HOW THE LADS KICKED OFF The origins of Sunderland AFC

 

HOW THE LADS KICKED OFF

The origins of Sunderland AFC

Mark Metcalf

Many of today’s famous football clubs were set up by churches, cricket clubs and works’ teams. Sunderland AFC, however, is unique as it was set up in 1880 by a trade union.

Within a decade, it was playing in the Football League and won the league title three times in the first five seasons in which it competed. Only six clubs have won more top flight titles than Sunderland, whose record of six is equal to Chelsea’s.

Football as an organised club sport in Sunderland began in 1873. This, however, was rugby (union) football which was widely reported on by local papers over the subsequent years. Although the Football Association had been formed in 1863, the battle for supremacy among those who preferred to play the game with their feet over those who preferred the handling game was to rage on till after WWI. In 1879, The Times reported that the North was ‘rugby.’

That might have remained the case except for the genius that was Sunderland-born Charles Alcock who, seven years earlier had created the FA Cup competition. That was national and it gave teams of working-class footballers the opportunity to take on and beat teams packed with the elite of society. Local communities were inspired to turn out in large numbers at important games and football fervour began. Regional FA knock out competitions were inaugurated. One was the Northumberland and Durham FA, formed in 1879, Challenge Cup in 1888-81.

It was this that inspired the formation of a football club in Sunderland. On Saturday 25 September 1880, a special meeting was, as reported two days later in the Sunderland Echo, held by “the Sunderland and District Teachers’ Association for the purpose of hearing Mr TE Heller, secretary of the National Union of Elementary Teachers, and a member of the London School Board on union and educational matters.”

It can be clearly seen that they Sunderland and District Teachers’ Association was part of the growing trade union movement and its descendant union be today’s National Education Union (NEU).  

At the end of the meeting, it was agreed to form a football club and this was announced in the Sunderland Echo on the following Monday. Other regional papers later reported that a football club had been formed.

The club held its first training sessions for teachers only at Hendon two weekends later on Saturday 9 October but the attendance was poor and it was agreed to seek players from Sunderland in general and the name of the club was changed to Sunderland Association Football Club on 16 October 1880. Less than two months after the club began, they played their first game on 13 November 1880 and lost 1-0 to Ferryhill at Hendon.

SAFC were to go on and reach the semi-final of the 1880-1 Northumberland and Durham FA Challenge Cup and were beaten 5-0 by Newcastle Rangers at St James’ Park on Saturday 12 February 1881.

 

Mark Metcalf, from a Durham mining family, is a member of the Football Writers’ Association and his many works include the authorised biography of Charlie Hurley, Stan Anderson’s autobiography and Sunderland: Almost the Double; Sunderland AFC 1912-13 and Total Football: Sunderland 1935-37.