Football: The First Hundred Years docx

Football: The First Hundred Years
The story of the creation of Britain’s national game has often been told.
According to accepted wisdom, the refined football games created by English
public schools in the 1860s subsequently became the sport of the masses.
Football: The First Hundred Years provides a revisionist history of the game,
challenging previously accepted belief.
Harvey argues that established football history does not correspond with the
facts. Football, as played by the ‘masses’ prior to the adoption of the public school
codes is almost always portrayed as wild and barbaric. This view may require
considerable modification in the light of Harvey’s research. Football: The First
Hundred Years provides a very detailed picture of the football played outside the
confines of the public schools, revealing a culture that was every bit as sophisticated
and influential as that found within their prestigious walls.
Football: The First Hundred Years sets forth a completely revisionist thesis,
offering a different perspective on almost every aspect of the established history
of the formative years of the game. The book will be of great interest to sports
historians, rugby and football enthusiasts alike.
Dr Adrian Harvey is a tutor for the Workers’ Education Association and the
Extra Murals Department of Birkbeck College, London University. He secured
a BA in Humanities in 1979 and an MA in Victorian Studies in 1990. In 1992
he ceased working as a postman and became a student at Nuffield College,
Oxford University, and was awarded a DPhil in 1996. His works on sport and
recreation have appeared in a number of periodicals and books.
Sport in the global society
General editor: J. A. Mangan
The interest in sports studies around the world is growing and will continue to do so. This
unique series combines aspects of the expanding study of sport in the global society, providing
comprehensiveness and comparison under one editorial umbrella. It is particularly timely, with
studies in the cultural, economic, ethnographic, geographical, political, social, anthropological,
sociological and aesthetic elements of sport proliferating in institutions of higher education.

Eric Hobsbawm once called sport one of the most significant practices of the late nineteenth
century. Its significance was even more marked in the late twentieth century and will continue to
grow in importance into the new millennium as the world develops into a ‘global village’ sharing
the English language, technology and sport.
Other titles in the series
British Football and Social Exclusion
Edited by Stephen Wagg
Football, Europe and the Press
Liz Crolley and David Hand
The Future of Football
Challenges for the twenty-first century
Edited by Jon Garland, Dominic Malcolm and
Michael Rowe
Football Culture
Local contests, global visions
Edited by Gerry P. T. Finn and
Richard Gruhanotti
France and the 1998 World Cup
The national impact of a world sporting event
Edited by Hugh Dauncey and Geoff Hare
The First Black Footballer
Arthur Wharton 1865–1930:
an absence of memory
Phil Vasili
Scoring for Britain
International football and international politics,
1900–1939
Peter J. Beck
Women, Sport and Society in Modern China
Holding up more than half the sky

Dong Jinxia
Sport in Latin American Society
Past and present
Edited by J. A. Mangan and
Lamartine P. DaCosta
Sport in Australasian Society
Past and present
Edited by J. A. Mangan and John Nauright
Sporting Nationalisms
Identity, ethnicity, immigration and
assimilation
Edited by Mike Cronin and David Mayall
The Commercialization of Sport
Edited by Trevor Slack
Shaping the Superman
Fascist body as political icon: Aryan fascism
Edited by J. A. Mangan
Superman Supreme
Fascist body as political icon: global fascism
Edited by J. A. Mangan
Making the Rugby World
Race, gender, commerce
Edited by Timothy J. L. Chandler and
John Nauright
Rugby’s Great Split
Class, culture and the origins of rugby
league football
Tony Collins
The Race Game
Sport and politics in South Africa

Douglas Booth
Cricket and England
A cultural and social history of
the inter-war years
Jack Williams
The Games Ethic and Imperialism
Aspects of the diffusion of an ideal
J. A. Mangan
Football: The First Hundred Years
The untold story
Adrian Harvey
Football: The First Hundred
Years
The untold story
Adrian Harvey
First published 2005
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2005 Adrian Harvey
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Every effort has been made to ensure that the advice and information
in this book is true and accurate at the time of going to press.

However, neither the publisher nor the authors can accept any legal
responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made.
In the case of drug administration, any medical procedure or the use
of technical equipment mentioned within this book, you are strongly
advised to consult the manufacturer’s guidelines.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0–415–35018–2 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–35019–0 (pbk)
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
ISBN 0-203-02315-3 Master e-book ISBN
For my old friends
Simon Manclark, Chris Bellia and
Penny Fuller

Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables xi
Foreword xv
Series editors’ foreword xvii
Preface xix
Acknowledgements xxi
Introduction: waiting for kick-off xxiii
1 What football was not: the history of Shrove-football 1
2 Entertaining the social elite: football in the public
schools and universities 1555–1863 18

3 Football outside the public schools: from American
Indians to The Origin of the Species – 1600–1859 51
4 ‘An epoch in the annals of sport’: Britain’s first
football culture – Sheffield 1857–67 92
5 Footballing backwaters?: London, the FA
and the rest 1860–67 126
6 Football splits up but goes national: the creation of
a national football culture (1868–73) 167
7 Kicking and carrying: the geographical distribution
of sporting rules 1860–73 178
8 Cups, leagues and professionals: rugby and
association football 1874–1901 206
9 Conclusions: the real history of the creation
of modern football? 229
Appendix: football as an international game 233
Notes 242
Bibliography 278
Index 287
viii Contents
Figures
2.1 Oxford–Cambridge 1880 19
2.2 Report of the first England–Scotland match 1851 20
2.3 Comic sketches about a football match 1880 37
3.1 Drawing room football at Exeter Hall 1885 55
3.2 Floodlit football at the Oval 1878 68
5.1 Report of the FA meeting on 24 November 1863 136
5.2 FA minute book for 24 November 1863 rejecting
contact with Cambridge University FC 137
5.3 FA minute book for 24 November 1863 insisting
upon hacking 140

5.4 FA minute book for 24 November 1863 deferring
communication with Cambridge University FC 142
5.5 FA minute book of 1 December 1863 protest
by Campbell 144
5.6 Report of FA meeting of 1 December 1863 147
6.1 Footballers advertising medicines 1891 168
7.1 England–Scotland 1890 181
8.1 Blackheath–Middlesex Volunteers 1893 207
8.2 Arsenal–Middlesbrough 1893 212
8.3 Newton Heath–Wolverhampton Wanderers 1893 221
8.4 Everton–Blackburn Rovers 1893 226
A.1 Old Carthusians–Canada 1888 235
A.2 Football match in Calcutta 1875 238
A.3 Picture of the winners of the cup competition at Poona 239

Tables
1.1 The venues of festival football games, both Shrove and
other varieties previous to 1800 6
1.2 A list of the games that either disappeared or moved due to
attack between 1800 and 1900 7
1.3 A list of the decades in which traditional football
games ended without being subjected to pressure 7
1.4 The occupational breakdown of supporters for
the suppression of Shrove-football at Derby in 1846 12
1.5 Overview of the social ranks of the petitioners at
Derby in 1846 as established by Armstrong from
the 1921 and 1951 census 13
2.1 Organised football matches at Eton and
Harrow 1840–50 21
2.2 Organised football matches at nine public

schools 1851–58 21
2.3 Organised football matches at public schools 1859–67 21
2.4 Comparison of the admission of pupils from aristocratic
families at Eton, Harrow and Rugby 1821–40 30
2.5 Opinions of the witnesses examined by the Rugby
Committee in 1895 on whether the game changed
during the headmastership of Thomas Arnold
1828–41 31
2.6 Members of the committee set up by Cambridge
University FC to create a code of football rules in
November 1863 43
2.7 Football matches that were arranged between
public schools up to 1863 45
2.8 Number of matches played between foundations
up to 1863 46
2.9 Overview of matches played between public schools
up to 1863 46
3.1 Football teams active in the wider society between
1830 and 1859 60
xii Tables
3.2 Relative distribution of football teams by county 1830–59 62
3.3 Composition of football teams in various regions 63
3.4 Number of football teams per region per decade 63
3.5 Comparison of the number of teams in the North
and the South 1830–59 63
3.6 Use of ordinary days and holidays for match play by
middle- and working-class teams 66
3.7 Days when matches were played 66
3.8 Distribution of games played by working- and
middle-class teams during the working week 66

3.9 Types of team in each particular county 70
3.10 Types of team in each particular region 70
3.11 A comparison of the distribution of teams between
the North and the South 1830–59 71
3.12 Sums staked on matches 1830–59 77
3.13 Numbers on each side 79
3.14 The structure and properties of folk games and
modern sports 86
3.15 The extent to which the football played in the
wider community between 1830 and 1859 can be
classified as a ‘folk game’ or a ‘modern sport’ 90
4.1 Sheffield FC table of expenditure in 1857 94
4.2 Occupations of the members of the Sheffield
FC for seasons 1857–58 and 1858–59 101
4.3 Results of matches in the Sheffield region in 1861 104
4.4 Results of matches in the Sheffield region in 1862 104
4.5 Results of matches in the Sheffield region in 1863 105
4.6 Results of matches in the Sheffield region in 1864 106
4.7 Results of matches in the Sheffield region in 1865 106
4.8 Results of matches in the Sheffield region in 1866 107
4.9 Results of matches in the Sheffield region in 1867 107
4.10 The membership of clubs in the Sheffield area 112
4.11 Clubs in the Sheffield region who had second and
third teams 112
4.12 The cost and attendance at athletic events in the
Sheffield area 1862–67 115
4.13 The receipts from annual athletic sports meeting 115
4.14 The numbers on each side in matches within the
Sheffield area 1865–67 119
4.15 The Youdan Cup knock-out competition in 1867 124

5.1 The list of delegates at the first FA meeting 135
5.2 The list of delegates at the second FA meeting 135
5.3 The list of delegates at the third FA meeting 138
5.4 The list of delegates at the fourth FA meeting 141
5.5 The list of delegates at the fifth FA meeting 143
Tables xiii
5.6 The relative representation of clubs at the fourth and the fifth
meetings of the FA 145
5.7 The activity of major teams in the London area 1862–67 152
6.1 List of the clubs that were enrolled as members of the
FA in 1868 169
6.2 The FA Cup 1871–72 172
6.3 Attendance records of FA Cup finals 1872–78 172
6.4 Football games in public schools 1868–73 175
6.5 Football games by major British clubs 1868–73 176
7.1 Overview of London and the home counties 1860–67 179
7.2 Overview of the provinces, Scotland and
Sheffield 1860–67 179
7.3 Grand total of the codes used in Britain 1860–67 179
7.4 The number of association- and Rugby-based
clubs 1860–67 180
7.5 Ground length 182
7.6 Goal size 182
7.7 Additional methods of scoring 183
7.8 Referees 183
7.9 Handling 183
7.10 What constitutes a ‘fair catch’? 183
7.11 Rewards for a fair catch 183
7.12 Physical contact 184
7.13 Kick-off 184

7.14 Changing ends 184
7.15 The ball in touch behind the goal 184
7.16 The ball in touch 184
7.17 An overview of the rules used by clubs in London and
the home counties 1868–73 185
7.18 The clubs playing association-based and rugby-based
football in the London area 1868–73 186
7.19 Comparing rugby with rugby-variants in the
London area 1868–73 186
7.20 An overview of the rules used by clubs in the provinces,
Scotland and Sheffield 1868–73 187
7.21 An overview of the rules used by clubs in Britain 1868–73 187
7.22 The relative popularity of the association and rugby-based
codes 1868–73 188
7.23 An overview of the number of teams using the association
and rugby codes 1860–73 188
7.24 The activity of clubs in London and the home counties
and the predominant code used 1860–67 189
7.25 The activity of provincial clubs and the predominant code
used 1860–67 193
7.26 The activity and codes of clubs in Scotland 1860–67 195
7.27 The activity of clubs in Sheffield 1860–67 196
7.28 The codes used by clubs in London and the home
counties region 1868–73 197
7.29 The codes used by clubs in the provinces 1868–73 202
7.30 The codes used by teams in Scotland 1868–73 204
7.31 List of teams in Sheffield area using the Sheffield
code 1868–73 205
8.1 Number of clubs belonging to the various local
associations 1877–80 209

8.2 Number of clubs belonging to the various local
associations 1884–85 210
xiv Tables
Foreword
In less than thirty years the study of football has been transformed from
a marginal curiosity – the preserve of journalists, fans and antiquarians – to an
area of major academic interest. In part, this is a reflection of the transformation
in sports history in general, in part, a reflection of the changing patterns of
history itself. What, not too long ago, seemed unimportant and even frivolous has
become a subject of major intellectual scrutiny. In the process, the sheer volume
of print devoted to each and every aspect of the game of football (in all its forms)
is staggering. Recent bibliographies of football and sports history are themselves
voluminous. The reasons for this remarkable shift are not hard to find.
First, football itself has come to occupy a central position in contemporary
popular culture, driven forward by major global commercial pressures, and spread
into all corners of the world by ubiquitous televised coverage. A game which was
once located primarily in its European and South American heartlands is now
avidly followed the world over. Second, the rise of the modern game raises
perplexing questions about recent changes in cultural and economic patterns,
which have attracted a range of scholars in the arts and social sciences. Football
has, in brief, become a focus for major interdisciplinary scholarly work. There
has, in addition, been an erosion of the intellectual (but more especially the aca-
demic) barriers which once kept the study of football (and other sports at arm’s
length). Old intellectual prejudices have simply collapsed under pressure from a
new historiography, and all that within a generation. In part, this has been a result
of the changes in higher education, and the redefining of academic studies. What
once seemed too popular, too vulgar even, is now viewed as central and attractive.
What has been equally striking in the recent writing about football has been
the ability of younger scholars to find something new to say about what seemed
a clear and undisputed subject. It was sometimes hard to imagine what more

could be said about the game – its history and sociology – which had not already
been discussed. Of course, the continuing interest in the game is also a function
of a new generation of scholars feeling unhappy with, and not persuaded by, the
work of their predecessors. This is, of course, a familiar pattern in other areas of
historical research. The book which follows, however, has claims to be more
important than merely disagreeing with earlier writers in the field. Adrian
Harvey’s study is a fundamental and revisionary reappraisal of the widely
xvi Foreword
accepted knowledge of the early history of football in Britain. It challenges much
of what we accept about the way football emerged.
First, it is a major study rooted in imaginative and painstaking research in
materials which others have barely touched. The wide range of data which the
author assembles to support his arguments will, in itself, prove invaluable for
subsequent scholars in the field. More important however is the way Harvey
takes the basic assumptions of earlier historians, and subjects them to critical
scrutiny. Harvey does that by testing those assumptions against detailed histori-
cal evidence. Where once we had persuasive generalisations, Harvey offers us
specific argument, rooted in painstaking research. The end result is a challenge
to prevailing academic orthodoxy. Indeed this book provides a series of interre-
lated challenges to some of the most widely accepted views about popular culture
in the nineteenth century, disputing for example assumptions about public
school influence, and about the nature of plebeian football. It is, in sum, a book
of major importance which will set a new agenda for all historians interested in
the history of the people’s game.
James Walvin
Professor of History
University of York
Series editors’ foreword
There are many untold football stories.
1

This is an important one, and it will be
followed shortly in the series Sport in the Global Society by two more untold sto-
ries: Soccer’s Missing Men: Schoolmasters and the Spread of Association Football
2
and
A Social History of Indian Football.
3
Some will consider that the title of this original study suggests more than it
delivers and indeed an exegesis of the hitherto undisclosed early moments of
modern football in all its varied forms and variant locations in one volume is an
impossibly gargantuan task. However, a firm step backwards onto British fields
rather than a bold step forward onto foreign fields allows a proper appreciation
of this contribution to the history of the game, albeit regional rather than global.
Metaphorically it is a journey on a stop and start district line train rather than
a non-stop mainline express and thus opens up new vistas to the traveller more
accustomed to well-frequented routes.
New opinions, John Locke once wrote sententiously, tend to be suspected and
usually opposed, without any reason other than the fact that they are not already
commonplace.
4
As far as we are concerned, Locke, in this case, is well wide of the
mark. We are more than content to press the merits of this igneous football
‘incendium’.
Nevertheless, it remains the case that for a good part of its first one hundred
years and certainly well back into the late nineteenth century, football, especially
association football, was much more than just a British game. And it is a truism
today to state that for many in the modern global village the game has become
much more than a game. In view of its contemporary political, economic and
cultural importance the historical roots of the game demand careful exhumation.
Reconstruction of this now massively mass sport has been too frequently a past

conceit that has depended too much on a too prevalent assertion that modern
football had its origins on the expensive and extensive playing fields of the
nineteenth-century public schools.
5
There has been a corresponding inclination
to narrowly locate the matrix of modern football in the English public school.
There is an exigent need for historians to probe the cliché and to dig for other
roots of the game in popular culture at home and abroad. Harvey is doing this for
Britain; others are doing it elsewhere.
6
In an imperial and post-imperial setting, for example, attention is now firmly
focused as much on the frequently purposeful assimilation by the indigene as the
xviii Series editors’ foreword
often well-meaning dissemination of the imperialist. Due to a (happy)
7
accident
of history much of modern sport owes its earliest origins,
8
but not its later
evolution, to the late nineteenth-century Anglo-Saxon imperialist. But even in
imperial South Asia, for example, soccer was the early tool for the assertion
of a distinctive South Asian identity, the expression of a defiant nationalism
and a source of anti-imperial bonding. Until now subsequent post-imperial
indigenisation has been largely an untold story.
Modern football is an offspring now claimed by the entire world; England gave
it birth; early in its first hundred years it was already a multi-cultural child. Thus,
the history of modern football is the history of cultures. Harvey attempts in one
cultural setting to weave the microcosmic into the macrocosmic; future global
attempts will reveal further cultural variations associated with football within the
global village and produce illustrations of the subtle relations between them.

Sometime ago, James Walvin suggested that more emphasis needed to be placed
on local studies without losing sight of the broader context,
9
and added that
general structures, of course, had their place but they needed to be subjected,
and inevitably would be subjected, to the qualifications of specific and local
peculiarities.
10
Harvey has proved Walvin right. Others are hard on his heels.
J. A. Mangan and Boria Majumdar
Swanage and Calcutta
November 2004
Notes
1 One to appear in the future, for example, will be an untold story entitled The Making
of Association Football: A Sociological History of the Peoples’ Game by Eric Dunning and
Graham Curry. It also deals in part with the early origins of modern football from
a new perspective. It is in preparation.
2 Colm Hickey and J. A. Mangan, Soccer’s Missing Men: Schoolteachers and the Spread of
Association Football, forthcoming as a Special Number of Soccer and Society and as
a planned Spin Off volume in the series Sport in the Global Society.
3 Boria Majumdar and Kausik Bandopadhyay, A Social History of Indian Football,
forthcoming as a Special Number of Soccer and Society and as a planned Spin Off
volume in the series Sport in the Global Society.
4 The Oxford Book of Quotations (Oxford: OUP, 1996, Fourth Edition) p. 424.
5 See chapter 4 of J. A. Mangan’s Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School:
The Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (London: Cass, 2000,
New Edition) for a discussion of the extent and expense of a sample of public school
playing fields.
6 Majumdar and Bandopadhyay are a topical example. See note 3.
7 In view of the state of modern association football, especially in Britain, some may

well consider the use of the term infelicitous.
8 For imperial illustrations, see J. A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects
of the Diffusion of an Ideal (London: Cass, 1998).
9 James Walvin, ‘Sport, Social History and the Historian’, The British Journal of Sports
History, 1:1 (1984) p. 10.
10 Ibid.
Preface
The roots of this book stemmed from a reference that I chanced upon in an issue
from 1841 of the Victorian newspaper Bell’s Life in London. I was interested in
Victorian chess and as Bell’s contained one of the earliest and most informative
chess columns from the period, it was a natural source for me to consult.
However, the fragment that caught my eye, tucked away at the very bottom of
the chess column, had nothing to do with the ‘royal game’ – as chess’s advocates
were inclined to title it, but rather to what would later become known as ‘the
beautiful game’ – football. I was surprised to see such a reference because I knew
that according to the established history of football by the 1840s the old ‘mob’
game of football had long since become extinct and the new, modern, codified,
variety had yet to be transplanted from the public schools to the wider popula-
tion. However, the teams that I had just uncovered had certainly nothing to do
with the privileged confines of the public schools, for they were servants who
worked in Edinburgh’s hotels. Clearly, such people did not fit into the estab-
lished histories of football. Where, then, did these players belong? From that
time forth I began to look for references to football in early Victorian newspapers
and while they were by no means copious it was quite clear that the established
view of the game required some modification. The product of my research
formed the core of my MA dissertation in Victorian Studies at Birkbeck College
in 1990, a work that was examined by Professor Roy Foster and Professor Asa
Briggs. At that stage I was still inclined to accept many aspects of the established
history of football, particularly the role of the public schools in the creation of
the modern game. In 1991, after an examination of the archives of one of the

earliest football clubs, Sheffield, I began to realise that the role of the public
schools in the creation of modern football had been severely exaggerated. Since
then I have expanded my research and the product of my findings can be found
in this book.

Acknowledgements
While this book is almost entirely the product of my own research (on the
occasions when I am indebted to the work of others such facts are gratefully
acknowledged). I owe the following people thanks for making material available
to me: David Barber (Football Association Library), Rex King (Rugby Football
Union Library). Both these gentlemen were kind enough to help me decipher
difficult words and I am especially grateful to the former for his kindness and
patience which enabled me to present the enclosed photographs from the
FA minute book. I am particularly grateful to Professor Eric Dunning and
Dr Kenneth Sheard for being so sporting as to give me permission to reproduce a
table from their book, Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players, even though they were
aware that my views were critical of those that they adhered to. I am indebted to the
co-operation of the staff of the following libraries: Bodleian Library, British Library,
British Newspaper Library (notably Robin Dansie), Ewart Library Dumfries,
Sheffield City Archives, Stirling Central Library. The archivists of the following
public schools were very helpful: S. A. Wheeler (Charterhouse), P. Hatfield
(Eton), A. Hawkyard (Harrow), J. Field (Westminster), S. Bailey and R. Custance
(Winchester). The only public school that did not reply to my letters was Rugby.
While undertaking my DPhil at Nuffield College, Oxford University, I discussed
some of the themes that were later to appear in this book with my supervisor John
Stevenson and my College supervisor John Goldthorpe. As for the text itself, I am
very grateful to Nancy Brownlow whose suggestions improved it considerably.
I would like to record my gratitude to the following people who were involved in
the publication of this book: Samantha Grant, Vicky Johnson, Kate Manson, Jon
Manley, Allison Scott, S. Swarnalatha, Antony Vincent, Professor James Walvin,

Pat Wemyss and Professor Gareth Williams. I am also grateful for the assistance
rendered by many other people, such as Geoff Hare, Val Hubbard of Leicester
University, William Bell and Regina Drabble of Sheffield council, Piers Morgan
and Laura Steadman of the Rugby Football Union, Robert Hendley and Derrick
Harvey, the staff of three of my local libraries: Grahame Park, Kingsbury and
Mollison Way, who enabled me to contact various people and organisations via
email. I am especially grateful to Robert Hendley who was kind enough to take a
great deal of trouble in photographing extracts from the FA minute books and
advising me on the best way of presenting illustrations. I would like to thank the
xxii Acknowledgements
British Library for granting me permission to publish the illustrations within the
book and the Football Association for permitting me to publish photographs of
their minute book for 1863.
On a personal level I would like to tender my thanks to the staff in the Dryden
ward of Northwick Park Hospital, the place to which I was admitted for treat-
ment in March 2002. At the time I was unable to walk and largely oblivious to
what was going on around me. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis but made
a most remarkable recovery, being discharged after a mere two-and-a-half weeks
in hospital. I am in no doubt at all that this was due in no small measure to the
kindness and care of the staff. Additionally, of course, the strong support of my
family facilitated this recovery. Essentially speaking, this book is due to the kind-
ness of the hospital staff and my family, without whom I would have been in no
state to write it. Of course, I still have some problems but realise that things
could have been much worse and tender my thanks accordingly.
Introduction
Waiting for kick-off
Both the varieties of football that originally hailed from Britain, the Rugby and
Association games, have probably never been as popular as they are now. The
association game, or soccer as it has become generally known, is now almost
globally popular and judging by the last few World Cups, before long a team from

Asia, Africa or North America will go on to win the trophy. Rugby’s progress has
been less dramatic but the game is becoming increasingly international and is
surely destined to continue to expand. Of course, periodically it is likely that
both varieties of football will be afflicted by problems stemming from a downturn
in the world economy and difficulties generated by financial mismanagement.
Collectively, however, their future appears bright. Peculiarly enough, despite this
very little is known about the origins of modern football and many questions
relating to its growth and development remain unanswered.
Football is a very old game, especially in Britain. Why, then, did it not become
a major commercial sport until the final quarter of the nineteenth century? By
then, many other sports in Britain, notably horse racing, cricket and boxing, had
long been major commercial enterprises, consisting of hugely popular contests
involving professional competitors and watched by thousands of spectators.
Why, then, was football so slow in developing into a major commercial industry?
Indeed, given this, why did football develop into a commercial industry at all?
The explanation offered by the early historians of the game was that football
only became popular because boys from public schools took the rough, wild and
undisciplined game that had existed for hundreds of years in the wider commu-
nity and codified it. These new laws transformed football into a popular game by
making it accessible to a mass public. Such is the established picture of the
origins of modern football.
Yet was any of this true? Football certainly became codified in the latter half
of the nineteenth century. Indeed, it became so codified that it split into two
games, rugby and soccer, whose relationship was often uneasy at best. But who
actually created these football games? Who turned them into commercial sports?
In the case of the rugby game, the rules hailed from the public school that gave
its name to the sport, though as we shall see other forces did much to transform
aspects of the code. While the rules of soccer have always been credited to the
public schools, in actual fact they sprang from many sources and were modified
significantly. One of the major sources of these transformations was the football

culture that emerged in Sheffield during the 1850s. With regard to football as
a commercial sport, in the final quarter of the nineteenth century there was
a significant divergence between rugby and soccer, especially over the issue of
professionalism. The effect of professionalism on the rugby game was dramatic.
In 1895 those adhering to attitudes stemming from the public schools opposed
professionalism and this led to the rugby code splitting into two rival camps. By
contrast, the commercial dimension of soccer emerged more steadily and was
accommodated by those who stemmed from public school backgrounds, many of
whom went on to perform vital roles, notably as administrators.
The following book is an attempt to provide the real story of the evolution of
both major football codes: rugby and soccer. Much of the story has never been
previously told, not least because most of the early historians of the game, almost
all of whom were former public school boys, had little or no interest in events
outside the confines of such privileged walls. This study attempts to redress the
balance by using contemporary sources to uncover the real truth of the first
hundred years of modern football.
The book consists of the following chapters. In Chapter 1, we consider the
football that was conducted on Shrove Tuesday, a variant that was often rough
and wild and popularly regarded as the earliest variety of the game. In Chapters 2
and 3 we consider more regularly occurring contests, first those conducted in
public schools and then in the wider community. Chapter 4 details the earliest
modern football culture, that of Sheffield, a place that can plausibly be regarded
as inventing modern soccer. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are concerned with the growth
of football in the rest of the country, especially the emergence of administrative
bodies such as the Football Association (FA) and the Rugby Football
Union (RFU). In Chapter 8 we survey the growth of league and cup competi-
tions and the strain that the increasing commercial element placed upon the
administrative structure.
xxiv Introduction