Many of you might have noticed that the football world cup is currently on. At previous football world cups, we’ve searched the Railway Work, Life & Death project database for footballing connections. There wasn’t much – until our most recent data release, last year. For this blog, we’ll look at just a few of the cases where railways and football meet, via accidents.
Railways and football
In Britain in the past, railways and football had a close relationship. The ways in which the railways enabled the rise of long-distance fixtures and a mass following are perhaps well known. They’ve certainly been featured in blogs on the National Railway Museum and Science and Industry Museum websites.
Courtesy Didcot Railway Centre.
It’s also often-quoted that Manchester United’s origins lay as Newton Heath LYR Football Club, formed in 1878 by Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Newton Health works Carriage and Wagon department. Other ‘railway clubs’ also appeared, not least as the railway companies encouraged and supported staff social and athletic activities. Generally railway teams would play against other teams within the company or from other companies. There was a thriving football scene within the railway industry – which might also find expression in less formal ways.
Courtesy Didcot Railway Centre.
Footballing at work – informally
Not all railway football was sanctioned or supported by the railway companies. Some staff found ways to enjoy their pastime whilst at work. Of the nine places in the Railway Work, Life & Death project database where football was mentioned, seven occurred at work. Given football was not a part of any railway worker’s job role, how might this have been?
When working, you’re doing the things you’re paid to do – most of the time. There are two notable exceptions to this. One is if you’re idling, ‘larking’ in some way (something we’ll return to in the future) or in some other way defying the expectations of your employer.
The other is when you’re on a break, including lunch. So far as football’s appearance in the Railway Work, Life & Death project, this latter route is key. Five of the seven incidents were noted as taking place during lunch breaks. The chances are also that this was the case in the other two incidents, but it simply wasn’t noted in the accident record.
A team game at Water Orton
Rarely do we get an sense of the scale of informal footballing at work. In one case we get a glimpse, however – an incident at Water Orton, Warwickshire, on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. It was the only one of the cases that led to a fatality.
On 27 September 1934, Harold Grubham, 29, was working as a temporary labourer. We don’t know how much, if any, previous railway experience he had. Given the date and the economic position in Britain, Harold might well have accepted any paid employment that he could get. If so, he might not have been familiar with the railway environment or its risks.
Along with around 24 other men, Harold was repairing the extensive sidings near Water Orton. They had been doing so for several days. According to the Railway Inspectorate accident report, each day at noon they went to a platelayer’s (track worker’s) cabin at the north end of the site. When they finished their meal this day, ‘a football was produced’ – not the sort of thing that was likely to be lying around a worksite, so someone had come in prepared. Around nine or ten of the workers started playing in an open space between two sets of sidings. One of those sets of sidings was not in use, but, crucially, the other side was being used.
Train stops play
At about 12.40, the ball was kicked into the sidings. Harold ‘rushed to retrieve it without noticing that a loose shunt [a movement without an engine attached] of 21 wagons was approaching’ (Railway Inspectorate report). At the inquest, Harold’s workmates noted that ‘the trucks came up very quietly’. It was also shown that the shunter in charge of moving the wagons, John Walker, couldn’t have seen the men playing football. He said that if he had seen them he would have warned them of the movement (Birmingham Daily Gazette, 3 October 1934).
A nearby engine driver sounded the danger whistle – a sign of the routine and systematised nature of danger in the railway industry that such a signal was needed. When Walker heard it, he applied the wagon brakes to stop them moving. Unfortunately Harold was caught by the buffer of the first wagon. He fell with his left arm and leg across the closest rail and was run over. He was rushed to Birmingham General Hospital, but died the following day.
Evidently this wasn’t the right place to play football. That might have been obvious to a seasoned railway worker – but not necessarily to a temp. Why didn’t the foreman stop the game, or warn the men? And how much instruction about safety had Harold or any other temporary labourers received? We’ve seen elsewhere in the Railway Work, Life & Death project that temporary workers lacked safety training – with disastrous consequences. This was a very hard price for Harold to pay for some lunch break football.
A growing game – football at work in the 1890s
Football in its modern, formalised, version, really grew in popularity from the 1860s. It’s no surprise, then, that we’ve an accident in which football played a part in the 1890s. Isaac Beach was a labourer for the Midland Railway. On 1 December 1894 he was working at Bonsall, in Derbyshire. The records are fairly brief, only noting that he broke his leg while playing football. Beyond that we don’t know any more about him.
The Midland Railway also provided the setting for another 1890s footballing incident. On 25 February 1899, another labourer, Joseph Kendall, also broke his leg playing football at work. The incident happened at Weldon and Corby in Northamptonshire. Evidently he recovered and returned to work, as he appears on the 1911 and 1921 censuses, and the 1939 National Register, as a railway platelayer.
Railway company attitudes to footballing at work
Certainly in Joseph Kendall’s case, it doesn’t look like his footballing accident had a lasting impact on his employment. Presumably provided the footballing was being done in ‘down time’, like breaks, the railway companies were not too concerned. If staff – realistically for the period the Railway Work, Life & Death project covers, men – were playing football on ‘company time’, then the response would have different. This would have been a disciplinary offence, and might have led to dismissal.
Four of the seven cases at work led to fractures (three legs; one ribs). One we know was fatal, and the other two produced a sprained knee and a cut head. Of the footballing injuries at work, six occurred after the 1897 Workmen’s Compensation Act (of which, more here). That’s significant, as it might give us a clue about how the railway companies saw these injuries. Companies could contest payment of compensation if they felt the incident wasn’t incurred in the course of work. So what did they do for these footballing cases after 1897?
Because of the way the records were kept, not all give us detail about compensation practices. That was true for Harold Grubham, the fatality in 1934, and Joseph Kendall in 1899, for example. Indeed, for all of the incidents at work, sadly none given us the detail we were hoping for about compensation practices.
Footballing outside work – J Melvin
There’s another aspect to this, too: footballing outside work, but which had an impact on the employee’s work. These incidents are a bit more revealing, including about railway company practices in relation to compensation.
The Railway Work, Life & Death project records show two incidents in which workers’ footballing outside work was mentioned. On 2 September 1907 Barry Railway crane driver J Melvin was working at Barry docks when he had an accident. The Company appears to have been sceptical about some of Melvin’s account of the incident, however. In its accident record book it stated that ‘this man alleges’ – not a preface usually seen.
According to Melvin’s statement, he descended from the crane cabin to get some water. Whilst coming down, he slipped on the third rung and fell to the ground. He injured one of his hands. It was at this point in the record that his footballing accident appeared. It noted that after finishing work on the previous Saturday he fell and injured his right forefinger while playing football. As he was only off work for five days, compensation wouldn’t have been paid (as, at that time, you needed to have been off work for two weeks before compensation kicked in). It appears that the Barry Railway weren’t convinced that Melvin’s injury was caused by his workplace accident, instead implying that it came from his recent footballing accident.
Red card – no compensation
In the second case, it wasn’t a footballing accident – but footballing did have an impact on WH Lewis’s claim about his workplace incident. Lewis went to work as usual on 28 September 1912, as a porter for the Taff Vale Railway in south Wales. On that day he was working at Llantrisant, Glamorgan. He stumbled when running down a ramp and injured one of his legs.
It was only on 4 January 1913 that he approached the Company about the case, presumably with a view to compensation. However, it was recorded that ‘the case was not entertained’. The reason given was that Lewis had played in football matches during November 1912, presumably whilst he was supposed to have been incapacitated. He did not receive any compensation. From this and the other records that survive, it appears the Taff Vale Railway was willing to contest compensation payments and it didn’t always pay out.
Conclusions
Taking a look at the Railway Work, Life & Death project database for a specific topic, seemingly unrelated to railways, has proven quite interesting. It’s definitely a sideways route into the richness of the project records, and shows some of the broader social history that comes out of our focus. These incidental details, about railway work and railway employees’ wider lives, are just one thing that makes our project and its work so valuable.