Quote cheekydiddles="cheekydiddles"Gone well over my head that...you'll have to explain
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Over his head ?
More like over The Cliff ....
To explain, in days of old before WW2, there were actually THREE professional RL clubs in North Manchester. Salford you should know about, there was Swinton at Station Road and jammed somewhere inbetween was one of the founder members of the Northern Union ... Broughton Rangers.
They won the Challenge Cup in 1902 and again in 1911, but never contested a championship final during their history.
Their ground was called The Cliff and again, was the venue for both the Challenge Cup Final (last in 1921 - In the days before Wembley) and the Championship Final on several occasions.
The club was hit hard in the 30s and during WW2 .... It just about survived in to the post war era, but because of problems at the club they sold The Cliff and moved to Belle Vue (not too far from Man City's ground at Eastlands, give or take a couple of miles), but from there the writing was on the wall and the club dissolved around 1949.
As for The Cliff, well that was bought by the works team of the Yorks & Lancs Railway Co at Newton Heath .... Perhaps better known as Manchester United. Indeed, up until fairly recently, The Cliff was their main training base and I think they still use it for youth games and reserve training.
I visited it about 10 years ago and there are still signs of its previous life ... The popluar stand roof on the River Irwell (eastern) side of the ground still remains and when you compare it to the photos of the 1921 Cup Final, it is almost the same. The playing area is also surrounded by tell-tale terraced bankings, although on the other hand, it still takes some thoughts of how over 25K crammed themselves in to such a small space.
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