Manchester Sports Guild (MSG) was a jazz and folk music venue in Manchester, England, that flourished from 1961 to 1973.^[1]

History

Manchester Sports Guild was a membership organisation founded in 1953 in Manchester, England, to promote amateur sports. L.C. Jenkins ("Jenks") was the founding General Secretary. It opened in April 1954. 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".^[2] 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.^[3] In 1962, shortly after opening the new venue, Jenks appointed Jack Swinnerton as Jazz Organiser. Henceforth, the MSG began booking internationally known jazz artists,^[4] performers who leaned more towards blues and traditional and swing idioms). 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.^[5]

In 1964, The Observer stated: "In the Manchester Sports Guild they have the best jazz centre in the country ... "^[6]

Frank Duffy ran the folk scene, upstairs. The Urbis building sits on the site.

Selected performing artists

Selected discography

MSG personnel

• John Pye, Executive Director
• Jack Swinnerton, Jazz Secretary
• L.C. Jenkins ("Jenks") (né Leslie Charles Jenkins; 1918–1986), General Secretary
• Bryn Pugh, MC in the folk room
• Frank Duffy, initial Folk Secretary
• John Dronsfield ("Drony"), Frank's successor

Notes and references