Adrian Chiles: Sport in 1905: running in fancy dress and a bad week for Geordies

Unfortunately I can't go to Middlesbrough today to see my team's appallingly important match there, because I will be in attendance at the 100th birthday party of my wife's aunt. Auntie Rita, many happy returns. Start time of party? Three pm, obviously.

Unfortunately I can't go to Middlesbrough today to see my team's appallingly important match there, because I will be in attendance at the 100th birthday party of my wife's aunt. Auntie Rita, many happy returns. Start time of party? Three pm, obviously.

Possibly, ludicrously, because I'm in search of an omen - any old omen - that West Bromwich will win today, I've got hold of a newspaper from the very day on which Auntie Rita came into the world. Warm thanks to the people at www.historic-newspapers.co.uk for very quickly finding a desperate-sounding man a copy of The People (the "Weekly Newspaper for All Classes") from St George's Day, 1905.

Before we turn to the sports pages, a brief outline of what's happening in the real world. The Russian-Japanese war commands many column inches; there's a crisis in the French cabinet and there's been a "sensation slump in Chicago wheat". Closer to home there's news of a "sad" (as opposed to a happy?) boating fatality on the Thames near London Bridge and a report from a coroner's inquiry into a suicide. The poor man's suicide note to his wife and children is reprinted in full and, even a century later, causes a lump to form in my throat.

Sports of The People, on the back page, brings us news of football, rugby, cricket, billiards, wrestling, cycling, athletics, yachting, rowing, hockey, tennis, draughts and something called "pedestrianism". Reading the paragraph on draughts, a sense of shame gnaws at me a little as I learn that "the proposed match between Birmingham and London Draughts Leagues will not take place on Easter Monday, owing to Birmingham having failed to raise a representative team." Come on Brummies, sort yourselves out.

"Pedestrianism" sounds like a disease which afflicts us all from time to time, but I find in The British at Play - a Social History of British Sport from 1600 to the Present (by Nigel Townson and published by Cavallioti, Bucharest, 1997) that this was what they called professional running races. Amateur clubs came about "as a reaction to pedestrianism, which was a sport notorious both for fixing and for outrageous theatrics; some of the pedestrian stars would turn up in bizarre fancy dress, and more attention might well be paid to the show than to the races."

As someone who ran the London Marathon last week dressed as a giant thrush, a sense of shame again stirred in me. There's nothing new under the sun, is there?

This weekend 100 years ago there was pedestrianism to be seen at Powderhall Grounds, Edinburgh. In the 300 Yards Handicap a fellow named only as "Gillie, West Calder" beat one Christopher Currie into second place. However, the temptation for establishing false form must have been great, as Gillie had a 22-yard start while poor Currie, huffing and puffing away behind him, only had a 10-yard start. Funny old game.

As for the football, unpromisingly for me, West Brom - solidly mid-table in the Second Division - lost 1-0 at home to Bolton, missing a penalty in the process. That result confirmed Bolton's promotion, and Liverpool beat Manchester United 4-0 to clinch the Second Division title. The match was played at Anfield, where "the weather was fine".

For some reason every match report mentions the weather: at Bury against Aston Villa "fine but windy weather prevailed"; for Small Heath (who became Birmingham City the following season) against Stoke "delightful weather prevailed"; and at Millwall against Fulham "the weather was fine, and the promise of a good game was fulfilled". The weather was fine too at Preston vs Sheffield Wednesday, though the Wednesday keeper had cause to rue the fact as "Smith headed into the Sheffield net, Lyall in goal being handicapped through having the sun in his eyes".

At the top of the First Division a battle royal was in progress between Everton, Newcastle and Manchester City. It may be of some consolation to Newcastle fans now that precisely a century ago their ancestors had just gone through a week almost as terrible as the one they've just had. The previous weekend they'd lost the Cup final 2-0 to Aston Villa. Now, a point behind Everton at the top of the table, they faced none other than Sunderland. With some understatement the correspondent reports that "the game provided a huge attraction locally, and when the gates were closed for an hour before the time fixed for the start, there were quite 30,000 people in the ground".

"Plenty of dash marked the opening stages", but the dash must have been mainly in the direction of the Newcastle goal as Sunderland "won by three goals to one". The weather, by the way, was fine and cold.

Everton were at Woolwich Arsenal. Here, the weather commands even more space than usual, "fog having caused the abandonment of the first meeting of the teams, when Everton were leading by three goals to one". On 23 April 1905, though, to the correspondent's obvious satisfaction, the weather was "pleasantly fine and rather warmer than recently". Everton however, lost 2-0. And a few weeks later Newcastle pipped them to the title.

Incidentally, as far as the game's finances are concerned 1905 seems to have marked something of a watershed. A small item in the news pages has it that "for the first time on record the Football Association finds itself able to divide the whole of the receipts at the semi-final and final Cup ties between the contesting clubs, as the percentages received from the earlier rounds suffice to defray the Association's working expenses."

But my favourite bit comes in a match report of Wolves vs Blackburn, a game which "fine weather favoured". Wolves won 2-0, which was the score at half-time. "In the second half play became rather rough." Blackburn, rough? Surely not.

"Baynham, who met with an accident shortly before the interval, returned with a bandaged leg, but was absolutely useless." Either "useless" is used literally, or sportswriters then were even more callous then they are now.

adrian.chiles@btopenworld.com