Liverpools Sport and Recreation Heritage

[Gerard]

Good luck mate,Hope you find what your looking for.

[PhilipG]

Right, ladies and Gents, my Dad's bookies was opposite the Eros and four doors away from the camera in Phil's post. Can anyone help???

On the town side of the Co-op?
No old pics of that side, I'm afraid, but I think I've got one of the shops on the other side of the Co-op.

[Ged]

You can't see it here but i'll post it up anyway. The top of London road and Moss Street taken from the hospital in 1979.

[billo]

There is a betting shop on the corner of Falkland Street, it has been there for years and at one time was a small casino. It is a small square building with 3 floors. At the momnet there is some re development going on there and they have demolished the Falklands Pub (it had been closed for a good 5 years or more). I do seem to remember one of the big bookies taking it over.

[iain]

I've just read a book called "This Island Race", about the history of British bike racing, and how and why it never really took off like it did on the continent despite a promising start. There were a few surprises from the start, like the fact the first ever bike race, held in Paris, was won by an Englishman. But a few chapters in, a couple of local place names leapt out at me.

It was Britain's turn to hold the World Championships in 1922, and the National Cycling Union (NCU) of the time passed the job of organising it to the Anfield Bicycle Club (formed in 1879, still going today), who only a year before had stuck two fingers up at the NCU. The NCU strictly prohibited racing on open roads, but many "rebel" clubs formed around the country, including the Anfield, to do otherwise. Funnily enough the NCU relaxed its rules when offered the World Championships.

The Anfield chose to host the Championships at the New Brighton track. By British standards it was excellent. But by then, by the standards of the rest of the world, it was awful. The cement and gravel surface with virtually non-existent banking was as good as it got when it was built in 1898, but by 1922 the continental pro's had come to expect better.

They could have tolerated this though, if it wasn't for the fact it became treacherous in the rain, which it did. Quoting from the Wallasey & Wirral Chronicle at the time, the sprinter Piet Moeskops attempted a ride after a rain shower but fell on the greasy surface and he limped away shaking his head. He never returned to New Brighton. A new stand had been built for 40,000 spectators but there were never more than 8,000 there.

Does anyone know what happened to this track which once saw international fame? I never knew there was one, never mind it holding the World Championships!



I lifted most of this from: This Island Race by Les Woodland, published 2005 by Mousehold Press, ISBN 1-874739-36-6

[goldenface]

Never heard of it myself either. Was it not in one of the 'dips' on the seafront?

[iain]

I don't know a great deal more than what I copied above from the book. Apparently there used to be an athletics ground and a race track near to, or around, the tower.

[wsteve55]

anyone have any info' on jack sharps, formerly of whitechapel,such as when it closed,etc, and even anything about the presumed owner,jack sharps?
thanks all.

[SteH]

anyone have any info' on jack sharps, formerly of whitechapel,such as when it closed,etc, and even anything about the presumed owner,jack sharps?
thanks all.

Jack Sharp was a player for Everton at the beginning of the 20th century and my grandad told me he founded the shop after his retirement.

[Kev]

I remember Jack Sharps' very well. It was the only place to go for sports gear. Quite expensive too.

[ayjaykay]

The shop was taken over by JJB in the 1980s. They kept the Jack Sharp name for a while but then it just became a normal JJB branch. It closed in the early 2000s and has been demolished now.

[PhilipG]

From the 1936 Kelly's Directory:

Sharp, Jack, athletic outfitter, 36 and 38 Whitechapel 1.
Residence: 243 Queen's Drive 15.

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi all

Jack Sharp's Sports Shop gets a mention in David Ashton's memoirs of growing up in the Fifties in Woolton with a young John Lennon:

". . . Anyway, this day Alan Walpole and I were playing football in the cow field with my new child-size leather football with a blown up pig's bladder inside, french chalked to preserve it, which my dad had bought from Jack Sharp's Sports Shop in Liverpool for, I think, five shillings and sixpence. I had got the football for my birthday in November. We had a various assortment of football kits on - most of them probably pre-First World War stuff as in the Woolton of our childhood no-one had much money. We were not poor, or did not think we were anyway, but we certainly never dreamt of having a Liverpool or Everton football kit. We wore hand-me-down kits, if we had any, from fathers, uncles, brothers or cousins.

"There were a lot of us playing including John Lennon and we used our coats and jumpers as goal posts. . . ."

[Kev]

A NEW book that takes a look at Liverpool’s sporting history through the eyes of the communities that shaped it was launched yesterday.

Played in Liverpool owes as much to the city’s turn-of-the-century baseball players, long- established bowling greens, and an exclusive club of twelve quoits players, as it does to Dixie Dean or the Kop.

The book is the latest release in a series from English Heritage looking at sport around Britain, and the first of a number of books about Liverpool it plans to publish this year with the Capital of Culture Company.

Author Ray Physick uncovered artefacts that were thought lost, including the foundation stone of Liverpool Stadium, missing since its demolition in 1987, and the once-celebrated Liverpool Gymnasium Shield, which as a result will be placed in the new Museum of Liverpool.

Mr Physick, 55, a lecturer at John Moores University, had been researching Played in Liverpool for two years.He said: “As a passionate Scouser and Liverpool fan all my life, it’s been a privilege to write this book.

“What has amazed me is the diversity of sport in the city, from baseball back in the 19th century to the opening of the first municipal baths in 1828, it has an enormous heritage – not just football, and in many ways Liverpool is a microcosm of the greatness of British sport.”

Celebrating yesterday’s launch at Liverpool Cricket Club, which features in the book and itself is marking its bicentenary this year, series editor Simon Inglis said: “The Played In series all started in Manchester for the Commonwealth Games, with English Heritage looking at ways to celebrate sporting heritage.

“It was a pilot project, designed to see if sports heritage was significantly valued.

“It was a subject that had been ignored for years. It makes up such a vast amount of this country’s heritage that it needed professional documentation.”

Henry Owen-John, North West director of planning and development director for English Heritage said: “The community engagement factor was very important, with people bringing amazing amounts of knowledge on football, cricket, tennis – it really attracted public interest.

“Liverpool was really self-selected as the next in the series, in terms of the sheer recognition and diversity of its sport.

“The book is specifically English Heritage’s contribution to the city’s 800th birthday celebrations.

“There is so much going on and so much to record, and we have been really delighted with the quality of research Ray has undertaken.”

vickyanderson

[Kev]

Peeps, lets get this thread going places again.

Now we've developed a healthy taste for photography, can we please get out and about looking for buildings, sporting venues, structures, road names plus other clues and indicators to Liverpool's rich sport and recreation heritage past.

Please include any older images from various sources too, old gymnasiums, sporting venues etc...

Here's the earliest example of evidence of sport, Robin Hoods Stone (Booker Avenue) - 8ft tall. The grooves face the sun, we can assume that the Arches did their sharpening with their backs to the sun!!