Manchester and the Emergence of an Association Football Culture, 1840–1880: An Alternative Viewpoint

Historical Frameworks and Sporting Research

“…Consider recent research into Manchester's earliest known club, Hulme Athenaeum, 40 and the suggestion made that the club is not significant as it struggled for opponents and did not progress beyond 1863-1872. 41 Looking at purely the individual events for that club could indeed suggest little significance, however, that view completely misses the point that a community was developed via that club which, over thirty years later, saw at least one founding member of that earliest known Mancunian club, still playing a leading role in developing and promoting regional football. 42 His club may have died, but he and some of his colleagues remained leading footballing figures in the region for the rest of their lives.…”

Historical Frameworks and Sporting Research

“…Consider recent research into Manchester's earliest known club, Hulme Athenaeum, 40 and the suggestion made that the club is not significant as it struggled for opponents and did not progress beyond 1863-1872. 41 Looking at purely the individual events for that club could indeed suggest little significance, however, that view completely misses the point that a community was developed via that club which, over thirty years later, saw at least one founding member of that earliest known Mancunian club, still playing a leading role in developing and promoting regional football. 42…”

Early Football and the Emergence of Modern Soccer: A Reply to Tony Collins

“…This could help explain why Manchester's rugby football traditions carried on for as long as they did, before they too were overwhelmed by the spread of Association football proper from East Lancashire. 50 It is worthy of note at this point that the man centrally responsible for association football's introduction, expansion and advancement in Lancashire was not a public schoolboy but a lower middle-class schoolmaster, William Thomas Dixon. 51 Indeed, it has been argued that the changing class structure from 1870 onwards with an emerging lower middle-class with their social and cultural capital in the form of 'formal educational qualifications acquired by school teachers and more informal qualifications attained by clerks and book-keepers and their inter-generational transmission' was one key in understanding the development of association football in north-west England.…”