Denry became identified with the highest class of local football.  This fact led to a curious crisis in the history of municipal manners.  On Corporation Sunday the mayor walks to church, preceded by the mace, and followed by the aldermen and councillors, the borough officials, the Volunteers and the Fire Brigade; after all these, in the procession, come individuals known as prominent citizens.  Now the first and second elevens of the Bursley Football Club, headed by Callear, expressed their desire to occupy a place in Denry’s mayoral procession; they felt that some public acknowledgment was due to the Mayor for his services to the national sport.  Denry instantly agreed, with thanks:  the notion seemed to him entirely admirable.  Then some unfortunately-inspired parson wrote to the Signal to protest against professional footballers following the chief magistrate of the borough to church.  His arguments were that such a thing was unheard-of, and that football was the cause of a great deal of evil gambling.  Some people were inclined to agree with the protest, until Denry wrote to the Signal and put a few questions:  Was Bursley proud of its football team?  Or was Bursley ashamed of its football team?  Was the practice of football incompatible with good citizenship?  Was there anything dishonourable in playing football?  Ought professional footballers to be considered as social pariahs?  Was there any class of beings to whom the churches ought to be closed?

The parson foundered in a storm of opprobrium, scorn, and ironic laughter.  Though the town laughed, it only laughed to hide its disgust of the parson.

People began to wonder whether the teams would attend in costume, carrying the football between them on a charger as a symbol.  No such multitudes ever greeted a mayoral procession in Bursley before.  The footballers, however, appeared in ordinary costume (many of them in frock-coats); but they wore neckties of the club colours, a device which was agreed to be in the nicest taste.  St Luke’s Church was crowded; and, what is stranger, the churchyard was also crowded.  The church barely held the procession itself and the ladies who, by influence, had been accommodated with seats in advance.  Thousands of persons filled the churchyard, and to prevent them from crushing into the packed fane and bursting it at its weakest point, the apse, the doors had to be locked and guarded.  Four women swooned during the service:  neither Mrs Machin, senior, nor Nellie, was among the four.  It was the first time that any one had been known to swoon at a religious service held in November.  This fact alone gave a tremendous prestige to Denry’s mayoralty.  When, with Nellie on his arm, he emerged from the church to the thunders of the organ, the greeting which he received in the churchyard, though the solemnity of the occasion forbade clapping, lacked naught in brilliance and efficacy.