"According to a certain school of thought the people in the lower strata of life are said to be devoid of the true spirit of sportsmanship, which is the divine heritage of a chosen few."
M.J. Bunyan
Euston Branch.
It is now time to turn to another aspect of life within the Association - its social dimension, of which the pinnacle was the annual conference. Dinners, dances and concerts neatly combined with political fringe meetings; grade representatives met to discuss matters of mutual interest and there was intense competition amongst members to represent their branch once they had tasted the experience of the conference atmosphere.
Whilst there had been nothing to compare with the concert in 1901, (in aid of the Benevolent Fund and attended by the Duke of Portland), from Londonderry to Cork, and from John o' Groats to Land's End, virtually every council and most branches had some form of social activity that brought colleagues together after their working day. Whist drives, annual dinners and dances were held, rambling and Esperanto1 groups flourished and the London Divisional Councils jointly held an annual concert. From the 1920s onwards it was not unusual for branches to hold social events in order to raise money to assist the Association's Parliamentary candidates. The Glasgow branches formed a male voice choir which made its first public appearance in February 1923.2 By the autumn of 1925 this had developed into a mixed choir of approximately sixty people3 under its conductor Robert Rennie.4 The choir travelled extensively throughout the UK, not only to entertain but as an important medium to promote the trade union movement, and, in particular, the RCA. Mainly through the efforts of the Sheffield branch, the historic post house The Angel5 was purchased and opened as an hotel with 23 bedrooms. It also had sport and leisure facilities, a public restaurant, and meeting rooms for the local trade union movement and other organisations. In 1924 the Dublin branch opened an RCA Club in Upper Dorset Street providing a library and reading room. Dances and lectures were held in the building and a well equipped gymnasium was provided. When the National Trade Union Club in New Oxford Street, London, launched a scheme in 1931 to enable individuals and branches to affiliate, seven of the RCA's London branches promptly did so, participating in its wide range of leisure facilities, concerts and lectures.
It has often been said that politics have no part in sport; this is highly debatable and as far as the RCA was concerned, sport certainly became a vehicle for political objectives. There had been RCA football and cricket teams since the earliest years of the Association and many branches organised their own sporting activities. These were all of a social character. Women were not entirely excluded and in 1917 the Nottingham branch had a Women's Hockey Club with two teams, and played in the Association's colours of blue and gold.
Just after the First World War sport took on a political orientation. The motivator of this change within the RCA was Maurice Bunyan, an active member of the Euston branch, who was well known in football circles as a referee. Bunyan took soccer teams abroad to rebuild friendships that had lapsed since 1914, and by 1920 the RCA had formed several football teams throughout the country. In 1923 an RCA Inter-Railways London Nightworkers' Football League was established and the following year, a cricket section. The Scottish Western Divisional Council founded a golf club in 1925 with Charles Gallie as President. Political issues were never far below the surface and with several branches in favour of "Home Rule", social events often concluded with the generally accepted Scottish National Anthem6 Scots Wha Hae
. Sport was now a popular part of political and trade union life and several unions held annual sports days; in August 1921, the National Amalgamated Workers' Union held a Sports Gala in aid of the unemployed.7 The Young Communist League8 (YCL) which was formed in 1921, established several football teams; in the same year, a Labour, Trade Union and Co-operative Sports Association, with Tom Mann as President and Arthur Henderson and George Lansbury as vice-presidents, held events in aid of the Russian Famine Fund.
Thomas Groom, a leading figure in the Clarion Cycling Club,9 also took a number of teams on tour, endeavouring, like Maurice Bunyan, to build a relationship with socialist sports movements that existed on the continent. Groom also attended international conferences of the Social Democratic sports organisations and formulated plans for a workers' sports movement in the UK. In January 1922 he travelled to Glasgow where a meeting was held to co-ordinate all the various working class sports groups in the city. Twelve of these, embracing approximately 1,000 members, formed the Scottish Workers' Sports Federation. Their objective was to attain the greatest need of physical and mental well-being for all who work by hand or brain in this or other countries.
10 The Federation quickly received the backing of the Scottish TUC and Groom then organised a similar meeting of working class sports organisations based in the London area. This took place in April, with representatives from the NUR, Workers' Union, London Labour Party, Social Democratic Federation, ILP, Clarion Cycling Club, two Trades Councils and two local Labour Parties. One woman attended - Miss Baldwin, a member of the Musicians' Union. This meeting11 gave rise to the British Workers' Sports Federation (BWSF) which affiliated to the Lucerne Socialist Sports International. Groom was at various times International Organiser and National Secretary of the BWSF. Invitations were sent to all trade unions, co-operative societies and Labour organisations, asking them to affiliate and the RCA's Euston branch was the first railway trade union branch to do so. Plans were laid for a series of events and a team of men and women went to France that summer to compete against seven other nations at swimming, cycling and athletics; soccer teams also toured Belgium and Germany.
Maurice Bunyan encouraged RCA members to become involved but he remained the Association's principal activist for some time. He was invited to select and manage a football team to tour Germany in the summer of 1924, competing against clubs organised by the North German Labour Sports Association. Bunyan first approached the NUR Sports Section but they declined to join a combined NUR/RCA team; two RCA amateur international players were unable to take up Bunyan's invitation, but ultimately, 6 of the 13 players were members of the RCA. By 1925 the BWSF had a football league composed of 15 clubs and had sent a team to compete in the Workers' Olympiad at Frankfurt. Bunyan was by now heavily involved as a referee, and he continued to take soccer teams abroad with many of his players coming from the ranks of the RCA. Several of those selected to tour were Young Communists and following the 1926 YCL National Congress its members began to take a much more prominent part in the work of the BWSF. The political differences that had developed between the Labour Party and the CP were now fought out in the arena of sport. In this new phase of politics, RCA members played their part.
George Sinfield,12 a member of the YCL and Secretary of the influential BWSF London Football Section since 1923, wrote to The Railway Service Journal appealing to its readers to join the Federation in order to foster better international relationships and promote goodwill through the medium of sport.13 The YCL saw one of its tasks as winning youth from that domination of the boss expressed in clubs and organisations of the YMCA, Boy Scouts, and company clubs, which by means of sports attractions bring hundreds of thousands of young workers under their influence.
14 It was an opinion shared by many on the left. The RCA encouraged its branches to affiliate to the Federation but it did not identify itself with this attitude. However, some criticism was expressed by individuals when they saw the railway companies building expensive sports clubs which they felt were at the expense of wages. The trade union movement, especially the TGWU, responded to the growth of company clubs with an upsurge in their own sport and leisure activities. Workers' sports clubs appeared all over London and in 1925 a request to the RCA from the Association of Executive Officers and other civil service unions suggesting a series of matches, notably football, cricket and chess, was passed to Maurice Bunyan. The Post Office Workers' Union held a Sports Festival at High Beach,15 Essex in June 1927. The BWSF was at the heart of this development and its sports rallies became an annual affair featuring athletics, tug of war, cycling and veterans' events.
The 1925 Annual Conference of Trades Councils asked its affiliated bodies to organise sports and entertainment16 and this suggestion was taken up by the TUC. Meetings were held with the BWSF and by February 1927, it was officially recognised as the movement's sporting body. With a representative on its committee, the TUC took an active part in its affairs and encouraged unions to form their own sports clubs and to affiliate to the BWSF. A number did so, including the TGWU, and the London Trades Council. An invitation from the Russian Workers' Sports Movement led to the Federation sending a soccer team, captained by George Sinfield, to Russia in August 1927.
Enthused at what they had seen, when they returned to England they set out to transform the BWSF into a fully developed national organisation, and the London Group was invited to send speakers to over 40 trade union and Labour Party branches. It also published a controversial pamphlet, but as this was done without the approval of the Federation, Thomas Groom repudiated its contents and attacked those responsible.17 A struggle for power now developed between the YCL and the Labour Party. These differences were not simply based on the YCL's strategy to use the BWSF as a medium for its United Front activities;18 it saw sport as a purely amateur recreation whereas some, such as Groom and Bunyan, were not opposed to using semiprofessionals, particularly in football competitions. This was a matter of principle to the YCL and one which had gained considerable support. Matters came to a head on 28/29th April 1928 when the BWSF held its first national conference. A draft constitution, drawn up by the TUC and the BWSF leadership, contained a clause that excluded Communists from membership, but this resulted in a tied vote, and the following day its advocates withdrew their proposition. Shortly afterwards the TUC left the BWSF and George Sinfield replaced Thomas Groom as the BWSF General Secretary. The Federation not only survived but prospered, and within twelve months there were seven clubs affiliated in Glasgow, Tyneside, South Wales, London, Sheffield, Mansfield and Nottingham. A number of Labour Youth sections joined the BWSF and a football league was developed in the Rhondda.
Bunyan, who, in 1927, had made a broadcast for the BBC on the subject of football and peace19 was now at odds with the YCL. Indeed, he and Groom had been amongst the YCL's prime adversaries as they had gained increasing authority in the Federation. The differences were not only political; although the YCL acknowledged Bunyan's abilities as an organiser he was criticised for his methods, possibly for the use of semi-professionals, and was eventually expelled. Bunyan, and a number of others, set about trying to persuade the Labour Party to set up its own sports organisation and in the meantime he continued to take football teams to the continent, insisting that individuals signed a statement that they were not members of the CP or Minority Movement.
Now under the leadership of Young Communists, the BWSF remained affiliated to the Socialist Lucerne Sports International and then in 1929 it also joined the Red Sports International which had seen most of its affiliates in Fascist states banned and many of its members persecuted. On 25th April 1930, the BWSF held a "Red Sports Day" to which teams from a number of countries were invited, including a Russian football team that had been touring the continent. At the last minute, the Labour Home Secretary, J.R. Clynes, refused to grant them visas. It is hard to understand why Clynes should have made such a decision other than because of pure political spite, but he justified his action in Parliament by saying: In the absence of any evidence that the object of the proposed tour was for the purpose of genuine sport, I could not see my way to accede to the application.
20
The efforts that had been made by Groom, Bunyan and their colleagues finally came to fruition when they managed to persuade the Labour Party that sport played an important role in politics and that they were being left behind by the growing influence of the BWSF. This led to the London Labour Party, on the suggestion of the NEC, establishing a London Sports Association in 1928. Its constitution was framed by Herbert Morrison and Alfred M. Wall, Secretary to the London Trades Council. This Association made excellent progress and by the summer it had organised its own football league and held a sports festival at Crystal Palace attracting over 10,000 people. Bunyan was elected as International Secretary and began, with others, to promote the idea of a national organisation. Before long other members of the RCA were taking an interest in its affairs.
Bunyan represented the London Labour Party Sports Association at the fifth biennial congress of the Lucerne Sports International held in Prague during October 1929. The differences between the international Socialist and Communist movements were, by now, bitter. The BWSF, still technically affiliated to the International, was not invited, but two Communists, despite having no credentials, travelled to Prague in order to represent the BWSF. They were refused admission, and a decision was taken by the conference to expel all Communist clubs and associations from membership. Bunyan was elected, on the proposition of a Czechoslovakian delegate, to the international committee of its football section.
With the London Labour Party Sports Association now fully established, on the 23rd January 1930, at a meeting chaired by Ernest Bevin, the TUC agreed to form the British Workers' Sports Association (BWSA). The RCA's North-West London Divisional Council was an early advocate of the BWSA and appealed to the EC to give it backing. This it did21 but financial support was not forthcoming until 1935 when ten guineas (£10.50) were sent, and the RCA formally affiliated, one of six unions to do so. Bunyan continued to take football teams to the continent and just before a tour to Germany and Belgium in the summer of 1930, George Lathan chaired the "Bon Voyage" dinner at the Grafton Hotel, London. The Minister of Pensions, F.O. Roberts, was the guest of honour. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, sent Bunyan his best wishes, and said that the team, as representatives of London Labour sportsmanship, stood for ideals of peace and good fellowship.22 The RCA President, Thomas Gill, travelled with the group. Tours of European teams to Britain also became a regular feature. Bunyan arranged excursions for a team of German socialists who had little interest in the usual tourist attractions and instead visited Karl Marx's grave at Highgate Cemetry, the House of Commons, the Labour Party head office and the Daily Herald's printing press. They were also warmly welcomed and entertained by Walkden, Lathan, Dalley and Ridley, at the Association's head office.
By the end of 1932 the BWSA had 18 affiliated bodies with approximately 5,000 members. Its sports activities ranged from chess to tennis, athletics, cycling, swimming and soccer. Bunyan now found himself once again in conflict with his fellow officials. Just before he was due to take a football team to the Second International Workers' Olympiad at Vienna in 1931, he was replaced as manager. This provoked an uproar and the team refused to travel. Bunyan saw no future for his abilities within the Sports Association and he ventured into boxing, taking a team to the Tailteann Games at Dublin in 1932. His earlier enthusiasm had led to a number of branches expressing an interest in developing an RCA Sports Association, with strong support coming from Elsie Orman and the Kings Cross No.1 branch. This failed to materialise but it did help to bring others close to the BWSA, and some Divisional Councils established their own sports groups. Bunyan may have been disillusioned with some of his sporting comrades but his devotion to the RCA never wavered. When he retired in 1938 he wrote to the General Secretary, thanking the Association for its work in negotiating the LMS Superannuation Scheme. His letter concluded: The Railway Clerks' Association will always be a fragrant flower in my garden of sweet memories.
23 Thousands of others must have shared these sentiments although they would probably have expressed them differently.
Bunyan's retirement did not end the RCA's involvement in sport - on the contrary it continued to develop. His pioneering work had generated an interest amongst many RCA members and his role in the Association was taken up by a member of the Railway Clearing House branch, Charles E.J. Gunn. He not only became the BWSA Athletics Secretary, but with George Elvin, was its Joint National Secretary in 1937/1938. Another member of the RCA, H.F. Oakley, was the Swimming Secretary; A.G. Walkden became a vice-president, and Stewart Purkis represented the Association on its EC. Special BWSA ties in the RCA's colours of blue, gold and white were produced and branches were repeatedly encouraged to participate or give their support as spectators.
The union continued to back the BWSA throughout its existence and by 1951 it was amongst the oldest of the 20 affiliated unions. A new sports international, to which the BWSA was affiliated, was finally established in 1947, but as it refused to ban Communist sports bodies it was obliged to withdraw following pressure from the Labour Party and the TUC. An attempt to form a non-communist international sports organisation failed and in 1954 the BWSA reaffiliated to the International Workers' Sports Committee. Throughout the post-war period support for the BWSA gradually diminished and it was having to rely on subsidies from the TUC to further its activities. The BWSA celebrated its Silver Jubilee in 1955 and the EC gave branches the authority to affiliate at a fee of ten shillings (50p) per annum.24 Unfortunately, its time had passed and in 1957, after another loan was requested, the Labour Party and TUC agreed that their patronage could not continue and by 1960 the BWSA was dissolved.
The Association's interest in sport now took a different path. A sports column, written by TSSA member Mike Squires,25 was featured in the Transport Salaried Staff Journal (TSSJ) from 1967 to 1984. This was not unique for a union magazine, but sponsorship of sports events was a rare occurrence. The TSSA sponsored bicycle races in Derby from1969, and then throughout the 1970s co-sponsored the Prestige Derbyshire bicycle races which were held from March to October. A yellow jersey, emblazoned with the letters TSSA, was worn by the points leader and David Orford,26 a member of the Association's Derby No.2 branch, won the event on two occasions.
It was a TSSA member, Joe Connolly,27 who conceived the idea of the Irish Community Games in 1967 and became its first secretary. Each year since 1968 over 500,000 children have participated in its activities, and many international sports women and men started their careers by entering the Games. In 1974 the Dublin No.1 branch suggested that the TSSA should donate a permanent trophy for the Games and in 1975 this was presented to Joe Connolly by the Association's Irish Secretary, Bill Etherington, for the under 16 years cycling competition. The opportunity to recruit members to the TSSA by sports sponsorship continued and in 1989 a member of the Association's Leeds branch, Tony Hewitt MBE, the passenger of a duo that won three world motorcycle sidecar road racing championships, was partly sponsored by the Association.
Organised sports activities returned in the 1970s although they only lasted for a few years and were centred on the full-time staff at Walkden House and the Association's lively LT Young Members' Group. There were bowling teams, a men's football team, and the head office also had a women's netball team which played weekly matches against other union offices and various companies. Branch social activity continued and dances with cabarets were held annually by the North-East London, South Wales, and North Lancashire Divisional Councils. Since 1912 an All London Social Committee held an event almost every year until the middle of the 1980s. Eventually their popularity waned and they were dropped from the social calendar. It was a sad end to a great tradition.
[1]. Elsie Orman was the most notable advocate of Esperanto within the RCA.
[2]. The Railway Service Journal February 1923.
[3]. Other trade unions had choirs but the RCA appears to have had the only mixed choir.
[4]. R. Rennie was also Director of the Orpheus Choir in which RCA members participated.
[5]. The Angel, Angel Street, Sheffield. Built 1682.
[6]. The Railway Service Journal January 1926.
[7]. Daily Herald 18th August 1921.
[8]. In 1921, the Young Workers' League joined with other socialist youth organisations to form the Young Communist League of Great Britain.
[9]. The National Clarion Cycling Club was established in 1895. T. Groom was a founder member and National Secretary 1911-1916.
[10]. Daily Herald 1st May 1923.
[11]. Daily Herald 1st May 1923.
[12]. G. Sinfield was President of South London Sunday Football League but stood down in favour of Clement Attlee and became Vice-President. Sinfield later became the Sports Writer on the Daily Worker then its Industrial Correspondent.
[13]. The Railway Service Journal January 1926.
[14]. The Weekly Young Worker 14th May 1927.
[15]. High Beach became a regular venue for working class sports events and a resting place for the Socialist Cycling Club. The first cinder track speedway competitions in Britain were held there in 1928.
[16]. Trades Council Annual Report 1925.
[17]. Daily Herald 9th February 1928.
[18]. The Young Weekly Worker 17th September 1927.
[19]. The Railway Service Journal January 1927.
[20]. House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, 1st May 1931. Vol. 238. Col. 349/350.
[21]. RCA EC Minutes 25th February 1930.
[22]. The Railway Service Journal August 1930.
[23]. The Railway Service Journal July 1938.
[24]. TSSJ September 1955.
[25]. M. Squires (Middlesbrough). Labour Councillor, Hartlepool, 1979-1983.
[26]. D. Orford (Derby No.2). Veteran's World Cycle Champion 1986 and 1990.
[27]. J. P. Connolly (Dublin No.1). Joined RCA 1941. Labour Party and Chairman Dublin CC 1975, elected to Dublin Corporation 1990. He contested the General Elections 1969, 1977 and a By-election at Dublin South Central in 1994. Connolly represented the Republic of Ireland 15 times as a boxer.
Transport Salaried Staffs' Association Registered Head Office: Walkden House, 10 Melton Street, London, England
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