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

RogerN, Hope these photographs will bring back some memories for you. Not sure if they are relevant to the Sports Days you were talking about but I think they are near the time frame. On the back of one of the photographs is the following: "Bill (Oliver) 4th from left, Humber Eng. Dept. Late 1940's Tug of War Match. Hope you enjoy them. Camperman

A couple of pictures of AWA apprentices, likely late 50s, early 60s. Sourced from the Albert Whitehouse archive on the Bitteswell F/B page

Harrier will like those!

A lot of questions. Of course there were sports and sports days, but mainly in the summer - reports tucked away in little pockets - but no it wasn't big. Look at the clothes for instance, shirt sleeves, ties, no such thing as Adidas, track suits. It got popular when forces had to do keep-fit, competed, younger ones became interested, joined sports clubs. Look how few football matches occured back then, just progress, now they're complaining too much, bodies breaking down. Oh gosh, those old tug-o-war, just clean fun, once or twice a year, you slipped your suit off, got mucky, you laughed, only one in a hundred took it seriously and trained.

Yep!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bang goes my Friday - my wife will have to light the fire, do the washing and cleaning, tidy up the garden, wash the car, sweep the paths etc. while I spend today chasing up details, especially that picture of the runners at the Butts track. My first problem is that I am not on social media so cannot access any other information from that Bitteswell Facebook page reference. However, a couple of things that strike me at first glance. Firstly, six of the ten starters are wearing adidas spikes with only one (second left) in those old canvas type boots, and he is not in 'athletic kit'. And those adidas were not cheap!! Or readily available. Nearly all the field are wearing, what would be classified as 'proper' athletic kit, shorts etc. and vests. The event is the mile… the Butts track measured 360 yards so the starts for standard races were scattered all around the track, certainly not where you expect them to be. Are not the competitors a bit on the old side to be apprentices?? The starting stance of the runners is typical of club athletes, i.e. totally incorrect!!! I wonder if the event could have been an 'invitation event' of which there were several during the course of each yearly Sports? The caption seems to imply that the runners were all Armstrong Whitworth apprentices which must logically be highly unlikely? If I knew the year I could fill in more details. The search begins after I have found time to make my wife a cup of tea to sustain her while I am busy.

Priorities, Harrier... Tea can wait!