Manchester Sports Guild


The Manchester Sports Guild was a jazz and folk music venue in Manchester, England, that flourished from 1961 to 1973.

History

The Manchester Sports Guild was a membership-oriented organization founded in 1953 in Manchester, England, to promote amateur sports. L.C. Jenkins was the founding General Secretary. Shortly after moving into its first venue on Market Street, MSG, almost by accident, began promoting jazz. In 1961, MSG acquired its second venue at 8–10 Long Millgate, opposite Chetham's School of Music, near the Manchester Cathedral that became known as MSG's "Sports and Social Centre". The venue flourished until about 1973, when it was closed for imminent demolition, which didn't occur for a few years. The Long Millgate location was an old brick Victorian building with a bar on the ground floor, folk music upstairs, and jazz in its unadorned cellar. In 1962, shortly after opening the new venue, Jenks appointed Jack Swinnerton as Jazz Organiser. Henceforth, the MSG began booking internationally acclaimed jazz artists, performers who leaned more towards old-school blues and Dixieland in a Panassié-esque way. The jazz cellar was also the centre of afterhours jam-sessions with American jazz artists who had, earlier in the evening, performed at other Manchester venues, particularly the Free Trade Hall.
In 1964, The Observer'' stated: "In the Manchester Sports Guild they have the best jazz centre in the country
Frank Duffy ran the folk scene, upstairs. The Urbis building sits on the site.

Selected performing artists

Jazz and blues (in the cellar)

Jazz

Folk

MSG personnel