On Bosworth Field or the Playing Fields of Eton and Rugby? Who Really Invented Modern Football?

Abstract

In 1867 the Football Association was considering disbanding but was largely dissuaded from doing so by the progress the game was making in Sheffield. The football rules used there seemed much more appealing to teams and spectators alike and the game was beginning to be exploited commercially. This commercialism was resisted though by the local social elite who still had a fierce belief in amateurism and opposed the professionalisation of football. At the same time, in Lancashire, there existed a vigorous sporting culture surrounding pedestrianism, horse racing, boxing and cricket together with a well developed structure of sporting facilities. By the 1870s football, a game that had not previously been exploited commercially in Lancashire, was beginning to become popular and was rapidly professionalised. Nominal record linkage indicates that this development was essentially driven by schoolteachers, clerks, bookkeepers and accountants using their social and cultural capital rather than the transference of public school culture through returning public schoolboys. The formation of modern association football in Lancashire between 1830 and 1885 can then be seen to be effected though linear continuities in local popular culture and the emergence of a lower middle class rather than public school traditions and a civilising process. Sur le terrain de Bosworth ou sur ceux d'Eton et de Rugby ? Qui a vraiment inventeĺ e football moderne?En 1867, la Fe´de´ration anglaise de football (FA) envisagea de se dissoudre, mais elle fut en grande partie dissuade´e de le faire en raison des progre`s du jeu pratiqueá`S heffield. Les re`gles du football qui y e´taient utilise´es semblaient beaucoup plus attractives pour les e´quipes ainsi que pour les spectateurs et le jeu commenc¸a aèˆt re exploite´commercialement. Ce mercantilisme fit l'objet de re´sistances par les e´lites sociales locales qui avaient toujours une fe´roce croyance en l'amateurisme et s'opposait a`la professionnalisation du football. Au meˆme moment, dans le Lancashire, existait une active culture sportive autour de la course a`pied, des courses de chevaux, de la boxe et du cricket, tout en pre´sentant des infrastructures sportives bien de´veloppe´es. Dans les anne´es 1870, le football, un jeu qui n'avait pre´ce´demment pas e´te´exploite´commercialement dans le Lancashire, commenc¸a ad evenir populaire et passa rapidement professionnel. Les listes nominatives conserve´es indiquent que ce de´veloppement a e´te´essentiellement conduit par des instituteurs, des employe´s et des comptables utilisant leur capital social et culturel plutoˆt que la transmission de la culture scolaire des e´tablissements prive´s en *Corresponding author. direction des e´le`ves de ces e´coles. La formation du football moderne dans le Lancashire entre 1830 et 1885 peut eˆtre vue comme e´tant affecte´e par des continuite´s line´aires dans la culture populaire locale et par l'e´mergence d'une petite bourgeoisie plutoˆt que par les traditions des e´tablissements scolaires et le process de civili...

The football fan and the pub: An enduring relationship

“…Football cultures are a recent 19th century phenomenon that have their roots in the commercial sporting festivals of 1870s’ Lancashire, where five-, six- and seven-a-side football games are known to have been played for monetary prizes (Swain and Harvey, 2012). Following this, the development of football continued through to the codification of the eleven-a-side public school game and its concomitant dissemination into a form of regular, organised, professional sport for the wider population to enjoy as participants, or as spectators (Dixon, 2013b; Giulianotti, 1999; Goldblatt, 2007; Russell, 1997).…”

“…Football cultures are a recent nineteenth century phenomenon that have their roots in the commercial sporting festivals of 1870s Lancashire where five, six and seven a-side football games are known to have been played for monetary prizes (Swain and Harvey 2012).…”

R.E.N. Twopeny and the Establishment of Australian Football in Adelaide

“…These laws gave the game mass market appeal, 'effectively inventing the modern game' . 5 When a sub-committee of the Melbourne Football Club drew up a set of playing rules in 1859, no existing code of football was sufficiently widely accepted to be adopted without modification. By 1870, the game generally referred to as 'Melbourne rules' (and later 'Victorian rules') was entrenched in Melbourne and had spread to most Victorian provincial towns, but as Geoffrey Blainey observes, at that time Melbourne was the only Australian capital city where this code of football was established and played widely.…”