Something of a curate's egg: comments on Adrian Harvey's An epoch in the annals of national sport

This short review is an attempt to establish the balance of strengths and weaknesses in Harvey's essay. Its strengths seem to be principally two: (i) although he exaggerates its significance, Harvey is right to draw attention to the vibrant football culture that grew up in the Sheffield area in the 1850s and 60s; (ii) he is also right (and so is Goulstone) to point to the evidence for matches between pub sides of equal though variable numbers in the early nineteenth century. To my knowledge, this evidence is new and alters our understanding of the development of football in that period. However, the weaknesses in Harvey's case arguably outweigh its strengths. For example, he misconstrues the meaning of 'football' in medieval and early modern sources, wrongly assuming that the term referred to an entirely kicking game. Furthermore, Harvey's grounds for rejecting the influence of the public schools, especially Eton, on Sheffield football are flimsier than the admittedly scarce counter-evidence. Most importantly of all, Harvey shows a limited awareness of the variety of types of football that there were in these islands in the early nineteenth century and fails to situate his claims adequately in relation to the wider literature. In this connection, in his desire to downplay the role of the public schools, he neglects altogether the sociologically plausible suggestion that the initial bifurcation of rugby and soccer can be traced to Rugby-Eton rivalry in the 1840s.     

‘From Time Immemorial’: The Alnwick Shrovetide Football Match and the Continuous Remaking of Tradition 1828–1890

There is a widespread belief in the Northumberland county town of Alnwick that its Shrovetide football match dates from ‘time immemorial’. In fact, it dates from the mid-eighteenth century. Moreover, it has changed constantly over its 260 year history, in a paradigm case of the invention, and continual reinvention, of tradition, and would almost certainly not have survived to the present had it not done so. The article uses a mass of Victorian newspaper sources to illustrate how media perceptions and evaluations of the match changed over the nineteenth century, and how, in particular, both the match itself and perceptions of it were transformed by the emergence of ‘modern’ rugby and soccer in Northumberland from the 1880s onward. The article concludes with some reflections on popular perceptions of the match in contemporary Alnwick. It suggests that those perceptions perfectly exemplify the post-modern devaluation of history through its reduction to a kind of hackneyed pastiche.     

The Origins of Football Debate: Football and Cultural Continuity, 1857–1859

This article seeks to add to the growing volume of evidence of a broad, tenacious and visible footballing culture throughout nineteenth-century Britain. It is argued that football persisted among the general population in a variety of forms, none of which required the assistance or involvement of the public schools or public schoolboys to ensure its survival as some historians had previously believed. Indeed, the sheer number of games, evidenced in a variety of forms and a variety of settings, suggests beyond reasonable doubt that most forms of football being played across the country were not formal matches but small-sided games played on church, works' or schools' outings, at rural fetes, galas and celebrations, or as street or casual football, the latter taking place on meadows, fields and greens. Contrary to orthodox historians, these games did survive through mid-century. Importantly, these were predominantly small-sided games and are the ones which are closest to Association football as it was codified in 1863 and hence of most interest to the debate on origins. Common sense then dictates that football can be seen as a cultural continuity, especially as far as the traditions of male youth are concerned, across the nineteenth century.     

The Public Schools and Organized Football in Britain: Fresh Perspectives on Old Paradigms

Modern football, especially soccer, was the product of a fusion of ideas from both the public schools and wider society. In the period between 1830 and 1859 there were far more football teams outside the public schools than those within it, and while the ideas stemming from public schools were important in terms of the code that was established to regulate the game it was only when they were fused and applied with concepts from the wider society that they gained both effectiveness and popularity. The principal creator of this code was the football club at Sheffield, an organization that was easily the most influential and important in the period prior to 1870.     

The fan as actor: the popularization of soccer and Brazil’s sports audience

This essay presents a general perspective on the early history of soccer audiences in Brazil. Based on fans’ own experiences in Rio de Janeiro, the former national capital, it explains how fans played a fundamental role in turning soccer into a popular and widely accepted sport in the country. Initially bound to elite circles during the late nineteenth century, soccer raised increasing interest in Brazilian society in general throughout the twentieth century, thus forcing the building of huge arenas. The new stadiums led authorities to become increasingly worried about fans’ discipline and behaviour. One of their concerns was organized fan groups, which appeared on the scene after soccer became professionalized in the 1940s. These groups, as the essay argues, sought to support their clubs and to emotionally drive the masses of fans.     

Football Club Formation and the Lancashire Leisure Class, 1857–1870

This paper outlines the transition from football games played for occasional amusement to a system of organized football clubs playing regular matches in Lancashire in the mid-nineteenth century. This was led by young men of an emerging Lancashire leisured class being, in the main, the public school educated sons of the northern county’s commercial and industrial elite. These families had accumulated sufficient wealth, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, to exempt a considerable part of their population from work both at weekends and during the normal working week with football becoming an act of conspicuous consumption. Three case studies of individual clubs and leading individuals within those clubs are presented with detailed archival research carefully avoiding the teleology implicit in much historical writing of the past. It also swells the paucity of good historical material about the organization of sport at levels below national bodies. In so doing, it aims to illuminate some of the shadows in the big picture of the evolution of sport and leisure in Lancashire and Britain itself while informing the ongoing orthodox/revisionist debate into the origins of football in the nineteenth century.     

The Evolution and Cultural Characteristics of Korean Professional Soccer

Abstract

Since it was introduced in the late nineteenth century, soccer has been one of the cultural driving forces for Koreans in overcoming national hardships during the dark ages marked by imperial occupations, war, and division during the modern era. This study was carried out to investigate the cultural backgrounds and characteristics due to which soccer has entered an era of professionalization under the name of the Super League. Korean professional soccer started in 1983 under the name of the Super League, not by popular demand but by from political backgrounds. The sport was off to a bad start, and this became an inherent limitation and the reason Korean professional soccer did not flourish. In addition, although Korean professional soccer had grown rapidly in terms of quantity based on a consistent increase in professional teams and the introduction of advanced systems, the cultural limitations of an incomplete local franchise system and a lack of public attention were revealed. Korean professional soccer has shown a variety of sociocultural limits while rapidly developing in its short history. Nevertheless, having a short history indicates the system is young, which means it has the opportunity to mature. Korean professional soccer has sufficient potential and it can be directed toward a brighter future.     

The Development of Gaelic football and Soccer Zones in County Donegal, 1884–1934

This article examines the geography of Gaelic and Association football zones in Donegal between 1884 and 1934. It will illustrate where these sports were initially played and will show how, by the early twentieth century, soccer was the number one team game in the county. With the decline of competitive soccer in Donegal after 1915, a vacuum existed for the organisation of competitive structures for Gaelic football and the Donegal Gaelic Athletic Association county board was refounded in 1919, having run initially from 1905–1907. County championships were soon organised and these provided a competitive form of football on a regular basis as players could adapt to each code fairly easily. However, many local sports organisers in the north-east of the county were eager to continue with soccer and it was through the organisation of local leagues and cup competitions that they managed to do this. A deep tradition of soccer and strong connections with Derry city and Scotland also meant that association football received priority there. In contrast, by 1934, Gaelic football had become firmly entrenched in the south and south-west. The importance of local organisers within the county and the failure of both the Irish Football Association and the Football Association of the Irish Free State to develop soccer in this peripheral area will also be outlined.     

Sport,Education and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-century Edinburgh: The Emergence of Modern Forms of Football

This paper looks at the way in which an ethos of the importance of sport developed in some of Edinburgh's schools in the early part of the nineteenth century; how football was deliberately encouraged by a group of city schoolmasters to develop manly virtues and a competitive spirit; and how one pioneering city philanthropist set up perhaps the first football club in the world, then passed on his enthusiastic love of the game to some of the poorest children in the city, thereby laying the foundations for some of the city's first football clubs. Many of these developments in Edinburgh took place years, if not decades, before similar events in England, and therefore had a major and previously unrecognized impact on the history of both codes of football in Britain and throughout the world.     

Football’s First Free Kick: Demography and the Media – How and Why Australia Got a Game of Its Own

There have been numerous attempts to explain why the precocious code of football that started as a game played under Melbourne Club rules devised in 1859 became the dominant form in Victoria and the most influential in Australia, while Association football (soccer) had little impact until the second half of the twentieth century. In this article, attention is directed at some demographic features that have not been addressed in the literature and on the journalists who helped shape public perceptions of this form of the game. For the first 20 years after the codification of this unique football there was virtually no inward migration into Victoria, so the domestic game had its first free kick with few foreigners with different ideas of how the game should be played to disturb its establishment. Furthermore, the journalists who shaped the ideas of the readership of the Victorian newspapers had little or no knowledge of the forms of football played in Victoria prior to 1855, and their unconscious or conscious imperialism helped secure the pre-eminence of the new code.     

Footballers,migrants and scholars: the globalization of US men’s college soccer

US intercollegiate soccer is unique in world football by melding competitive amateur play with higher education and operating independently of FIFA. While immigrants have driven much of the 150-year history of college soccer, there has been an unprecedented foreign influx in the twenty-first century. We quantify the modern internationalization of men’s college soccer and assess factors driving this change via analysis of rosters from 1317 teams and a survey of coaches’ perceptions on foreign players and international recruitment. We estimate that 7600 players from 170 different countries played men’s college soccer in 2016, a 120% increase since 2000. Perceived growth drivers include expanding international recruiting by coaches, growing international awareness of college soccer as an option, a burgeoning industry of recruiting agencies, and technological globalization. Overall, US college soccer has become a globally attractive niche as an alternate pathway for players seeking quality competition while continuing their education.     

Hungarian Football: A Socio-historical Overview

This article provides a brief overview of the history of Hungarian football from the beginning to the years of post-Communist transition. In relying on both sport and more general historical Hungarian and English sources, it explores the political, cultural and social conditions that have had an impact on the development of Hungarian football throughout its history. The chief aim of this article is to draw attention to those historical periods and aspects of Hungarian football, which have not been extensively researched. In doing this, the development of Hungarian football will be outlined and links made with broader historical and social processes. Also, an attempt will be made to explain the ways these processes shaped and used football for various political purposes, from as early as the turn of the nineteenth century.     

The Origins of Football Debate: The Evidence Mounts, 1841–1851

In response to recent articles by Eric Dunning and Graham Curry, this article presents a wide range of new material from the period 1841 to 1851 in the ‘Origins of Football Debate’, using evidence gleaned from the British Library's digitisation of nineteenth-century newspapers. It responds to the charge that the works of ‘revisionist historians’, John Goulstone, Adrian Harvey and Peter Swain, are misleading and have led to hasty conclusions, and rejects their analysis that argues they are part of an academic community seemingly frantic for working-class influence to the detriment of public schoolboys. The article adds extensive evidence that records a much broader footballing culture across the country in mid-century than previously thought. In so doing, it addresses concerns, which have troubled many scholars, of the alleged disappearance of football in the wider community in the mid-nineteenth century, not least because of the sport's rapid expansion amongst the working and middle classes in the 1870s. The evidence presented does suggest that many forms of football other than folk football or games under the influence of public schools or public schoolboys were played, challenging ‘orthodox’ historian's views surrounding the influence of public schools and public schoolboys on the development of the game.     

The Origins of Football Debate: The ‘Grander Design and the Involvement of the Lower Classes’, 1818–1840

This article presents extensive new material in ‘the origins of football debate’ by using the British Library's digitisation project of nineteenth-century newspapers. In so doing, it responds to claims from Graham Curry and Eric Dunning that previous works of the ‘revisionist historians’ John Goulstone, Adrian Harvey and Peter Swain are misleading and have led to hasty conclusions. It evidences a football culture beyond the domain of the public schools and highlights the shift in the locus of games from urban areas to paddocks and fields complying with the Highways and Police Acts. This compliance reduced the number of prosecutions covered in newspaper reports of the day but other games, in which misdemeanours took place, are recorded, suggesting that a broad football culture did still exist in this period. The article rejects Curry and Dunning's thesis surrounding a mid-century ‘civilising spurt’ in sport in favour of explanations surrounding the structural changes taking place in the nineteenth century, including increasing industrialisation, urbanisation, population growth, and migrationary movements. It also emphasises the emergence of a horizontally stratified class-based society and an attack on football games from an emerging social and industrial elite who were looking after their property and commercial interests.     

我国青少年校园足球可持续发展研究

为探索我国青少年校园足球可持续发展运用文献资料法、问卷调查法、专家访谈法等研究方法,对全国校园足球活动开展的100所中小学布点学校进行调查分析。结果表明:我国校园足球布点学校校内学生足球活动开展不足,以联赛带活动现象严重;校园足球资金投入不足,活动场地严重缺乏,基层师资力量匮乏;社会对我国校园足球活动开展看法极端化,家长存在认知差异;校园足球文化建设薄弱;政策支持力度不足。针对这种不足现象,提出现阶段开展校园足球活动的对策建议,为我国校园足球活动的顺利开展提供参考。     

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

This paper seeks to defend one part of what has become known as the ‘revisionist’ account of the historiography of football in nineteenth-century England. In so doing, it responds to the critique by Tony Collins in his article ‘Early Football and the Emergence of Modern Soccer’ between 1840 and 1880, calling into question the reliance in his arguments of what he describes as ‘legal organized games’ as the only measure of a football culture outside of the public schools. His classification of small-sided games of football as an ‘informal leisure practice or folk custom’ is also interrogated and found wanting. Alternatively, further evidence is presented from 1860 of football games played in a variety of forms, usually alongside other sports, and mainly on church, works’ or schools’ outings, at rural fetes, galas and celebrations, or as street or casual football, the latter taking place in meadows, fields, and greens. Importantly, these were predominantly small-sided games and are, arguably, the ones closest to Association football, as it was codified in 1863, and constituted a broad, tenacious, and increasingly visible football culture that existed amongst the general population across mid-century uninfluenced by the public schools and public school boys.     

Unlocking the Cape Code: Establishing British Football in South Africa

This paper examines the emergence of modern forms of football in southern Africa during the late nineteenth century. It focuses on Cape Town – ‘the birthplace of South African sport as we know it today’ 1 1. André Odendaal, ‘The Thing that is Not Round’, in Beyond the Tryline, ed. Albert Grundlingh, André Odendaal, and Burridge Spies (Randburg: Ravan, 1995), 26. – and draws on comparative material from elsewhere in the region and overseas. It also locates events within wider social and political developments at a time when Britain sought to establish its supremacy through a federation of the South African colonies and republics. Central to the investigation is the need to discover more about the existence of a Cape football code and to ascertain the means by which William Milton championed rugby in the course of promoting a broader imperial sporting culture. In exploring the changes which occur, the article will pay attention to the stance of the press and take into account soccer's struggle for recognition; the establishment of parallel black football organisations, and the escalation in Afrikaner support for rugby.     

A Brief Legal History of Prize Fighting in Nineteenth Century America

This article examines the value for historians of sport of works of fiction in which sport is a central motif. The novel that is explored in this context is Eva Menasse's Vienna which offers a unique representation of Austrian soccer throughout a significant part of the twentieth century and thereby provides a vivid account of the more general relationship between soccer, society and identity. It is argued that the novel also allows us to reflect on the ways in which professional athletes view their world. Does Vienna add to the uninitiated's knowledge about the ‘facts’ of Austrian football in the period depicted? Perhaps not. Does it increase our understanding of the place of football in Austrian society at that time and, indeed, in the lives of individuals in many societies even during times of crisis? Here the answer is almost certainly an unequivocal ‘yes’.     

‘They are able to play football in South Africa’: Austria’s ‘little Wunderteam’ on tour in 1936

From the end of the nineteenth century South Africa had become a popular touring destination for British and colonial sports teams. Tours in the popular sport of cricket, football and rugby were very popular. These tours tested local opposition against foreign competition, brought in revenue to local and national sports associations and contributed to the development of a white South African identity. Austrian football teams were extensive travellers and popular attractions around the world. Prior to the Second World War Austrian football was highly regarded and was able to compete and hold its own against English and Scottish clubs and representative teams. This article considers an unusual tour by a combined Viennese football team to South Africa in 1936. We consider the preparations for the tour, the different playing styles and the way in which the visitors were received around the country. At the broader political level, the tour was important as leading South African politicians and Austrian diplomats attended matches and functions while on tour. This can be understood in the context of both countries attempting to flex their political identity and muscle in light of more dominant neighbours and colonial masters.     

Women’s association football (soccer) in Brisbane,Queensland 1921–1933: new perspectives on early competition

ABSTRACT

In September 1921, two representative women’s teams played association football (soccer) on the Brisbane Cricket Ground in Queensland, Australia. The crowd size, approximately 10,000, was not commensurate with those attending matches featuring Dick, Kerr Ladies in England during the same period, but it was nonetheless a significant crowd at a match now widely acknowledged as Australia’s first public game of women’s association football. New evidence suggests it may have been the first between representative female association football sides, with players selected from local teams.

Contemporary accounts note the match as a single event. Regular organised competition did not occur until the early 1970s, but led to the formation of a national association in 1974. An overview of current literature and new archival research highlights the emergence of a strong culture around woman’s association football that begins before the Brisbane Cricket Ground match. The evidence presents a possible imbalance between what occurred and what has been recorded, and suggests a much more prolonged, if somewhat fragmented, engagement with association football between 1921 and 1933 in southern Queensland. The emergence of competition in Brisbane in the 1920s foregrounds the city’s – and, with it, Queensland’s – contribution to the history and development of Australian women’s football.