Gridball Beginnings

1946

The Gridball Association is created in London, by a group of four of the wealthiest women in United Kingdom, each pledging to invest £100,000 of their own money in developing a Professional Gridball team. Each throws their financial backing behind one of four desired inagural teams.

London is the natural first choice and gets financial backing from Suzanna Knockmore-Thornleigh, daughter of Lord and Lady Lisnagarvey, the wealthy political and landowning family of Lisburn in Northern Ireland. She'd served in the Wrens in World War II and Gridball was her invention. Liverpool is the location of the team created by Emma Altcar, daughter of leisure millionaire Leonard Altcar of the Altcar cinema, bingo and dancehall chain. Maggie Carragher is a renowned Irish born nightclub chain owning millionairess who goes north to support a Glasgow team while Jewellery family heiress Nancy Young throws her weight behind Birmingham. The quartet have given themselves five years to build a team, secure a home and finances.

1947

January 1947 opens with a British wide invitation to submit bids for four franchises to join Gridball in 1952. Having approached five different arenas, Knockmore-Thornleigh had secured the Empire Pool, Wembley, leasing it for four dates in 1951 to host Gridball games. However, having spoken to Earls Court, The Agricultural Hall, Alexandra Palace and Haringay Arena, all four find backers to submit bids to put a second London team in place. Elsewhere in England, bids are made by Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, and Newcastle with other English bids rejected. A second team for Glasgow, along with bids from Edinburgh and Cardiff also come in.

Each bid is asked to advise where they intend to play and what catchment they can hope to

achieve. The four existing teams then have four votes each to decide the new franchises. Sheffield, a second London team and a second Glasgow bid dominate the voting and are elected on the first ballot. Manchester secures the fourth spot in a second ballot

1948

The first official Gridball match is played on June 12th 1948 at Wembley between the Middlesex Saxons and Liverpool Liverbirds. The game is staged as a test event for both Gridball and the BBC Outside Broadcast unit, preparing for the 1948 Olympics. While it proves a success for the Beeb, the game is a poor one, finishing 0-0 with Middlesex mustering just one shot on the Liverpool goal. Fortunately the viewing figures are less than 10,000 while no official attendance is recorded.

The Beeb keep to a promise to shoe games at Wembley, with four staged there. Birmingham Vipers win the series, which also includes four non televised games at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow.

Arguments over choice of team colours leads to a radical plan put in place where a team's principal colour is selected at random. Teams are allowed secondary and tertiary colours but must ensure their primary colour remains the predominant kit choice.

The French express interest in joining and are offered two franchises in Paris and Lille while a third London team are elected as the city now has three arenas willing to host. To differentiate the teams, the Wembley based team change their name to Middlesex while the team at Earls Court opt for Thames. In Glasgow too, the second team set up home in Cambuslang, taking the name Lanarkshire. The fourth franchise selected this year goes to Leeds, while twenty-four other UK and Ireland teams are supported in the idea of launching a junior British League in 1950.

1949

This year saw the launch of the Summer Series. An eight team winner stays on event with all matches staged at the Empire Pool, Wembley, complete with an agreement to stage a match every Saturday from March to October for BBC Television's fledgling sports service. Birmingham launched the season as the unofficial Champions of 1948 and were defeated at the first time of asking by Middlesex, who ultimately won the series before the end of May, having defeated all seven of their rivals. Glasgow had earlier managed to beat the Saxons in overtime to briefly have the winner stays on mantle before losing it to the surprise packet of the season, Leeds, who ultimately were defeated by the Saxons.

Gridball was left scrambling for fixtures to fill the slots for another 21 weeks, staging various scratch matches and friendlies against sides that hadn't yet joined the series. Fortunately the BBC weren't overly bothered about holding Gridball to the original agreement and began regularly dropping it from the schedule for Cricket and Tennis.