ABSTRACT
In 1873 the first northern clubs were granted membership into the RFU. Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Rochdale Hornets and Wigan joined in that year and by 1875,21 northern clubs had joined the game's parent body.5 Liverpool and Manchester FCs could boast membership of their cities' leading families and a strong public school connection.6 Historian Stuart Barlow has shown that Rochdale could make the same claim in its early years and notes that the club's gentlemen were devotees ofthe same sporting values as southern Union members.7 Liverpool and Manchester were sufficiently large cities to allow their top clubs the luxury of recruiting exclusively from within the middle class.
