Cambridge Sports Tours

21/07/2024

Spaces still available on my 'Cambridge and the Olympics' walking tour starting 10.30am at Magdalene Bridge this Thursday 25th July with a fitting finale at the Paris 1924 Sport, Art and the Body exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum. It's an outstanding exhibition demonstrating that sport has close links to so many facets of our lives such as race, gender, class, nationalism, fine art.....even childcare and the cult of celebrity. If you want to book a place go to www.cambridgesportstours.co.uk
(Image shows front cover of exhibition catalogue, which is also excellent.)

13/07/2024

Come on my walking tour, ‘Cambridge and the Olympics’ (going back to the 16th century) starting 10.30am on Magdalene Bridge and finishing at the Olympics exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (with tickets booked) on 25 July.

Did you know at the Paris 1924 Olympics, if the University of Cambridge had been a country, it would have come 9th in the medal table?

A major exhibition at The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge brings together the momentous events at this pivotal Games – the first black athlete to win an individual gold medal, the groundbreaking outfits worn by female tennis players, the fact that women were competing, something that went unacknowledged in 'Chariots of Fire'.

And the art – this Games had a lasting, profound impact on art, design, society and more. Find out how: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/fitzwilliam-paris-1924-beyond-chariots-of-fire?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

07/07/2024

Cambridge held the Olympic Games in the 16th and 17th centuries - on the nearby Gog Magog hills. Find out more, plus the real 'Chariot's of Fire' story, and who won Olympic gold, scored a maximum 147 break in Snooker, a century at Lord’s Cricket Ground, and captained both Manchester City F.C and and the England national football team? Join a walking tour through Cambridge on 25th July finishing at Fitzwilliam Museum to also view the 'Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body' exhibition. For more info go to 'Olympic Games - walking tour' at https://www.cambridgesportstours.co.uk/
(Image used from Wellcome Foundation: front cover of Olympic Games Stockholm 1912 brochure)

25/03/2024

Members of U3AC's "Cambridge sport: in Fenner's hands" outside the University of Cambridge Fenner's cricket Ground. The tutor of this walking tour is Nigel Fenner, a relative of Frank Fenner - a local tobacconist, and talented sportsman who was instrumental in bringing "Town" and "Gown" together during the 19th century to play in the same sporting teams. This course will run again during our Summer term.

24/03/2024

Cambridge Sports Tours feature on Susan' Calman's 'Great British Cities' on Friday night (23 March 2024) - talking about the creation of the modern-day laws of football on Parker's Piece in the middle of the 19th century:

08/03/2024

15/01/2024

This has for many years been a hot potato debate (currently on Cambridgeshire History FB page) which I have contributed to as follows:
There is no doubting the FA’s focus in the 1860s on the football subculture in Sheffield was critical in growing the modern game, especially so given Cambridge University’s wish, at that time, to keep the game to themselves. However there was good reason for this, given the University students came from different Public Schools each with their own football rules, requiring, if the game was to grow, a compromise set - a process spanning the 1830s to the 1860s – culminating in the creation of the ’Cambridge Rules’. In my view this was the role of a ‘Club’: the Cambridge University Football Club (CUFC). It is no surprise it cannot match Sheffield F.C. for continuous evidence (election of club officers, minutes of meetings, accounts etc) given the average student studied for 3 years before leaving, and anyway ‘the University’, at best, gave no support at all. This makes CUFC’s achievements all the more remarkable.
However what I feel is much more important than this focus on the middle of the 19th century, is that a local football culture ( - the first in the world?) was in evidence across East Anglia (including at over 20 sites in and near Cambridge) for at least 300 years up to the start of the 19th Century. Sadly it has gone mostly unreported.
All the above and more is contained in my book ‘Cambridge Sport: in Fenner’s Hands’ available from the Cambridge University Press, or Museum of Cambridge bookshops or via my website Cambridge Sports Tours.

02/01/2024

Here’s the final post relating to the history of local ice skating up to the end of the 19th century – lifted from my book ‘Cambridge Sport: in Fenner’s Hands’ published in 2023. These three posts relate to interesting / unique links between ice skating and other sports (rowing and cricket) and other modes of transport (the train).

The first image shows the University Rowing crew maintaining their training by skating on the frozen River Cam in 1879 (Image belongs to the author from The Graphic - 15 Feb 1879, page 149)

The second image, featuring two views of The Skating Ground, Swavesey was the venue for at least two cricket on ice matches, featuring England cricketers, students at the University and local people. In 1867, the Eleven of Cambridgeshire, including Daniel and Thomas Hayward and Robert Carpenter (the latter two being England cricketers) beat the twenty-two of Swavesey on Mere Fen, a very popular Fenland winter sportsground. In 1870, at the same ‘ground’, eleven members of an All-England and University team, captained by Robert Carpenter, again played Swavesey, who had sixteen players this time. There were a very large number of people watching the game ‘whom were members of the University who travelled by special trains’. Swavesey scored 125, against the England team score of 280. (The Swavesey images belong to the author, taken from the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 19 Jan 1895.)

A further cricket match was played in 1878 led by Charles Pigg, a student at Peterhouse, who challenged Robert Carpenter to raise a side to play the University over three days on Grantchester Meadows. Cambridge Town scored 326 including Carpenter’s 89 and in response the University were 274 for 4 when the two captains agreed on a draw.

And finally, in 1875 an ice-skating challenge was issued by a group of Littleport men claiming they could skate faster than the train travelling between Littleport and Ely. They did, but not without some foul play by some ‘railway supporters’ who put cinder on the ice to slow the skaters. The skaters’ response was to subsequently slow the train travelling to Sandringham with the Prince of Wales on board, by every few miles posting men with a red lamp, which when the train stopped, then turned to green. On the fifth occasion this happened the Prince of Wales demanded ‘in loud tomes if the dammed train was going to be all night getting to Sandringham’.

01/01/2024

I’ve just finished reading James Brown’s 1989 book on the 600 year history of Gamlingay, and one story (vaguely sport-related) made sad reading.
In the 1830s the way the Poor Law functioned in the village was investigated. One extraordinary waste of money was in employing about 20+ of the local poor to ‘collect stones from the surface of the land’ and a separate group later, ‘some with their hands, some with large sticks by way of bats in returning the collected stones to the impoverished acres’. Whilst the £615 was of benefit to these ’paupers’, as ‘labourers they would have lost all sense of dignity and pride in their work’.

01/01/2024

I’ve just finished reading James Brown’s 1989 book on the 600 year history of Gamlingay, and one story (vaguely sport-related) made sad reading.
In the 1830s the way the Poor Law functioned in the village was investigated. One extraordinary waste of money was in employing about 20+ of the local poor to ‘collect stones from the surface of the land’ and a separate group later, ‘some with their hands, some with large sticks by way of bats in returning the collected stones to the impoverished acres’. Whilst the £615 was of benefit to these ’paupers’, as ‘labourers they would have lost all sense of dignity and pride in their work’.

24/12/2023

This is my next weekly installment relating to ice hockey, referred to locally as bandy - a word that has been used for centuries to describe a bent stick, which is why it has been associated over this period with a range of ‘ball and mallet’ games such as golf, cricket, shinty, hockey and ice hockey.
I have 3 stories to share relating to the best local team, Charles Darwin (and the 'Origin of Ice Hockey'), and Prince Albert (who was an excellent skater).
The best local team was Bury Fen (located between Bluntisham and Earith - see photo) who played towards the end of the eighteenth century, and probably a lot earlier. Not only were they unbeaten for decades, but they are also credited with introducing the game to Holland, and formalising the rules.
The Canadians however would want to challenge this, given ice hockey is their national winter sport claiming that they played the first real match in Montreal in 1875. However, in a recent book entitled 'On the Origin of Hockey' (in a deliberate nod to Darwin’s seminal work On the Origin of Species) the Canadian authors refer to a letter Charles Darwin wrote to his son in 1853, about his own experiences at Shrewsbury School between 1818 and 1825 enjoying ‘hockey on ice’. Darwin had later been a student from 1828 to 1831 at Christ’s College, also returning to Cambridge in 1836 to organise his work following his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle. Because as a student he preferred outdoor sports to studying, it is possible he skated on the nearby Fens, especially after his earlier experiences at school.
My last story relates to a game of Bandy played on the ice of the Windsor Castle pond in 1853, where Queen Victoria was a spectator watching Prince Albert play against a team that included a local man John Astley who later wrote about a tackle where "I lost my balance, and came down in a sitting posture, the impetus I had on carrying me right over to the Queen’s feet, and the hearty laughter which greeted my unbidden arrival is still vividly impressed on my mind. It was altogether a glorious afternoon’s sport." Prince Albert, had already been appointed the chancellor of Cambridge University in 1847.
(All the above is lifted from Nigel Fenner's recently published book 'Cambridge Sport: in Fenner's Hands' in chapter 21 dedicated to local ice skating. The book is available to purchase from the Cambridge University Press bookshop or at the Museum of Cambridge or via the Cambridge Sports Tours website.)
Thanks to the Museum of Cambridge for permission to use the photo of 2 women bandy players.

17/12/2023

As promised here is the next installment relating to local skating, specifically the prizes won, and the sport's popularity:

William ‘Turkey’ Smart won £58 15s and a leg of mutton in February 1855, the equivalent of about 2 years’ average earnings for him as an agricultural worker. He was given his nickname for inventing the modern way of racing, bent over to reduce wind resistance and swinging his arms – looking, apparently, like a turkey.
For his visit to Mepal (15 miles (25 km) north of Cambridge) during that February, the press reported:
"Cambridge, Ely, St Ives, Chatteris, and diverse other towns and villages were thinned of their population that day. The clergy and ‘squires’, gentry and tradesmen – hale ploughboys and rosy milkmaids – ladies parties in carriages, gigs and carts, made their way to the bank near the bridge, and took their respective positions, where the view was excellent, and all that could be wished for the ‘St Ledger day on the ice’. A brass band of music from Chatteris was placed on the bridge, and played the most lively tunes: at the starting of a race, ‘Cheer boys, cheer’, and at the winning, ‘See the conquering hero comes’. The number of persons
present was stated at from five to eight thousand, and some said ten thousand. Punctually at the time appointed, half-past one, the racing commenced. The bold Fen-men soon appeared, whose iron frames, lion sinews, elasticity of action and body, astonished all beholders. They were a fine specimen of the bold peasantry of England." (All the above lifted from page 237 in Nigel Fenner's recently published book entitled 'Cambridge Sport: in Fenner's Hands'.)
I am grateful to Garry Monger for sharing that "in January 1763 a resident of Thorney raced against a Danish sailor on successive days for a total of seventy guineas (equivalent to nearly £27,000 today), the Dane taking both prizes. The same month John Lamb and George Fawn skated between Wisbech and Whittlesey, Lamb collecting the twenty guinea prize. By the early 19th century John Peck in his diary records watching races on the River Nene, including that won by Joseph Peck and seeing two young ladies, Miss Ulyat and Miss Peck also skating.
(The image shows professional speed skaters competing at Littleport in 1895 - from The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News 19 Jan 1895.)