Are City A Protestant Club?
In 1960s Manchester, United were commonly viewed as the "Catholic club". It probably stemmed from the fact that manager Sir Matt Busby was a devout Catholic. The club, who also had a Catholic chairman, used Busby's ties with the Catholic Church to recruit youth team players.
United did nothing to dispel the notion, knowing that it helped attract Manchester's huge Irish-descended population, many of whom had settled there after the Second World War with no football loyalties.
As a result, City seemed to become the Protestant club by default. Some time around the 1980s, Rangers fans began identifying with City, mirroring Glasgow's sectarian rivalries. Some looked for historic ties. For instance, in the 2010s Jack Greenald, an archivist for Manchester Orange Order—and a City fan—discovered that St Mark's rector Arthur Connell had close ties to the Order.
Although Wikipedia's entry on the St Mark's side states that 'all men were welcome to join, regardless of religion', that's just Wikipedia being Wikipedia. As Chapter 1 shows, the side was exclusively made up of church-going Anglicans.
And Rev. Arthur Connell certainly wasn't letting Catholics into his side. In fact, if it was down to him, they wouldn't even have been allowed in the country.
On 9 May 1968 a mob of 'at least a thousand', armed with pokers, scythes, swords, bludgeons, bayonets, pitch forks and revolvers marched towards the Irish Quarter of Ashton-under-Lyne. They destroyed houses and attacked two Catholic chapels before being repelled by armed Irishmen and rock-throwing Irishwomen.
An even larger mob returned on the 11th, and burnt down houses before eventually being dispersed by the police and the military. They were part of the "Murphy Riots"—named after anti-Catholic agitator William Murphy— which had spread though the cotton districts east of Manchester during a time of acute economic distress.
On 16 May the Ashton Reporter wrote,
'Since the disturbances in Ashton-under-Lyne in the beginning of the week, great fear has been apprehended that the rioters would pay a visit to the monastery, West Gorton. Large numbers of the Irish population have in consequence repaired to the church nightly, armed with sticks and weapons of various kinds, with which to beat back the aggressors.'
Five days later, Reverand Arthur Connell chaired a meeting at the school room of St Mark's church, just a few hundred yards from the monastery. According to the Ashton Reporter, 'the room was comfortably filled with an audience of working men'. Connell introduced the speaker, Rev. Potter, who informed them that
'they were tolerating monasteries and nunneries—those sink holes of infamy—and the greatest dungeons of tyranny in the country.'
He argued that tolerance of Catholicism
'opened the road for Roman Catholic establishment, insomuch as they being the majority, would send Roman Catholics to parliament, and thus gain supremacy.'
Afterwards Connell 'moved a vote of thanks to the lecturer, which was heartily responded to by the audience.'
This was exactly the type of inflammatory lecture that had sparked the rioting east of the district. The fact that it didn't result in similar scenes in West Gorton can be most likely attributed to the fact that the area hadn't been hit nearly as badly by the economic depression as the cotton districts.
Many of the St Mark's footballers were already attending the church's school at this time.
However, the story of City's origins is more about young men moving away from the church's influence. It was only when these young parishioners started arranging their own games, with a side that included the other young men of the area, that the club was born.
Nor was Connell's behaviour at all typical of the Anglican clergy—or Manchester Protestantism—during this period.
The man who funded Gorton AFC in 1884, locomotive works owners Richard Peacock, was a Unitarian who advocated tolerance towards other religions. In 1890 Ardwick AFC president Stephen Chesters Thompson, who was a Church of England warden, organised a challenge shield competition of 48 schools, including four Catholic ones. After the event it was reported that he had
'generously offered to purchase a piece of land, if such could be obtained, for the use of the boys in Ardwick for recreative purposes, irrespective of creed.'
It’s also important to note that, up to the arrival of Busby, United was every bit as Protestant as City. The early Newton Heath players were all Protestant, on account of Irish Catholics not being employed in Manchester’s iron works at that time.
Manchester was a city built and run by Protestants until well into the 20th century. But City are a Protestant club only in the way that the Manchester town hall is a Protestant building.
And as any fans who attended games at Maine Road and Old Trafford knew, religious affiliations were always left at the turnstile.
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