125 Years Ago
ANNUAL FOOTBALL: The time-honoured custom of having a game of football in the free and easy fashion that prevails in connection with the celebrated game on the Cloffocks, was duly honoured on Tuesday last. Very heavy excursion trains ran into the town by the four different lines that centre upon it but the attendance, though large, was not nearly so great as former years.
The ball was thrown off a few minutes after four and in the first scrimmage it was apparent that the up-players were stronger than the opposite party. The struggle was close and heavy, every foot of the way being stubbornly contested, but the ball was never below the bridge where it was thrown off.
The course of the beck was mainly followed, the players besmattered with the grimiest mud from head to foot. On reaching the Cleator and Workington railway embankment, a most determined effort was made to prevent the further upward projection of the ball but after half an hour of the stiffest pulling, hauling, squeezing and kicking the ball broke and it was crowded away.
A rapid run was then effected over the cricket field till the Paper Mill was reached where the players again congealed into a surging crowd of sweating and panting humanity that gave no sign of being able to move either direction. Another break was effected and the bed of the stream again reached and after a furious struggle the ball was carried through the door in the wall of Workington Park. There was the usual sight to be seen and the customary demolition of garments.
5 Apr 1777
Workington: Easter Tue, annual foot-ball match on the Cloffocks, between the Sailors and the Colliers, "as hath been customary time out of mind". The ball was "struck off" at 3.30pm, "when both parties began the sport with their usual dexterity,- after an hour's contest, and the Sailors having gained a little ground, a person, named M____y, on the side of the Colliers, apprehensive that the ballance of power was likely to go against him and his friends, took an opportunity to secret the ball under the skirts of his coat, without being discovered, and left the ground immediately, to the great disappointment of the parties assembled: this person, they say, was always more political than honest; and, as he is of the Aegyptian Race, seems to possess part of the ingenuity of his renowned ancestors."