Apprentice Sports

Was sport for the apprentices and the Apprentices' Sports unique (?) to Coventry? The Sports (athletics) certainly offered an invaluable source of recruitment for Godiva Harriers in the post war years. But did other sports offer a similar competitive structure for youngsters when they became an apprentice? Football seems pretty obvious. When did competitive sports (ie which year) start for apprentices in Coventry and when did it die out? Was it a post war phenomenon? Did factories recruit from within their firm experienced sportsmen to organise each sport, or bring in outside help? Did one person supervise all the different sports? Was it a male preserve?

Remember playing football in the Wickman Cup competition. Knock out competition for all Coventry firms who could put out an apprentice team, final was played at the old Butts stadium.

Did anyone take part in the Apprentice Sports at the Butts? Were the Sports always held at the Butts Stadium? According to an old programme I have, the Sports appeared to have started during the war, if you count back the years, which seems strange? I have found no reference to the first Sports in the old newspaper files; does this mean that the Sports were not held during the war years, or was it because space in the newspaper was at a premium and the Sports were not considered important enough to warrant a report? Women first competed in about 1961 but their events did not allow points and they did not contribute to their company's total. Were women apprentices ever able to contribute to their works total points?

I trained with Rootes from '49 to '52 and we entered a full team for the sports at the Butts. We had weekly PT and a lot of us played football or rugby for Rootes. Nearly every factory had a number of Welshmen who were all keen rugby players as well as hard working committee men who ran the club and teams. For Rootes we had Ken James who was a hard working chairman of the rugby club. I digress but at the Apprentice Sports of 1951 at the Butts I was in the Rootes tug of war team that beat the Dunlop in the final. PS Sorry Harrier for this being in the wrong place but cannot see how the 'respond to a quote' works