Maine Road - before it was, er, Maine Road....

CityEssex49er said:
Love it................and to think that the richest football club in the World started with that plot of land............

From little acorn's etc......etc......
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Actually that was our 2nd (proper) ground after Hyde Road but that was so hemmed in by the railway lines that it's no surprise we had to move.

0Ama5l2.jpg


Edit: there's a thread here with more pics of where it was: http://forums.bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/threads/mcfc-hyde-rd-stadium.316854/
 
I told the full story of Maine Road in Farewell To Maine Rd and then in Manchester The City Years. Dog Kennel Lane was a traditional route out of Manchester and meandered south of the stadium towArds Hough End. The street was definitely renamed after the Temperance Movement - check the significance of the Maine Law - and it did have history as a footballing street. However, Manchester Association was not the first association football team in Manchester. I've written and talked extensively on this and the truth can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2013.873075?src=recsys Free Download.
 
Slightly left field and off topic, many years ago I worked around the Moss Side area and often wondered why it was called Demesne Road. Now I know.
 
Gary James said:
I told the full story of Maine Road in Farewell To Maine Rd and then in Manchester The City Years. Dog Kennel Lane was a traditional route out of Manchester and meandered south of the stadium towArds Hough End. The street was definitely renamed after the Temperance Movement - check the significance of the Maine Law - and it did have history as a footballing street. However, Manchester Association was not the first association football team in Manchester. I've written and talked extensively on this and the truth can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2013.873075?src=recsys Free Download.
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The problem with the Maine Law theory is that it's based entirely on an anonymous quote of unknown origin. There are other reasons to be sceptical. Firstly, no-one has found an example of the Maine Law being commemorated in this way anywhere else in the UK during the period. That's probably because the British temperance movement was a very different animal to its US counterpart. During this time Manchester's temperance societies were not seeking a ban on alcohol (which the Maine Law represented). Rather, they argued that any drinking should be in moderation, but anyone whose drinking damaged themselves or their family should abstain. St Mark's rector Arthur Connell provides a good illustration of the ambivalent relationship between the temperance movement and brewing industry at this time. Although chairman of the local Band of Hope temperance society, in 1878 Connell still accepted a large donation from a local brewer for the building of new classrooms, and even supported the political campaign of another local brewer during the 1885 General Election.

The question of who Manchester's first football team were depends on what your definition of association football is. You've argued that any game that was referred to as “association” at the time should be included in football's history. This allows you to claim that Hulme Athenaeum, who played a 15-a-side game that allowed handling and didn't involve goalkeepers, was the city's first football club. I would take a different view.

In case anyone is wondering why there's a debate on the origins of football on a City talkboard, the subject does impact directly on the thorny issue of our club's formation date which, rather mysteriously, seems to have time-travelled to 1894.
 
Playing Trivial Pursuit with my wife in the 70s. I got to the centre, and I had to answer all the questions to win. On the Sports and Leisure question, she just said "you've won, I'm not even going to ask the question!"

The question was "Which team are at home on the Maine Road?"!!!
 
The two children hanging from the tree must have been the reason for the gypsy curse.
 
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