A young Salford boy was sentenced to a harsh beating at the hands of the authorities 100 years ago this week after being caught stealing from the city’s former rugby ground, The Willows.
Now demolished in favour of Salford Red Devils’ new ground at the AJ Bell Stadium at Barton, The Willows on Weaste Lane will live long in the memory for Salford rugby league fans.
But it was never the fortress it seemed: it only took a young lad with an eye for an opening to break into the club changing rooms and make off with the spoils of war.
On 28 August 1915 groundsman John William Shemelt locked up the premises as usual for the night.
But he was shocked to return the following day to find the changing rooms “in a state of disorder”, with three pairs of boots and a rugby ball missing from the inventory.
The missing kit was worth £1 in 1915 money: calculating for inflation this today would stand at around £105.
Mr Shemelt didn’t report the matter to the police because there had been a practice match the evening before and he thought that some of the juniors had taken the equipment by mistake.
However his suspicions were aroused and the next week, after a match between Salford and the Rochdale Hornets, decided to turn detective, hiding underneath the main stand at the rear of Weaste Lane, waiting for the culprits to return.
He was proven right when a group of young boys climbed over the wall into the ground and made their way to the pavillion.
One of the boys, 13-year-old John Leith, took off his boots and climbed onto an empty mineral water case, shimmying through a window into the players changing rooms while two young friends acted as lookouts.
Seizing his opportunity Mr Shemelt raced to the dressing room, flinging the door open and apprehending the bare-footed John Leith.
He questioned the youth who quickly admitted that he, along with two of his pals, 11-year-old James Anderson and 10-year-old Edward Barry, had broken into the pavillion and escaped with the sports kit.
The boys were all arrested and charged with the theft, pleading guilty at Salford Magistrates Court.
It emerged in front of Magistrates that the boys had hidden the football boots and ball in an unoccupied yard at Regent Road, but some person had stolen them and they were never recovered.
The Chairman of the Bench was of the opinion that Leith was the ringleader of this daring gang and ordered him to to receive five strokes of the birch.
The other two boys were cautioned about their future behaviour and the company that they kept and were released without charge.
The birch was a harsh sentence to be given and would be carried out at the nearest police station often by a burly Police Sergeant with the boys parents ordered to witness the punishment.
I wonder if young James Leith did see the errors of his ways and lead a honest life or would he soon be enlisted into the British Army and taken to the Western Front to face the full horrors of the Great War.
