Today, the name Manchester United is almost inseparable from Old Trafford. Yet some of the most important years in the club’s early history took place several miles away, here in Clayton.
Between 1893 and 1910, Manchester United (originally Newton Heath LYR Football Club) played at the Bank Street ground in Clayton. It was here that the club developed from a struggling Second Division side into one of the leading football teams in England.
At the heart of that transformation was one of the most remarkable footballers of the Edwardian era: Charlie Roberts.
Roberts was not only Manchester United’s first great captain, he was also a pioneering campaigner for the rights of professional footballers and one of the founders of the organisation which eventually became today’s Professional Footballers’ Association.
His association with Clayton did not end when Manchester United moved to Old Trafford. The tobacco business which he established after his playing career later had premises on Ashton New Road, while Roberts himself was eventually laid to rest at St Cross Church, Clayton (Manchester Libraries, 1960; Stark, n.d.).
Contents
From Darlington to Clayton
The rise of Manchester United
FA Cup glory
Charlie Roberts and the ‘Claytonians’
The footballer who challenged the authorities
Charlie Roberts Tobacconists
A Clayton connection to the end
Acknowledgements
From Darlington to Clayton
Charles Roberts was born near Darlington in 1883 and played for Bishop Auckland and Grimsby Town before Manchester United manager Ernest Mangnall brought him to the club in 1904.
United paid Grimsby £600 for the young centre-half, an exceptionally large transfer fee at the time. It proved to be money well spent. Roberts became one of the central figures in Mangnall’s emerging team and would eventually make 299 appearances for Manchester United, scoring 23 goals (National Football Museum, n.d.; Professional Footballers’ Association, 2015).
When Roberts arrived, Manchester United had existed under that name for only two years.
More importantly for Clayton’s history, the club was still playing at Bank Street, its home since 1893 (Manchester United, n.d.a).
The plaque at 38 Bank Street, Clayton, marking the site of Manchester United’s former Bank Street ground. © Historic England Archive, ref. PLA01/04/0033. Image displayed using Historic England’s permitted Share/Embed service.
Bank Street stood close to the railway and the industrial landscape of Clayton. A plaque at 38 Bank Street today commemorates the football ground which once stood opposite and records its association with Newton Heath and Manchester United between 1893 and 1910 (Historic England, 2004).
So when Charlie Roberts signed for Manchester United in 1904, he did not arrive at Old Trafford.
He arrived at Clayton.
The rise of Manchester United
Roberts quickly established himself at the centre of the United team.
Playing at centre-half, a position rather different from its modern equivalent, he was regarded as an exceptionally accomplished footballer. By 1905–06, Roberts was captain of a famous half-back line alongside Dick Duckworth and Alex Bell.
That season, United finished second in the Second Division and returned to the First Division after an absence of twelve years (Manchester United, n.d.a).
The club then assembled one of the outstanding teams of the period. Billy Meredith arrived from Manchester City and joined players including Sandy Turnbull, George Wall, Harry Moger, Duckworth, Bell and Roberts.
In 1907–08, Manchester United won the Football League championship for the first time in the club’s history.
Charlie Roberts was the captain.
It was a landmark achievement for Manchester United – but it was also a significant chapter in the sporting history of Clayton.
The home matches of Manchester United’s first championship-winning side were played at Bank Street, Clayton, rather than Old Trafford (Manchester United, n.d.a; National Football Museum, 2023). The enormous football institution which Manchester United would later become was beginning to emerge here, among the houses, factories and streets of east Manchester.
FA Cup glory
More history followed in 1909. Manchester United reached the FA Cup Final for the first time, facing Bristol City at Crystal Palace. Roberts captained the side and Sandy Turnbull scored the only goal as Manchester United won 1–0.
Charlie Roberts became the first Manchester United captain to lift the FA Cup (Manchester United, 2020; Professional Footballers’ Association, 2015).
The road to the final had also passed through Clayton, as supporters poured into Bank Street for United’s home fixtures during the successful cup campaign.
Charlie Roberts and the ‘Claytonians’
Perhaps one of the most evocative pieces of evidence for Manchester United’s relationship with Clayton comes from newspapers published while Roberts was actually playing here.
In December 1909, Roberts was awarded a benefit match. Contemporary reports in Cricket and Football Field demonstrate both his enormous popularity and the extent to which Manchester United was associated with Clayton.
One report discussing the forthcoming benefit referred to United supporters as “Claytonians” (Cricket and Football Field, 1909a).
Following the match, another report described the popularity of Roberts as obvious to anyone attempting to make the journey towards Clayton, with large numbers of supporters trying to board the cars travelling to the district (Cricket and Football Field, 1909b).
It provides a wonderful glimpse of an Edwardian match day. Long before crowds streamed towards Old Trafford, thousands of football supporters were making their way towards Bank Street.
The streets around Clayton would have filled with people heading towards the ground, with Roberts and his teammates becoming familiar sporting figures to the local population.
The footballer who challenged the authorities
Roberts was also important for reasons far beyond what happened on the pitch.
Professional footballers at the beginning of the twentieth century enjoyed nothing like the financial rewards or freedom associated with leading players today.
Their wages were restricted and clubs exercised considerable control over their careers. Roberts and his Manchester United teammate Billy Meredith became leading figures in attempts to change this.
In December 1907, they were instrumental in establishing the Association Football Players’ and Trainers’ Union, generally known as the Players’ Union. The organisation campaigned against restrictions including the maximum wage and the retain-and-transfer system (National Football Museum, n.d.; Professional Footballers’ Association, 2015).
The organisation was the forerunner of today’s Professional Footballers’ Association. The dispute came to a head in 1909 when the Football Association attempted to force players to abandon the union. While many footballers elsewhere backed down, the Manchester United players refused.
Roberts and his teammates were suspended.
They continued training together and became famously known as “The Outcasts”. Roberts later recalled producing the wooden sign bearing the words “The Outcasts Football Club” which appeared in the famous photograph of the rebellious United players (Professional Footballers’ Association, 2015).
Eventually, the Football Association relented. The episode established Roberts as one of the most important figures in the early history of football trade unionism.
He remained involved with the Players’ Union after leaving Manchester United and later helped to revive the organisation following the First World War (Professional Footballers’ Association, 2015).
His importance to football was formally recognised in 2017 when he was inducted into the National Football Museum Hall of Fame (National Football Museum, 2017).
Charlie Roberts Tobacconists
After his playing career, Roberts became a successful businessman and developed a wholesale and retail tobacco concern.
The business continued long after his death, and remarkable photographic evidence preserved by Manchester Libraries places the Roberts name prominently on Ashton New Road.
A photograph taken in 1960, now held in the Manchester Local Image Collection, shows a row of buildings on the north side of Ashton New Road beside the Primitive Methodist Chapel. (Manchester Libraries, 1960)
Above one of the premises, in enormous letters, are the words:
CHARLIE ROBERTS
TOBACCONISTS LTD
By the time the photograph was taken, Manchester United had been playing at Old Trafford for half a century.
A Clayton connection to the end
Charlie Roberts died on 7 August 1939, aged 56. And fittingly, the story of his connection with Clayton did not end elsewhere in Manchester.
He was buried at St Cross Church, Clayton. His surviving gravestone was photographed by local photographer Brian Stark (Stark, n.d.).
The memorial stands only a relatively short distance from the streets where Roberts had played his home football during Manchester United’s first great era, and where his tobacconists once stood. A small stone plaque in his memory was installed when the row of shops was refurbished in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Acknowledgements
Clayton Hall Living History Museum would like to extend its special thanks to Brian Stark for kindly providing his photograph of Charlie Roberts’ grave at St Cross Church, Clayton.
We are also grateful to Manchester Libraries and the Manchester Local Image Collection for preserving and making available the remarkable 1960 photograph of Charlie Roberts Tobacconists Ltd on Ashton New Road, accession number m12359.
Our thanks also go to Historic England for making available, through its Share/Embed service, the Historic England Archive photograph of the plaque at 38 Bank Street commemorating the site of Manchester United’s former Bank Street ground in Clayton (Historic England Archive, reference PLA01/04/0033).
The historical photograph of Charlie Roberts is reproduced from the 1909 Manchester United team photograph. The photographer is unknown and the image is in the public domain; it is made available through Wikimedia Commons.