The Hyde Colliery Relief Match, 1889

Five weeks after twenty-three men and boys died in the Hyde Colliery explosion, the two Manchester clubs that would become Manchester City and Manchester United met at Belle Vue to raise money for the victims' families. The game was played under electric light, and it was the first floodlit match either club ever played.

The mining history in this record

The explosion of firedamp in the Two-feet mine at Hyde Lane Colliery on 18 January 1889 killed twenty-three men and boys, most of them by afterdamp, and left their families with nothing.

On 26 February 1889 Ardwick, the club that became Manchester City, played Newton Heath, the club that became Manchester United, at the Belle Vue athletic ground in Manchester in aid of the Hyde disaster fund. The match was played under Wells electric lights ranged around the ground, before a crowd of ten thousand. Newton Heath won three goals to two. For both clubs it was the first game they had played under floodlights, more than sixty years before floodlighting became normal in English football, and the occasion for it was a mining disaster seven miles away.

The two clubs had first met in 1881 as St Mark's of West Gorton and Newton Heath LYR, and by the late 1880s they were the dominant sides in the district, the Manchester Cup going to one or the other every year between 1888 and 1893. The relief match brought together the strongest local draw available.

People

The clubs rather than individuals are the subject here. Ardwick AFC became Manchester City in 1894; Newton Heath, founded by workers of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway at Newton Heath, became Manchester United in 1902.

Legacy today

The fixture the two clubs played that night is now the Manchester derby, and the 1889 meeting is remembered in its histories as the first floodlit match either side played. What is less often noted is why it was played at all. At Hyde a blue plaque on a surviving wall marks the site of the colliery and the explosion; the relief match is part of the same event's afterlife.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each tagged with how solidly it's grounded and attached to the source(s) that support it. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• Ardwick, later Manchester City, played Newton Heath, later Manchester United, under floodlights at Belle Vue to raise money for the families of the men killed in the Hyde Colliery explosion; the game was watched by 10,000 people and was the first floodlit match played by either side. (documented fact) ^1,2
• The match was played on 26 February 1889 at the Belle Vue athletic ground with Wells electric lights placed around the ground, and Newton Heath won 3-2. (documented fact) ^3,2
• The two clubs first met in November 1881 as St Mark's of West Gorton and Newton Heath LYR, and by the time of the relief match were the dominant sides in the Manchester area, the Manchester Cup going to one or the other every year between 1888 and 1893. (documented fact) ³

Mines

• Hyde Colliery — Greater Manchester
  The match was played in aid of the families of the twenty-three men and boys killed in the explosion at this colliery on 18 January 1889.

Disasters

• Hyde Colliery Explosion, 1889 — 18 January 1889
  The relief fund the match was played for was raised for the victims of this explosion, five weeks after it happened.

Regions

Greater Manchester

Real-world mining concepts used here

Afterdamp, Colliery, Firedamp

Sources

1. (secondary) Hyde, Greater Manchester (Wikipedia) — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) St Mark's v Newton Heath (Malcolm Bailey's Football Blog, December 2017) — Malcolm Bailey
3. (secondary) Manchester derby (Wikipedia) — Wikipedia

Record created: 9 September 2026 · Last researched: 9 September 2026