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It’s OUR national game – bequeathed to us by the Six Nations of the Iroquois

19/11/2002

IF you rack your brains to find the spiritual homes of sports you may think of Brazil and football, America and baseball or New Zealand and rugby.

But how about Stockport and lacrosse?

Stockport is the historical home of the webbed stick and ball game, which claims to be 'the fastest sport on two feet', after it took hold here 120 years ago.

Lacrosse has been played longer in Stockport than anywhere in the world outside the region inhabited by the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, which ruled the North East of the USA and Canada.

The town's first taste of lacrosse was in December 1876 when a team from the native American tribe of Caughnawaga held an exhibition game locally as part of a marketing ploy to encourage British immigration to Canada.

By chance, a train carrying Stockport Football Club home from a game stopped next to Longsight Cricket Ground where the lacrosse game was being held.

The football team was said to be so taken by this new game they disbanded and reformed as Stockport Lacrosse Club.

And the sport has gone from strength to strength, culminating in Stockport clubs becoming the Manchester Uniteds and Arsenals of the lacrosse world.

And the statistics demonstrate the town's almost total domination of the sport:

• An incredible 500 players from England's current total of 2,000 club lacrosse players come from Stockport;
• This decade, four Stockport players have achieved All American status - the highest award given to an athlete at US college;
• There are 27 players in the current England squad and 15 of them come from Stockport.

Re-published December 1999