Times Past: A Manchester football club with Monaghan links
In his latest Times Past column, Jonathan Smyth recalls Anna Connell from Clones who is credited as a founder of Manchester City.
Football is big business. Just look at the multi-millions spent every year by the big soccer clubs in the United Kingdom. Teams from the likes of Nottingham Forest to West Ham United and others have a huge fan-base around the world and nowhere more so than in Ireland. It is appropriate since some of those soccer teams have a strong Irish heritage. Take for example, Celtic in Glasgow, which was founded by the Marist Brother Walfrid to help Irish families living in poverty by offering men a positive outlet to keep them away from a life of crime and other social ills. Sport motivates and helps communities to thrive and still does to this day. I would like to acknowledge Patrick J. Bannon who drew my attention to an article on Anna Connell in Irelands Own, by Brian Murphy.
Clones woman
For people living in the south Ulster region, it may be of interest to know that one of the largest English football clubs was linked to a person from Co Monaghan. Anna Connell was born in Clones on December 24, 1851; the daughter of the Rev Arthur Henry Connell, a Primitive Wesleyan Methodist minister (native of Mallow, in the rebel county of Cork) and his wife Anna Dwyer Connell (of Templemichael, Co Longford). The Connells' other children were named Georgina and Arthur. The Rev Connell’s religious allegiance later shifted from Methodism to the Church of Ireland, and he entered a theological college in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, to train as an Anglican clergyman. His family relocated with him to England.
In 1856, Rev Connell sailed back to Ireland as a Church of Ireland curate for the parish of Shankill, Lurgan. He later emigrated to Manchester.
Holy cricket
When her father started work in Gorton, Manchester, his daughter Anna was to witness the distresses of the destitute. Anna was a kind and compassionate young lady and she wanted to do what she could to help the people who were suffering. I hear you say, well, such is the price of turnips! But in reality, she did a great deal to help.
The origin of Manchester City FC began at St Mark’s Anglican Church, West Gorton, Manchester. The church was opened in November 1865, and its first rector was the Rev Arthur Connell who with the support of his daughter Anna and church wardens William Beastow, Thomas Goodbehere and James Moores, set out to keep young men off the streets and away from the pubs and ‘scuttling’, that is gang fights.
To do this Anna and the others founded a young men's association and out of this they formed a cricket club in 1875. It gave the people new hope, bigger dreams and a nourished a better outlook on life. However, after summer successes the bats always had to be put away for the winter, and concern grew for the men when they had nothing to occupy their leisure time. History shows that violence erupted on the streets when opposing gangs fell out and vast numbers hit the street when clashes happened.
City slickers
BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour devoted a programme to Anna in recognition of her role in the founding of Manchester City Football Club. They noted that: ‘The Blue half of Manchester owes a great debt to a vicar’s daughter called Anna Connell … believed to be the only woman in the world to have founded a football club.’ They began playing on a rough ‘derelict’ piece of land and are now one of the world’s richest clubs.
Anna led meetings with the men of the parish and with the help of others, she drove home the idea of establishing a church football team, which they named St Mark's. The first match was played on November 13, 1880, against another church team from Macclesfield. But Macclesfield on the occasion defeated them 2 to 1. Then in 1887, the team changed its name to Ardwick Association Football Club and a few years later, on April 16, 1894, the team officially became known as Manchester City Football Club.
In 2011, in recognition of Anna and her family, the club established the ‘Connell Awards’ to recognise ‘outstanding’ achievements in ‘urban sport’ in the East Manchester district. The Connells were socially minded and set up soup kitchens, ‘a penny savings bank’ and ‘a ragged school’ to help the deprived.
New goals
Anna Connell never married herself and, when her widowed father retired in 1897, they both moved to Southport where she became his caregiver. They thought the sea air would restore him to vigour. The Rev Arthur Connell lived until 1899, and his funeral took place in St Mark’s Church, Manchester, with burial afterwards in West Gorton. Anna moved to Walsall and then to Darlaston where she stayed with her sister and brother-in-law, the Rev John W. Dixon.
Her final years were spent helping her sister out with parish works, until she died on October 21, 1924. In May 2025, Forbes recorded the club's worth at £4.1 Billion, with a revenue of £112 million and operating costs of £713 million.
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