Garrick are probably my favourite long lost Victorian club. Although they enticed the best players in Sheffield (Hunter, Mosforth, Housley, Anthony and others) to represent them and they became a ‘super-team’ the core members were young men who liked a party and indulged in shenanigans with the girls from the musical halls, establishing a long tradition of association between football and the theatre. The Hon secretary William Riley junior appeared in court after a notable fracas at a musical hall.
Sheffield Pantomime Players vs the Garrick club in February 1886 at Bramall Lane, attracted a crowd estimated at 20,000, setting a joint record with the first floodlit game and establishing a tradition of Sheffield ‘showbiz’ games that continued into the era of cinema. Garrick also played in my favourite kit of the first decade, red and blue horizontal stripes. Because they played a key role in seeding the association style of football in Manchester and Leeds, they are one of the most important Youdan Cup teams.
The first football team formed from a public house (joint with Wellington). The Garrick Tavern had a brew house, vaults and arched cellar. It stood in the heart of the town, close to the Adelphi Theatre and had a strong music hall tradition. Prior to embracing football, the Garrick, which had a cricket team established in 1860, had become the administrative hub of the Sheffield players cricket club with SL Levick organising games against the South of England Cricket Club and others. The cricket influence is apparent from the start with members divided into teams wearing blue caps and blue and red caps respectively, in their first game.
The annual Garrick sports events at Bramall Lane were different to the norm, with competitions such as getting a ball out of a hole first and hurdle races involving blind folded competitors jumping over water.
Garrick were endearingly nomadic, having almost as many grounds as Rory Gallagher has clubs. Like Paul Young in the 1980’s, wherever they lay their hat, they called home. Starting out at East Bank they also played at Clough Bank in 1869, and Newhall (noted as the best ground in Sheffield) three games at Machon bank in 1872, several games at Myrtle Road Heeley, including a game against Nottingham Trent in 1877 played in deep snow, and Broadfield Bar, Abbeydale Road in the 1870’s. With over 400 subscribers paying 2-shilling subscriptions they could afford to hire buses (horse-drawn)for games.
They also spread the gift of the modern association game to the former Rugby heartlands of Manchester and Leeds and were indefatigable in making their pilgrimages work-spending the Christmas holiday period in 1869 learning the rugby-based rules of Hulme Atheneum so they could play games with both codes.
As well as inspiring Mancunians to try a non-handling game, with games against Manchester Free Wanderers as well as the series with Hulme, Garrick played Leeds Athletic home and away, Nottingham Trent and Nottingham Lace, Mansfield, as well as Derbyshire teams, Chesterfield, Staveley and Dronfield.
As a recently formed club they bravely entered the Youdan cup as rank outsiders and were duly eliminated in their first game against Mackenzie, a game played at the Cremorne ground. They were very competitive, losing 1-0 after a hard-fought encounter, and, suitably encouraged made rapid progress.
In the following year Garrick were one of the strongest teams in the city and favourites to lift Oliver Cromwell’s new silver cup. They drafted in a posse of seven players from Hallam (who could not play in the Cromwell cup as they were over two seasons old) to defeat Wellington at Norfolk Park, winning by a solitary rouge. In the final, the outsiders, the Wednesday club, triumphed with a golden goal.
In addition to their influential role in helping to introduce association style football to two major cities in the North, Garrick were technically innovative. Their effective use of a zonal system, ‘playing to place’ is credited in an 187I game against Leeds Athletic and a Garrick player is recorded crossing the ball from the wing. (Linley’s) cross ball was dispatched by Ward who was waiting in the centre. A ‘screw’ (banana) kick by W Horton is noted in the same report. In a game against Attercliffe Zion, they also scored from a free kick taken swiftly before Attercliffe realised it had been awarded.
Garrick appear to have faded slowly from the Sheffield football scene and disappeared in the late 1880’s.
