and curator wishing to mount an exhibition on some aspect of sports history.
Related publications, not foreseen in the early days have also emerged out of the project - The Internet as a Resource for the Sports Historian (Frodsham: Sports History Publishing, 1995) and due for publication this year Sport in Britain: A Chronology of Some of the Most Significant Achievements,, Developments, Events and Landmarks. This is a list of dates, backed up with basic facts and figures, associated with the foundation of certain governing bodies of sport, individual clubs and events, inaugurations of league and cup competitions, record achievements and landmarks, significant rule changes and the invention of important new items of equipment, title wins, opening of new venues and facilities, etc providing a potted history of sport in Britain. The intention is that as a computerised database (which it already is) it will be publicly searchable on a number of fields such as date, sport and using key words. In CD-ROM and/or World Wide Web version it will also be possible to search beyond the basic factual information to examine digitised versions of the original documents and video clippage.
The large number of addenda (both pre and post 1988) that have been discovered by the author since the publication of Sport in Britain: A Bibliography of Historical Publications, 1800-1988 are to be published in a new edition due out in early 1997. The result of the extended research and the increased annual number of publications is that this bibliography is double the size of the first edition published only six years ago.
The final stage of the (now 22 year old project) is to put together, in one single source, all the different information collected in an easily searchable computerised database, accessible via Internet and in CD-ROM format. It is not envisaged that this will be available before the turn of the century, that is of course, unless financial support is forthcoming and additional human resource can be employed on the project. Certainly the technology is already in place. All that is required is for some additional data input and keywording of entries.
In his article, `Myth and Reality in the 1895 Rugby Split', Tony Collins has included an illustration of the Roses match of 1893. I would like to add some comments about the picture.
The picture was painted by W. B. Wollen (1857-1936), a sporting and military artist. It is signed by him and dated 1895. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895. In 1957, Yorkshire played Northumberland at Gosforth. Members of the Yorkshire committee discovered the picture in a window of a second hand shop and purchased it. Having no official headquarters the Yorkshire RU decided to hang it in the club house of the Otley club. It remained there until the 1960's, when the Yorkshire RU requested the R.F.U. to take care of the picture. It has remained at Twickenham ever since. However it continues to be the property of the Yorkshire RU
At first sight it appears to be a straightforward picture of a Roses Rugby match. But on further consideration there are some peculiar features. Tim Auty and Robert Gate, who are very knowledgeable about Yorkshire Rugby in the 19th Century, have identified 11 of the players in the picture as well as 4 important spectators lining the railings at the right of the picture, the Referee and the Linesman. Peculiarly two of the players identified did not take part in the match. These are A. Barraclough (Manningham) making the overhead pass and T. H. Dobson (Bradford) the player on the extreme right. The referee is identified as Rowland Hill, at the time the Hon, Secretary of the R.F.U., but the newspaper reports give the referee as Mr. T. Potts of Durham. Yorkshire and Lancashire played alternate years home and away, Yorkshire playing at home in 1891, 1893 and 1895. In the autumn of 1895 most of the players portrayed had departed with their clubs to the Northern R.F.U. The players identified fit the 1893 match better than the 1891 match. However, with the errors listed above and the weather conditions shown being good, when in fact the pitch was like a quagmire, it is probably best to describe the picture as being based on the l893 match rather than of the 1893 match. Presumably after making sketches of the game, the artist completed the canvas in his studio using photographs to paint the faces of the players. Presumably he also painted in those who were not present at the request of the patron.
The other problem concerns the `ghosts'. These are figures which were painted out by the artist but came through again over the years. When the picture was first displayed in the Otley club house a member suggested jocularly that the players painted out had gone over to the Northern R.F.U.
Unfortunately, over the years, this remark, made in jest, has come to be accepted as the truth. I think it most unlikely. An examination of the R.F.U. minutes shows that no player was declared a professional between 25th November, the date of the match, and August 1895 when the Northern R.F.U. was formed.
Before the picture was displayed at Twickenham, it was restored and cleaned. In its present condition it is hard to see any ghosts. Fortunately the picture was photographed before cleaning. On the photographic print the most prominent ghost appears behind the group of four players on the ground and partly coincides With the figure of the referee. The ghost looks suspiciously like Sir Francis Drake and, in the best tradition of ghosts, one can see through him to the referee behind. If one examines the original picture only 29 players can be counted. In my opinion the artist forgot to paint in the referee and so painted out one of the players to accommodate him. In the photographic print of the picture before cleaning, I can also make out a head underneath the arm of the player making the overhead pass. Tony Collins reports a ghost in the top left hand corner. I cannot see this but the odd figure on the extreme left of the picture is of a player bending down to tie up his boot laces.
As Tony Collins points out there is a deal of myth come down about the 1895 Split. I imagine it is true in all branches of history that myths repeated often enough become reality.