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.