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Tag Archives: history

Tennis and Football stars from Newcastle by Dr. Jo Bath

04 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

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books, city of newcastle upon tyne, Dr. Jo Bath, Football, guest blogging, guest posts, history, Mary Brown, Munitionettes, Muriel Robb, nooks and crannies, Publication, refined ladies, sports, St James Park, Tennis, The British Ladies' Football Club, welsh championships, Wimbledon, wimbledon champion, Women, writing


Today’s guest post is by Dr. Jo Bath, co-author of The Newcastle Book of Days, which is a collection of ‘On this Day’ style anecdotes and historical snippets centred around the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Being as how it is a city close to my heart, being close to where I was born, my interest is especially piqued by this book. I even remember some of the events described, including the building of the Metro described below. Here she talks about some of the stories she came across when writing the book, including one that is very relevant in Wimbledon season…

Muriel Robb

One of the best things about writing a Book of Days has been the freedom to explore more or less any aspect of local history that caught my eye. Of course, some things were always going to be included in one form or another. You can’t cover Newcastle’s history without referring to, for instance, the Great Fire which devastated the Quayside on October 6th 1854, the development of Grainger Town or the birth of the Metro (the largest urban transport project of twentieth-century Britain). But what really excited me were the nooks and crannies of the city’s history, the almost-forgotten figures and stories which have all, in their way, made the place what it is today.

I’m sitting in my office listening to the tennis, and that reminds me that Newcastle has a Wimbledon champion all of its own in 23-year-old Jesmond-based Muriel Robb. Admittedly her victory was on July 2nd 1902, so the contest was very different from the modern game. Wimbledon merely hosted the English National Championships (though participants did come from further afield – Robb had already won the Irish, Scottish and Welsh Championships). At the time, the women’s game was quite sedate, with underarm serves delivered by refined ladies in floor-length dresses and straw hats. But Robb was a blast of fresh air. Despite the handicap of corsetry, she was a relatively speedy mover and probably the first woman to serve overarm. Contemporary Arthur Myers said that “her command of the ball was so striking, her forehand drives so deadly, and her overhead service so effective, while her self-possession was so apparent,” that her opponents were often placed at a disadvantage.
Remarkably, due to a strange decision Robb’s Wimbledon final, against defending champion Charlotte Sterry, was the longest women’s Wimbledon final in history. The match was drawn at a set each when rain stopped play. Rather than playing a deciding set the next day, the committee decided to wipe the scoreboard and start from scratch! This time, Robb won comfortably – after playing a total of 53 games. Despite her powerful play, her health was never that robust, and she retired later the same year. She died less than five years later, of unknown causes – the youngest Wimbledon champion ever to die.

armstrong_munitionettes

Armstrong Munitionettes

Speaking of female sports players, Newcastle’s ladies (as you might expect) were also pioneers on the football field. The British Ladies’ Football Club played at St James’ Park on April 20th, 1895, only a month after they formed, and a crowd of 8,000 gathered to watch the “spectacle”. The reporter for the Sporting Man was obviously confused by the whole thing, and spent all his time describing the women’s attire. He concluded that “the young women presented a pretty appearance on the field, and this was in great measure due to the nice assortment of colours, as well as the dainty way the women set them off”! The quality of football played on this occasion is unclear, but certainly twenty years later a new generation of teenage girls embraced the sport with enthusiasm. The Munitionettes League was formed in 1917, made up of teams from the women workers of the factories of the north-east, and was the first ever league for women’s football. Made obsolete by the end of the war, the League lasted less than three years, but St James’ Park, host to the cup final, saw some remarkable young women in action. Mary Brown, playing for Palmer’s of Jarrow, not only played in the 1919 final (March 22nd) but at 14 was the youngest-ever footballer, of either gender, to play for England!

Guest blog blues…

20 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts, Musings

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#amwriting, Christmas, Christmas number one, Doctor Who, Dr Who, education, guest blogging, guest posts, history, Hurt, NIN, Nine Inch Nails, snow, TV, X Factor


A while back I was asked to do a guest blog for the amwriting community. I put together an article comparing being a published writer for the first time to being a teacher for the first time. I enjoyed writing it, I assume some people enjoyed reading it (the comments were all good anyway) and it was clearly so successful that they asked me to come back and do another one… I agreed and was given a date when it was due to be posted.

Then I realised I did not have a blind thing I wanted to talk about.

Oh, I have ideas. A reasonable number of ideas. Every now and again I think of something and part of my brain pops up with a little note saying ‘You could do a blog post about that’. Recently, I have had thoughts about British Urban fantasy and what it means, the Christmas Number one phenomenon and how it seems to have turned into a battle between the X factor winner and whatever alternative and inappropriate tune we can think of (currently seems to be Nine Inch Nail’s Hurt), things I have noticed about Dr Who plots, things I have noticed about education and the teaching of history*, and many other subjects. Trouble is, the more I think about some of these ideas, the less interesting and novel they seem. I get less and less motivation to actually sit down and write about them.

So, yes, this is the ultimate irony – a blog post about how I cannot seem to write blog posts 🙂

Part of it is some form of quality control system in my brain which seems to be at work. Any idea is faced with a barrage of questions along the lines of ‘is this worthwhile?’ ‘Has anyone else ever written about this before?’ ‘Will anyone care enough to read?’ Now, for my own blog here these questions are often soon silenced. It’s my blog, I write what the hell I want, and if there are issues I am sure readers will let me know… However, when it is a guest blog for someone else, I often get greater angst about it. It is not my domain I am befouling with my stench, it is the domain of someone else. This adds a whole new level of concern about the relevance of what you are saying. The result is often me chickening out and posting another photo of a cute dog.

So, while I am still pondering the dilemma of what to write for #amwriting I would ask you, the readers of this, to answer me some questions:

– What subjects do you think I should talk about on this blog? Which posts have you liked the most?

– What current issues do you think face writers and/or readers which may be blog worthy for the #amwriting blog?

– If I were to post my PGCE essay on why History is an essential subject, would anyone bother to read it?

Answers on a comment form below, please 🙂

 

*That was one I had today, there was an article on Radio 4 about it and I once wrote an essay about how important History is as a subject. I may still blog about this one at some point… I may also still do a post on Nine Inch Nails and the Christmas number one at some point soon…

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