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'The Workers' Sports Movement', 1928

Pamphlet promoting the British Workers' Sports Movement, including a copy of the farewell declaration by the first British workers' football team to play in Soviet Russia (in 1927). The team played seven matches in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov, the Don Basin and Kiev in front of large crowds (30,000 in Moscow), and lost all but one match. The pamphlet variously identifies the reasons for the losses as the different Russian rules, the hot weather, the smaller than usual ball, poor refereeing, dubious interpretations of the offside rule, the amount of travelling, and, on occasions, superior playing by the opposition.

Included in a file on 'Workers' sports organisations, 1926-1945', from the archive of the Trades Union Congress; document reference: MSS.292/807.12/5. This document has been digitised and be read in full online.

The Workers Sports Movement