Times, They Are A-Changin’

The following was submitted by BlueWolf.

In 1882, the cricket club (presumably fed up with being shown up by the sporting footballers) asked St. Mark’s to leave, and so they moved to Queen’s Road, a little further east along Hyde Road. However, some of the cricketers, presumably fearing for their manliness, joined this new football club, and so the men¹ from the Ironworks, the street and the cricket club made up the squad of St. Mark’s.

It was during this time and up into 1884, that St. Mark’s football club, underwent major changes, the biggest of which was to change the name to West Gorton (including moving once more to Pink Bank Lane – presumably to appease the local growing gay community), in fact, the senior church figures were indeed instrumental to these changes, because they wanted to create a proper professional side; it was also mentioned by Beastow that he had one or two problems from Ms. Connell.

“What did I tell you, Bertrand? She’s a woman! What the dickens she is doing out of the kitchen, I will never know, my dear chap. Someone ought to take a rod to her!”

At the end of 1884, a massive riot occurred between Gorton and Openshaw², and it became evident that the area desperately needed something to belong to. The club joined the Manchester FA, and Beastow presented the players with a brand new kit; black with a white Maltese Cross on it³.

The 1880’s were very pivotal in the growth of West Gorton, as once again they found themselves moving once again, and sat and watched the Heathens start to win things such as the Manchester Cup. West Gorton wanted to be a part of this, and they felt that they had to return to their roots by returning to an area they were more familiar with (and where the hookers were also cheaper).

They moved to Bennett Street changing their name yet again to Ardwick, and with a brand new pitch, their opening fixture on September 10th 1887 against Salford FC was announced. Alas, West Gorton didn’t actually show up – it was half-price night on Sackville Street – and the term ‘Typical City’ begun.*

¹ For the purposes of men, read: white men
² Once more, not at all like today
³ Some noted that it was also very German in style – not that anyone minded, because as every Englishman knew, Germans were very nice people, and would never do something silly like start a war.
*Well, obviously not “typical City”, because they were called West Gorton. Actually they were called Ardwick at this point in time, although they did try out ‘The Fun-Loving Funktastic Fun-Boys’ for a time, but it didn’t work out too well.

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