Add to ORKGHistorically, sport and the public house have been closely linked and from its emergence in the sixteenth century to the pub culture of today, the association of sporting events with this environment has persisted. During the nineteenth century, as the countryside became developed, public houses provided an environment where traditional pastimes such as sport, drinking and gambling could be enjoyed. The more entrepreneurial publicans provided extensive sporting programmes to entice customers, developing enclosed sporting arenas within their grounds and encouraging behaviour which the newly empowered middle-class society ostracized. In cities like Manchester, sports such as pedestrianism, developed alongside these establishments, cre...