In some ways, soccer has become similar to religion.

Every weekend for nine months, large groups of people make pilgrimages to stadiums across the country to support their team. They often wear replica jerseys or their team colors to identify themselves.

However, like religion, rivalries have caused conflict, often resulting in violence between the two parties. Of course, hooligans don’t really think about religion when they’re beating up rival fans, but they still go around thinking they’re following. the true faith.

With the amount of money now in the game, it is often forgotten that several of Britain’s top clubs were formed by religious groups. And ironically, eradicating violence was one of their goals when they installed them.

Even today, there are many schemes to get young people off the street and into sports, but religion does not play as much of a role in society as before.

In the 19th century, the church was more influential, and in several cases, clubs set up by parishes have become multi-million dollar companies.

Brother Walfrid’s Boys

North of the border, there is one such club that still has ties to religion: Celtic.

Irish Catholic communities formed several clubs, the first of which was Hibernian in Edinburgh.

(its name is Latin for Ireland).

Unlike the others, however, the connections between the Bhoys and their roots remain strong to this day.

They were first thought up on 6 November 1887 by the Marist Brother Walfrid (also known as Andrew Kearns) in the hall of St Mary’s Church in Calton, Glasgow.

The club was created with the intention of alleviating poverty in the East End of the city. The name, Celtic, was immediately adopted and reflected the club’s Scottish and Irish roots. Surprisingly, the club’s first official match was played against Rangers on November 6, 1888 in what was probably the only “friendly meeting” between the two teams.

The Bhoys became the first to claim bragging rights, as they won 5–2, with several of the starting XI players on loan from Hibernian.

Brother Walfrid himself wanted to keep the supporters’ club and had only charitable intentions for the club. However, he was unable to carry out his wish, as local builder John Glass would sign eight Hibs players without the committee’s knowledge in August 1888, while he offered them huge financial incentives.

Now that the club is a professional team, they soon established themselves as one of the best teams in Scotland, winning their first trophy (the Scottish Cup) in 1892, and their first league title the following year. Since then, along with Rangers (who were made up of rowers) they have dominated Scottish football for over a century.

The other team that has played at Anfield

Today, Everton play their home games at Goodison Park.

But it’s often forgotten that they once played on the other side of Stanley Park, where their deadly rivals Liverpool now live.

In fact, the Toffees may claim to be indirectly responsible for the formation of their neighbor.

Everton became the first of Liverpool’s major clubs to form in 1878.

The minister of the Methodist Church of Santo Domingo, Rev. BS Chambers, created a soccer club so that the members of the church’s cricket team would have something to do during the winter.

The club was originally called St Domingo FC but was changed to Everton in November the following year after men from outside the parish wanted to come and join.

Everton became one of the 12 founding members of the Football League in 1888 and by then the club was renting Anfield, owned by John Orrell with his friend John Houlding as the lessee.

Eventually Houlding bought the land from Orrell and promptly raised the rent, something Everton refused to do.

So they left Anfield in 1892 and moved to the other side of Stanley Park and their current home, Goodison Park, which resulted in Houlding forming Liverpool.

But this is not where Everton’s religious ties end, as Goodison Park is the only Premier League stadium with a church on its grounds: St Luke the Evangelist.

The church is located between the three-tiered main stand and the end of Gwladys Street and the walls are a few meters from these two stands.

It even has a role to play on match days, selling refreshments.

blue faith

While its more illustrious neighbors were made up of employees of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, Manchester’s blue half team was thought up by a rector’s daughter.

Two years after the creation of what became Manchester United, Anna Connell, whose

Father Arthur, rector of St Mark’s Church in Gorton, in the northwest of the city, sought to provide activities for men who had nothing to do in the winter.

Like Everton, a cricket club already existed and more activities were needed to curb the levels of violence and alcoholism in the local area.

Ironic, considering these are the sorts of things now associated with the football fan.

Alcoholic fights between different religious and racial groups often broke out, and the problems were made worse by high levels of unemployment in the area.

With the help of two church keepers, William Beastow and Thomas Goodbehere, Connell created West Gorton (St Mark’s) FC, the club that eventually became Manchester City.

The club played its first game against Macclesfield Baptist Church on November 13, 1880.

The initiative was so successful that it led the Archdeacon of Manchester to comment of Connell: “No man could have done it, it took a woman’s tact and skill to make it so successful.”

Eventually the club would move away from its roots.

He dropped St Mark’s from his name to become Gorton AFC in 1884 and three years later moved across town to Ardwick and turned professional.

It adopted the name of its new home before finally becoming Manchester City in 1894.

well of uncertainty

It’s not just the most famous clubs that owe a debt of gratitude to the Church, and in this case, the man in the cloth even got in on the action.

For a long time there was some debate as to when Swindon Town was formed and the club switched between the founding dates of 1879 and 1881.

For a long time the later date was considered official as on 12 November of that year, Swindon, under their previous guise of Spartan Club, merged with St Mark’s Young Men’s after a match between the two teams.

But last year, substantial evidence led the Robins to recognize 1879 as the correct date.

It is now accepted that the Reverend William Pitt, curate of Christ Church in the city centre, formed the club in an attempt to unite the communities of Great Western Railway workers and those who were there before GWR came along.

There are two main pieces of evidence that suggest this was the case.

One of these is a local report, discovered by former club statistician Paul Plowman, of a match between Swindon AFC and Rovers FC on 29 November 1879.

The report included a team photo that included Pitt himself.

Pitt broke ties with the club in 1881, when he was appointed rector of Liddington Church.

However, he provided the other proof during a speech in 1911, during which

said the name was changed to Spartan Club as members found the original name too complicated.

He also mentioned that his removal from Swindon led to his departure.

Two years after his departure, Spartan Club became Swindon Town.

The clue is in the name

When Southampton moved from The Dell to St Mary’s Stadium in 2001, it was a bit of a homecoming.

Because the club moved back to the part of the city where it was originally formed in 1885.

The name of the stadium was a welcome change from the current trend of selling naming rights, as it referred to the nearby church.

The club was set up by members of the Young Men’s Association of St Mary’s Church of England, meaning their first name was rather wordy, leading to them being referred to as St. Mary’s YMA in the local press.

St. Mary’s played a variety of venues around Southampton, one of the first being Southampton Common.

Or at least they tried to play there – the Saints often had their games interrupted by pedestrians wandering the field!

The club had changed its name to Southampton St Mary’s when it became a limited company in 1897, ending its association with the church.

In 1898 the Saints, now simply called Southampton FC, moved across town to The Dell before making the return trip 103 years later.

more cloth sticks

There are many other football clubs that have their roots in the church, some more successful than others.

This season’s FA Cup semi-finalists Barnsley were originally a club trying to give football a foothold in an area dominated by rugby union.

The Tykes were formed in 1887 by the wonderfully named Reverend Tiverton Preedy of St Peters’, whose church lent the club its name as Barnsley St Peters’.

He wanted to create ‘a football club that rugby players don’t crush’.

The club moved to Oakwell soon after, but by 1897, Preedy had left the area and their fan base now included those outside the local parish, leading to a name change to Barnsley FC.

Aston Villa also had to deal with other sports when they were created.

They were formed by members of the Wesleyan Village Chapel of the Cross in 1874 who, like several

of the other clubs mentioned were cricketers looking for something else to do during the winter.

It took them a year to find opponents in an area where rugby was more popular and they were in fact a rugby team.

In March 1875 they faced Aston Brooks St Mary’s in which the first half would be played under the rules of rugby and the second football.

Villa won this encounter, keeping the first half scoreless and scoring a solitary goal after half time.

Tottenham Hotspur’s Jewish connections are well known, but were in fact founded by a Bible class.

‘The Hotspur Football Club’ was born in 1882 thanks to a group of children from the primary school at All Hallow Church.

These boys later made their teacher, John Ripsher, the club’s first president, a position he held until 1894.

Ripsher died in poverty in 1907 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Dover, until Tottenham presented him with a suitable headstone a century later.

The Church of England Church on Star Road, West Kensington can be credited with the formation of Fulham in 1879.

The Cottagers were originally a Sunday school team and began their existence, like Southampton, with a neat name: Fulham St Andrews Church Sunday School.

The church still stands and a plaque outside acknowledges its place in the club’s history.