1899, 1989 and 2019 - a tale of 3 seasons for Liverpool FC

The source material from this week's blog is taken primarily from 'The Anatomy of Liverpool: A History in Ten Matches', by Jonathan Wilson with Scott Murray and 'The Official Treasures of Liverpool FC', by David Walmsley with Stephen Done. The latter was a very kind gift from Marguerite Madden Murphy, whose husband Pat is a Blackburn Rovers fan (the relevance of that will become apparent below!). 

Liverpool's future stars

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reflecting on Liverpool’s 2019-2020 season, simultaneously the most sublime and, thanks to COVID-19, the strangest in living memory. Among the countless highs of a near perfect season, one of the rare defeats was the League Cup exit against Aston Villa on December 17^th 2019, when a team of Liverpool youngsters with an average age of just 19 went down 5-0 to a much more experienced Villa side. 

High squad numbers and young ages - Liverpool's future stars and their youngest ever team went down 5-0 to Aston Villa last December

World Champions

Just a few days later in Doha the Liverpool first team, deployed to what was deemed a more important battle than the League Cup, earned a hard fought extra time victory over Flamengo of Brazil to become World Champions for the first time. In the story of the season, that League Cup loss to Aston Villa will come with an asterisk attached, in view of the youth and inexperience of the team that Liverpool fielded and the fact that our big guns were on their way to Doha instead of being available in Villa Park that night.

Aston Villa and Liverpool - the 1899 match

But the 5-0 defeat to Villa comes with an asterisk of historical significance too, because one hundred and twenty years earlier Liverpool suffered an identical defeat at the same ground to the same club in a game of much more significance. That match, played on April 29^th 1899, is the first of ten key matches that are described in Jonathan Wilson and Scott Murray’s masterful ‘The Anatomy of Liverpool: A History in Ten Matches’. The 1899 Villa game was the last match of the 1888-1889 season and Liverpool and Aston Villa were tied at the top of the First Division table: this was the first time that the league title was to be decided by the top two teams facing off against each other on the last day of the season.

As an example of why hardcopies are always better than e-books, see above the very special autograph on my copy of 'The Anatomy of Liverpool'

1989 - goal difference, goals scored and goal ratios...

For Liverpool fans of my generation, the idea of a league championship season being decided on the last day induces immediate traumatic memories of May 1989, when Michael Thomas scored that last minute goal for Arsenal at Anfield to snatch the title from us, not even on goal difference but on goals scored during the season. And reading about the first years of the Football League has only added to my sense of pain and bitter disappointment from that night and the reason is as follows.

Firstly, here's the final table for the 1988-1989 season:

As you can see, Liverpool and Arsenal had remarkably similar seasons - winning, losing and drawing the same number of games as each other. When points are level at the end of a season, goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded for the season) is used to decide the winner. But as you can see, goal difference for Liverpool and Arsenal was identical too. The next step is to look at goals scored and, as you can see again, Arsenal scored more than Liverpool so they were declared champions. Had Liverpool held on at Anfield that night and lost just 1-0 instead of 2-0 then they would have been champions. That's how tight it was. 

To add even more agony to the above table, I have recently discovered the 19th/early 20th century concept of 'goals ratio'. This was used instead of the modern 'goal difference' to place teams back in the early days of the football league and it involved dividing 'goals scored' for the season by 'goals conceded'. Based on the goals ratio rule, Arsenal had a 'goals ratio' of 73/36 (i.e. 2.03). However, Liverpool would have had a final ratio in 1988-1989 of 65/28 (i.e. 2.32) and would thus have been the champions if the 1899 system was still in use, putting us joint top of the roll of honour right now, with 20 titles. Groan. 

Of all the footballing highs and lows in a lifetime supporting Liverpool (leaving aside the Heysel and Hillsborough stadium disasters), that night in May 1989 was undoubtedly the lowest low in pure football terms, added to now by my discovery of that old concept of 'goals ratio'. 

Anfield, May 26th 1989. Michael Thomas scores a last minute goal to take the First Division title from Liverpool's grasp

And a few seconds earlier - Steve McMahon letting his Liverpool team-mates know that there was only one minute left to play (I had blocked out this memory until recently reminded by my friend Warren Noonan, a lifelong Arsenal fan)

Back to the 19th Century...

But one of the comforts of history is that it teaches us that bad things, such as May 1989, are always happening and that things can always be worse. And even though it’s hard to believe, the last day of Liverpool’s 1898-1899 was actually worse than that Anfield night to come ninety years later.

Already twenty five years in existence in 1899 and going for a record fourth league title to become the undisputed kingpins of English football, Aston Villa had a slightly better goal ratio going into that last game, so a draw would suffice for them. In contrast to Villa’s pedigree, Liverpool were very much the new kids in the English league, having only been formed in 1892 when a dispute over the rent at Anfield led to Everton (the original occupiers of the sacred ground) walking out on Anfield owner and Everton Director John Houlding. Everton went on to buy their new ground on Mere Green, Goodison Road. 

So John Houlding was left with a stadium but no team. He set about rectifying the situation quickly, appointing two Irishmen as Liverpool’s first managers (the term 'secretary' was then used). Monaghan man John McKenna and Dubliner William Barclay put together a team made up primarily of Scots, to become known as 'The Team of the Macs'. The Scots were noted for skillful, passing football in comparison to the more agricultural 'kick and rush' game played in England, hence the scouting mission north of the border. 

Incidentally, Barclay was the one who suggested the new name for the club: Liverpool Athletic Football Club (someone subsequently omitted the word 'Athletic' in the paperwork). 

John Houlding (1833-1902), businessman and brewer, founder of Liverpool FC and Lord Mayor of Liverpool

John McKenna (1855-1936), Liverpool's first (joint) manager and subsequent President of the Football League. He was also instrumental in starting works on building the 'Spion Kop' at Anfield

John McKenna's plaque - Glaslough, Co. Monaghan

William Edward Barclay (1857-1917), Liverpool's other first (joint) manager

Liverpool's first team photo, 1892 - known as 'The Team of the Macs', with the panel consisting of 15 Scots and 4 Englishmen

Pictured above are:

(Back row): Joe McQue, John McCartney, Andrew Hannah (Liverpool's first captain), Sidney Ross, Matt McQueen, Duncan McClean, James McBride, A. Dick (Trainer)

(Front row): Thomas Wyllie, John Smith, John Miller, Malcolm McVean (Liverpool's first league goalscorer) and Hugh McQueen

Denied entry to the Football League at the first time of asking, Liverpool competed in and won the Lancashire League in their first season. John McKenna then had the foresight and drive to push for a second try at getting into the Football League, with Liverpool gaining entry to the Second Division for the 1893-1894 season. They duly won the division and were immediately promoted to the top flight, following a play-off (or 'Test') victory over Manchester United's precursors Newton Heath. 

Liverpool then had another relegation and promotion before finally starting to consolidate as a First Division team, helped largely by the acquisition from Sunderland of Tom Watson, the most successful manager of his time. Again the Irishmen McKenna and Barclay were instrumental in luring Watson from Sunderland, a club he had already led to three First Division titles. Watson remains Liverpool's longest serving manager, dying from pneumonia at the age of 56, while still in his management post. 

Tom Watson and Jurgen Klopp

Coming back to the present again, it is hard not to draw some parallels between the descriptions of Tom Watson and Liverpool's current manager Jurgen Klopp. 'Olympian' of Sketch magazine wrote 'Superficial followers of the game would not think that the success of a team would be affected by secretaryship (i.e. management), but I make so bold as to say that the various triumphs of the Sunderland Club have been not a little influenced by Mr. Watson's personality. Mr. Watson had a good eye for football talent. Big names did not move him so much as real abiliity...'

Another comparison between Watson and Klopp was that Watson also managed a world championship winning team, when he led Sunderland (as English champions) in their defeat of Hearts (Scottish champions) on April 27th 1895. Again highlighting the dominance of Scottish footballers at the time, every player lining out in that match, for both Sunderland and Hearts, was a Scot. When Watson subsequently led Liverpool to a 3-0 victory over Rangers in 1888, the Edinburgh Evening News referred to Liverpool as 'the finest team in the world', something that would ultimately come true last December in Doha. 

Watson, in winning three First Division titles with Sunderland and subsequent titles with Liverpool in 1900-1901 and 1905-1906 would also become the first manager to achieve top flight success with more than one club, a feat that has only been matched subsequently by Herbert Chapman, Brian Clough and the provider of the earlier referenced autograph on my copy of 'The Anatomy of Liverpool'. Watson's arrival for the 1896-1897 season also coincided with Liverpool adopting red jerseys for the first time. Prior to that, Liverpool had worn blue and white halved jerseys, similar to the modern Blackburn Rovers kit.

Tom Watson (1859-1915) Liverpool's longest serving manager (1896-1915)

Liverpool (1893-1894 season) in pre-Watson 

blue and white 'Backburn Rovers' style jerseys (this photograph was taken at the bowling green of the Sandon Hotel, owned by Liverpool founder John Houlding, who sits in the middle of the front row with the ball between his feet)

As for that last match of the 1898-1899 season again, the descriptions of the crowds and the match itself have echoes of modern games, with just over 41,000 in attendance and thousands travelling south from Liverpool, 'who could be easily singled out by reason of the red favours which they sported in their hats and buttonholes' (this being long before the days of replica jerseys and even football scarves). Liverpool and Aston Villa were tied on the same number of points but Villa, with a superior goal ratio (of just 0.02) needed only a draw to become champions, while Liverpool needed to win.

As it turned out, the match was over as a contest by half-time, Villa having scored all their five goals by then, thus claiming their fourth title and leapfrogging Sunderland to the top of the roll of honour and establishing themselves as the kingpins of the game.

Liverpool's 1898-1899 team - denied their first top flight title 

on the last day of the season

It would be two more seasons before Liverpool would clinch their maiden First Division title, in the 1900-1901 season, managed by Watson and captained by the Scottish defender and Liverpool's first superstar player, Alex Raisbeck. An inspirational captain who played at centre-half, he was the Virgil van Dijk of his day. 

While scouting for the more skillful players north of the border in Scotland was revolutionary in its day and both Liverpool and Sunderland were noted for this practice, Liverpool now boasts a panel of players from all over the world, like all Premier League clubs. The current 36 man squad is drawn from 19 different countries from all over Europe, Africa and South America, with Takumi Minamino earlier this year becoming Liverpool's first Japanese signing. 

In comparison to the 'Team of the Macs' of the late 19th Century, there is now only one Scot on the Liverpool panel. That sole Scot is Andy Roberston, the attacking left full back who, combined with Trent Alexander-Arnold on the right side, has changed the way the game is played.

And finally, a coincidence. The Liverpool teams of 1898 through to 1902 had not one but two Robertsons, also full-backs and, of course, both Scottish. 

John Thomas Robertson (1875-1923)

Played 42 times for Liverpool between 1900 and 1902, 

winning a First Division medal in 1900-1901

Tommy Robertson (1876-1941)

Played 126 times for Liverpool, between 1898 and 1902, 

also picking up a First Division medal in 1900-1901

Meanwhile, the current Scottish Roberston, Andy, 

who has just won his first title with Liverpool 

(and who scored an absolute peach of a headed goal 

against Burnley at Anfield yesterday)

The 1890s - Liverpool FC's first decade in summary

1892-1893

• Liverpool FC officially formed after Everton FC walk out of Anfield
• Liverpool win Lancashire League and Liverpool Senior Cup 
• Election to Football League, Second Division
• FA Cup: 3rd round

1893-1894

• Liverpool win Second Division and gain promotion to First Division after 'Test' match victory over Newton Heath (the original Manchester United!)
• FA Cup: 3rd round

1894-1895

• Liverpool relegated from First Division after one season in the top flight
• FA Cup: 2nd round

1895-1896

• Liverpool win Second Division again and duly promoted
• FA Cup: 2nd round

1896-1897

• Tom Watson takes over as manager
• First season of red jerseys!
• 5th in First Division
• FA Cup: semi-final

1897-1898

• 9th in First Division
• FA Cup: 3rd round

1898-1899

• 2nd in First Division
• FA Cup: semi-final

1899-1900

• 10th in First Division
• FA Cup: 2nd round

And finally, two bookends, with Liverpool's very first and then most recent league championship winning squads:

Title number 1 - champions for the first time - the Liverpool team of 1901-1902 pose with the trophy for the First Division, won for the 1900-1901 season. Liverpool's captain and first superhero, Alex Raisbeck, is sitting to the right of the trophy

Title number 19 - England's current league champions

Football's Wars of the Roses

End of season sub-plots

As a proud, pleased and relieved Liverpool fan, the past week has approached dream-like levels of footballing pleasure, with even the disappointment of that freakish result against Manchester City being offset by news of the imminent arrival of Thiago Alcantara. 

And now that Liverpool are safely home and hosed as champions, the Premier League, with its COVID-19 related empty stadia and a mid-summer fixture list, is starting to feel like a series of pre-season friendlies. However, there are several key battles still being fought out in terms of final placings, European qualification and, most crucially of all, promotion and relegation. I will be keeping an eye on a few of these sub-plots, for different reasons.

The Premier League/Championship interface is always a good source of end of season sub-plots and, looking at the current tables this morning, I said to myself - wouldn’t it be great to have Leeds United back in the Premier League next season? Ireland is full of men in their late 50s who first started following Leeds during their heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when Ireland’s greatest midfielder, John Giles, was earning a living with them. Too young to remember that heyday (although of course I remember well their second and third comings in the early 90s and in the early 2000s), I have two specific reasons for hoping to see them promoted.

Football’s Wars of the Roses

Firstly, I’ve always been both impressed and at times amused by how Leeds United seem to regard Manchester United as their arch rivals. And if your enemy's enemy is your friend, then it follows that Leeds United is a friend of Liverpool. Whether the perceived rivalry has its origins in geography (their relative proximity as northern neighbours), in history (that whole white versus red Wars of the Roses saga) or in football terms, Leeds United have to be commended on keeping it up. During the darkest days of the Fergusonian Era, when Manchester United won their most recent Champions League in 2008, Leeds United were in financial and footballing free-fall, dropping to the third tier of English football, the dreaded League One. But they kept the rivalry alive. Perhaps their fans took some solace from the fact that, even if they weren’t very good anymore, at least their main rivals were the European champions.

The Battle of Bosworth Field (1485), by Philip James de  Loutherbourg (1740-1812), depicting the key battle in the Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses - a very long, bloody and complicated saga that raged from 1455 to 1487, with some of the main protagonists included above

The Tudors ultimately won out in the Wars of the Roses and, in an act of symbolic floral diplomacy, created the 'Tudor Rose' as an amalgam of the Roses of Lancaster and York

The crest of Leeds United - still clinging on to the white rose of Yorkshire, just as Leeds United cling on to their rivalry with another, slightly more successful, United

The Damned United

The second reason for wanting to see Leeds United back in the Premier League is as thanks for the club’s central role in and inspiration for one of the greatest ever footballing films, The Damned United. Directed by Tom Hooper and based on the novel by David Peace (who also wrote ‘Red or Dead’, one of the strangest books I’ve ever attempted to read), in this film Martin Sheen managed the impossible by capturing quite alot of the crazy genius of Brian Clough. And Colm Meaney also nailed his role as Don Revie. 

Leeds United versus Manchester United (note the Yorkist white versus Lancastrian red) in a grim 1970s reenactment of the Battle of Bosworth Field - the gifted Irishman John Giles is number 10

Brian Clough faces off against Don Revie in 1974 - an enthralling study in obsessional levels of rivalry and thinly veiled animosity 

And here's a link to the full interview:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTiIdbDBmZc

Martin Sheen as Clough and Colm Meaney as Revie relive that interview in The Damned United (2009)

The film tells the story of the infamous 44 day period when Brian Clough controversially took over as Leeds United manager from Don Revie, who had been appointed to manage England (the aforementioned John Giles was assumed to be the heir apparent to Revie at Leeds). The grim 1970s backdrop pervades the film, with lots of mud, manly tackling and no messing with the niceties of the celebrity culture of the modern game. Most enthralling of all is the intense relationship and rivalry between Clough and Revie. Although they were both white-rose Yorkshire men from Middlesbrough, their rivalry felt as intense and longstanding as the Wars of the Roses. 

The other key relationship depicted in the film is the one between Clough and his long-term assistant and adviser, Phil Taylor. They soldiered together at a number of clubs, with Taylor as the Art Garfunkel to Clough’s Paul Simon, yet their relationship sadly ended quite bitterly.

The other key relationship in The Damned United - Brian Clough and Phil Taylor, pictured here during their Derby County days

So what are the league tables saying?

Leeds United currently lead the Championship on 78 points, 4 points ahead of West Brom who are in the second automatic promotion spot and have a game in hand. Leeds have just five games left in the season and, following yesterday's results, are now guaranteed at least a promotion play-off place. After West Brom come Brentford, Fulham, Nottingham Forest and Cardiff City. Based on maths alone, Brentford and Fulham are the only ones from that chasing quartet who look like they have a chance of getting into an automatic promotion spot. 

So Leeds United look like making the big comeback to the Premier League, for the first time since 2004, during which time they have also had the ignominy of spending three seasons in the depths of League One, third tier football.

If Leeds United do make it back up, it’s unlikely that they will be anywhere as impressive as teams from their previous heydays, but it will be good to see them, especially when they line up in 21st Century versions of Bosworth battles against their (and Liverpool's) oldest enemy, the Lancastrian United.

And now a bit on relegation battles...

In order to have promotions to the Premier League, of course, there have to be relegations, and there is plenty of drama playing out among the bottom half dozen clubs right now. 

I have learned that Alan Partridge is excitedly waiting for his hometown club Norwich City to be relegated so that he can start work on his 'gritty and grimy soccer spectacular' documentary with 'strong Partridgean overtones', as featured in an earlier blog:

https://sportyman2020.blogspot.com/2020/03/alan-partridge-sporting-legend-of-sorts.html

'Every cloud has a, well, golden opportunity for making a Partridge-centric television documentary series', says Alan Partridge, who is already looking forward to making a 'savagely sad soccer story' about his hometown team Norwich City, who are on the verge of relegation. 

And finally, carrying on the theme of football mixed with warfare, Napoleon is sometimes (apparently mis-) quoted as having asked not for good or skillful generals but for lucky ones. So during these tense, relegation-threatened times for them, our thoughts are with yet another United and our friends over at www.verywestham.com, who are not helped by being led by that unluckiest of generals, David 'The Grim Reaper' Moyes. 

COYI!

West Ham United manager, David Moyes

Guest blog: Dr. Eoin Ryan on Handball, Ireland's international sport

 

Handball -

Ireland's International Sport

This week I am delighted to welcome a guest blog from a former colleague of mine, the multi-talented Dr. Eoin Ryan. I've never played the game, but I've always been aware of the importance of Handball in our own parish and its importance as an Irish game. I've also always been a bit confused about the American version and how it relates to the Irish.

Eoin is an All-Ireland winning handballer and in his blog he provides a wonderful overview of the history and evolution of the game from its parish based origins in this country and how it has spread throughout the world, making it Ireland's international sport. 

Biography

Dr. Eoin Ryan is a GP trainee from Co. Kilkenny, but currently living in Limerick. 

Eoin is also an accomplished musician, a writer and a lover of literature.

He began playing handball at a young age with his club Windgap and went on to represent both Windgap and Kilkenny in underage competitions, ultimately achieving All-Ireland success.

You can follow Eoin on Twitter @eoin89ryan

@GAA_Handball @US_Handball @FIPVOficial @WindgapGAA @windgap_ie

 

Just down the road from where I grew up, there is an odd structure. At a cross road with a pub, just off the road, there stands a wall in the middle of a field. I say ‘odd’ to communicate the fact that a free standing wall in a field appears to be an architectural oddity, rather than to mean ‘rare’, you understand, as these walls are far from uncommon. In my parish of Windgap, Co. Kilkenny there are at least two, and possible others. The same goes, I am sure, for every parish the length and breadth of this island.

RIC Barracks and Handball Alley, Ahenna, Co. Kilkenny

This particular structure takes on the appearance of many dotted around the country. A wall standing 27 feet in the air (although I will freely admit that I didn’t measure it), buttressed by sloping walls on either side, connecting it to a smooth finished concrete floor. Well, it would once have been smooth and it would have measured 60 feet in length and 30 feet in width - now of course significantly shortened by nature - so much so if is difficult to say with precision where the floor stops and the field begins. These walls, as you will likely have guessed, are handball alleys. This alley stands out, as the story goes, as the site of one of the first ‘official’ handball matches in the country. There are a few issues with this story of course.

Firstly, much like the wall itself, it is buttressed with the line ‘as the story goes’ as there are no official records on which this claim is staked. Secondly, the story is that it was ‘ONE of the first’. So probably not the first at all, which makes it less than noteworthy. Do we know who the third person to reach Australia was, or the sixth man to walk on the moon, or the fourth woman to fly solo across the Atlantic? And on top of this, the sport of handball has been played long before this concrete structure was ever erected at all.

My guess is people like their localit to be linked with posterity or history, so what’s the harm perpetuating a little myth that is likely no more than a fairytale?

Slate Quarry Handball Club, Co. Kilkenny , 1925 

(since disbanded, but handball in the area lives on through Windgap Handball Club) 

The handball alley at Grange Road, Ballina, Co. Tipperary - home to Ballina Handball Club, one of the most successful clubs in Tipperary

 Handball alley in Ogonelloe, Co. Clare

 

 Lahorna handball alley, Co. Tipperary

So why then mention it at all?

Heres why:

Dormant handball alleys like this, lie all around the country. These were once a village focal point. It is worth chatting to a few of the auld lads in the pub or after mass or wherever you might find them and ask ‘did you ever play handball?’ I have done this (in the pub, not after mass of course!) and have found up to very recently these alleys were a hive of activities. Sunday mornings, crowds would gather to play. Two players would start - one serving one receiving with the rule that winner stays on and the pretenders would line up waiting for their chance to usurp the champion.

The handball alley in Tuamgraney, Co. Clare - site of Eoin's All-Ireland triumph

So what happened? Why doesn’t this happen any more? Has handball died out?

Simply put, the answer is no. Handball hasn’t died, it has evolved.

Most Irish people know about handball. Well, they know about the ‘ball alleys’ - and not always from playing the sport. They have been used as ‘multi-purpose entertainment venues’ (I am being flippant here, you will no doubt have guessed). A lot of people know the ball alley as a place to go ‘ditch drinking’ - the national sport of Irish teenagers (obviously a misnomer in this instance) or a grand quiet place for the shift. There's one in every town and most villages and even in unpopulated townlands - the vast majority not used for their primary purpose.

But what is handball?

As so often when looking at history, we need to go back to ancient Egypt. As usual, they were the first - in this instance to play handball or at the very least, something recognisable as similar to handball. But it wasn’t just the ancient Egyptians. Handball crops up in various forms in a variety of civilisations throughout history.

My suspicion is that the handball of the ancient Egyptians, the Ancient Greeks or the pre-Columbus civilisations of Central and South America are no more related to each other than they are to Irish handball. It is more likely that they arouse spontaneously and separately and have been retrospectively linked together due to certain similarities.

Handball is a brilliantly simple game. One player bounces the ball and then swings with their hand to smack the ball against the wall. It bounces off the front wall, then off the floor, before the receiver tries to smack it back against the wall, and on it goes. The aim is to have your opponent miss and in that manner clock up a score. Simplicity itself. Almost natural. All you need is a ball, a wall and a friend. If you have said ingredients and some free time, handball, in some size or shape seems to be the only natural outcome.

And of course those outcomes vary slightly. Sometimes there are 2 players, sometimes there are 10. Sometimes there are marks on the wall as targets, sometimes not. Sometimes you hit the ball back with your hand, or maybe you try using a bat or a stick or a club...but ultimately, you are all playing a version of the same game.

In Ireland, the traditional game is called 60x30, pronounced ‘sixty by thirty', referring to the size of the court in feet. This is the game of yesteryear, played in all those now deserted alleys.

Generally played as singles or doubles in the manner described above, doubtless, there was varying rules in different parishes; that is until it came under the auspices of the GAA and the rules were set.

The popularity of this game, as we have seen, has died out. That is not to say handball is dead - it simply evolved.

Now, the game most popular, also under the auspices of the GAA is 40x20 - a modern, more sleek, sexier version. ‘The American game’, as it is known. Picture it like this, or this is how I picture it at least - 60x30, while still played, seems to be the game our grandfathers played, wearing britches and rolled up shirt sleeves, using great mite that only men of years gone by seemed to possess to continuously ‘flake’ a ball against the wall. Compare this with its American cousin. Athletes in sports wear, runners with more technology than in the first Apollo, bright lights, slick moves. A faster game, requiring skill, fitness, precision. A modern game. Enclosed in an alley where side walls, back wall and the roof come into play, setting it apart from its older cousin, resulting in furiously fast games with balls whizzing around corners. (This is probably unfair to those athletes who play ‘the big alley’, and that is why I started with ‘in my mind’, but it does serve the purpose of highlighting the differences). I have often wondered why this new version’ is called the American game.

 ‘The American Game’- alley 40 feet in length x 20 feet wide with front wall 20 feet high

Competitive 40x20 handball, Kingscourt, Co Cavan

It seems Irish handball in various forms was brought to the USA in the mid to late 1800s, as well as to the UK, Australia and South Africa. Again, the simplicity of the game seems to have been its greatest ally here, making it ideal to transport. Irish missionary priests in South Africa, Navvys in the UK and Wales and emigrants all over the USA helped in spreading this game across the globe. Reports from the 1930s describes people in New York City playing with a bald tennis ball on walls in parks, beaches and urban areas. Not exactly courts of 60x30 feet, but a version of the game no doubt.

Handball in the USA seems to have split into 2 distinct games - with both remaining popular.

40x20 (the aforementioned ‘American game’) held its first national championship in the USA in 1919. Since then it has spread across the country and now the United States Handball Association host more than 100 tournaments a year for its more than 6,000 members. Ireland have been competing against the USA in international handball matches since as early as 1885, when New York's Phil Casey was awarded the title World Champion and 1,000 Dollars for his efforts.

The other variety has become known as ‘One Wall’. As the name would suggest, this uses one wall - no side walls, no roof, no back wall. Straight forward. A square is marked on the ground and a corresponding one marked on the wall. The ball must bounce within the quadrilaterals, although the players are not so confined. This game became popular in urban areas - easily played in city parks and urban alleys. There are at least 2,000 courts (as alley seems less apt here) in New York City alone. The popularity of this game seems to rest in urban areas, and particularly those with large Irish populations - New York and Chicago being the hotbeds of this version. Now the ‘Mecca’ for New York Handball- the ‘best handball in the word’, according to a recent New York Times article is Coney Island- the show ground for ‘ultracompetitive handball…. with outsized egos, colourful nicknames and quirky personalities’

 

 One wall handball, played on the streets of New York

Both of these games are now played in Ireland too, with 40x20 being far and a way the most popular.

While there may have been varieties of the game played in the UK and US prior to the arrival of Irish Immigrants, there is no doubt that the game was influenced at the very least, but altogether more likely based on the Irish game.

This is considerably less likely for its Basque cousin - Pelota. Again, so similar to handball you would be excused for confusing the two, Pelota comes in a variety of forms - some using hands, others bats or rackets. There are theories floating about that this game, played by our all but forgotten Celtic relations, the Basque people, as being the inspiration for Irish handball. This assertion is often backed up by the historic trading network between Galway where the first recorded game of handball was played in 1527 and ports in Spain. While there is no doubt about the historic connections between these two areas (the Spanish Arch in Galway city and Spanish Point, Co. Clare to name but two), the notion of the game being brought over seems less likely. More conceivably, the two games arouse spontaneously and separately, and with the 20-20 vision that comes with hindsight, got cobbled together as being one and the same given how similar they are. Not an insignificant factor in this melange, is the desire of oft-trampled Celtic nations to assert their shared history and common cultural threads. In fact, the word Pelota is probably Latin in origin and came to the region from a form of the game played in ancient Greece. The chances that that stowed away, to pop up in the west of Ireland in a different format, in my opinion at least, are slim.

Whatever about the origins or who started it first, the fact remains that both games are strikingly similar! So similar in fact that since 1932, there has been an international handball series, blending the rules of both games to find an international variation, not unlike the blended Aussie Rules/Gaelic Football series - games which are more likely  to be a set in which one is based on the other.

Pelota (using bats here) being played in the Basque region

American handball, as so often happens with travel and the migration of peoples, has come home to roost. 40x20 is now the most popular form of the game played here in Ireland. While the purist may mourn the loss of the traditional, the opportunist sees the potential. In addition to the blended Pelota format, Irish players now compete on the international stage. And not just against American and Basque players. From its new home in the US, handball has travelled even further afield. The World Handball Championship held every 3 years now sees competitors from Canada, USA, Ireland, UK, Japan, India, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Ecuador and Australia to name just a few.

And the Irish have done well. Not only do Irish handballers compete for All Ireland glory but, as the likes of Paul Brady, Aisling Reilly, ‘Duxie’ Walsh, Fiona Shannon and Killian Carroll have shown, they can compete for World Titles - and not just compete, but win.

So you see, while the old traditional game may have fizzled from memory, with only its concrete carcasses dotting in the landscape to remind us of its former glory, handball has mutated and evolved and has become a modern game played all over the world. It has spawned new cultural trends among the streets of New York, found its way as far as Japan, adapted enough to help boost Basque cultural identity and aid the Pan-Celtic movement. It gives Irish athletes the opportunity to compete on the world stage. 

It has truly become Ireland's international sport.