100 years ago

Mr Harry Lawson had asked the Prime Minister whether he had received a protest from Mr Frederick N Charrington, of the Great Assembly Hall, Mile End, on behalf of many ministers of religion and the mayors of numerous boroughs, condemning professional football and the playing of cup finals during the current crisis; and whether he was going to take any action.

The Prime Minister had replied in Parliamentary Papers: “The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. I am informed that the result of negotiations which have taken place between the War office, representatives of the Football Association, and Mr Charrington has been that the International matches have been abandoned. The Football Association did not see their way to stop the playing of cup-ties.”

 

50 years ago

Mediaeval vaults in which King Henry VIII stored his wine had been turned into a jazz club. More than 200 York University undergraduates had flocked into the stone-flagged cellars beneath King’s Manor, which had been converted at a cost of more than £3,000 into the students’ first night spot.

The main attraction was top modern jazz saxophonist Don Rendell, backed by the Brian Leyton Trio from Leeds, and a quartet from the University of Sussex. Jazzman Rendell’s verdict on the Cellars Club: “Great - it’s got a tremendous atmosphere.”

The students had supervised the conversion of the cellars themselves – in cooperation with the University architects – after receiving financial backing from the University and from the University Grants Committee. The vaults had been used as a workshop by the Yorkshire School for the Blind until about two years before.

 

25 years ago

A North Yorkshire parish priest was warning that the current ‘yob’ values of young people could lead to an Age of the Brat. But the Rev Peter Smith, priest-in-charge of Lower Nidderdale parish, laid the blame partly on their elders, for behaving in such ‘selfish and bullying’ ways.

Mr Smith said recent research into teenage attitudes and behaviour by a leading advertising agency described a ‘brat’ culture, where young people were concerned solely for their own comfort and pleasure, had no respect for the middle-aged and ridiculed the elderly.

“These young people will come of age in the 1990s and by 2020 will be in positions of power. It is no wonder that such ‘yob’ values are held by today’s young when their elders behave in such selfish ways.” He referred to the Americans blasting the Vatican Embassy in Panama with non-stop deafening rock music at the turn of the year, to try to force officials to give up General Noriega. “This was clearly an act of bullying the Americans thought they could get away with,” he said.