Quote ="Chico"It might also be the 100th anniversary of Archie Sutherland's death. I say that tentatively because it needs corroborating.
Archie is an important figure in RL. He was our club's inaugural secretary and it was his idea that Cavendish should rename themselves as Salford. Despite much opposition, he argued his position well enough to find an agreement. Later, he reported on football for the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clarion[iClarion[/i[/url — an important newspaper in left-wing politics and in the beginnings of the Labour movement — during the early 1890s in the Pastimes section under the pseudonym ‘Muff’.
In that time, he offered a platform for readers to express their support for a league competition in rugby and he ran an unofficial table called Muff’s Rugby League based on the results of ‘friendly’ fixtures between clubs. He, like many of the respondents, thought rugby was under threat from the national popularity of the relatively new Football League (and he was right). Sutherland also voiced his support for open professionalism in rugby, more akin to broken time payments than the ‘vulgarity’ of the waged soccer player.
In the months leading up to rugby’s split in 1895, either the [iClarion[/i dedicates less space to football, possibly because soccer is less a working player’s game — earning a crust solely from playing sport is a sore point, particularly for a socialist newspaper — or Sutherland writes less about the codes. Part of this was possibly forced as a fair few local clubs, including Salford, were banned by the RFU for ‘professionalism’. And, ironically in a way, Sutherland seemed quite unhappy about the prospect of rugby splitting into two. It had to be done but Sutherland was an idealist. He felt if rugby embraced financial reimbursements for working-class players, and league and cup competitions, the game could halt the slide towards soccer (rugby was initially more popular than soccer in Manchester), but splitting the game in half, geographically, would severely weaken the game (and he was right).
Finally, I cannot confirm nor deny whether his tagline was ‘can’t get enough of that wonderful Muff’. We can but hope that it was. But what a fine man.'"
Interesting stuff. Good work!
