The Emergence of Football: Sport, Culture and Society in the Nineteenth Century

The Emergence of Football fuses sports history into mainstream economic, social and cultural history, setting the development of the people’s game against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution.

The book challenges conventional histories of nineteenth-century football that surrounded mass games and the public schools and extends the revisionist critique of those histories with the imaginative use of new and original empirical evidence. It outlines the continuing presence of a working-class footballing culture across the century, arguing that the structure of football was a product of industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth that had resulted in a far-reaching restructuring of the class system and urban hierarchies. It was these new hierarchies and class system that gave birth to professional football by the late 1870s.

It is essential reading for students of sports studies, economic, social and cultural history, urban and local history, and sociology, as well as a valuable resource for scholars and academics involved in the study of football across the world. This is an absorbing and fascinating read for any of the millions of fans of the game who are interested in the early history of football.

Peter Swain is Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre for Worktown Studies at the University of Bolton, UK, and is a leading contributor to the so-called ’Origins of Football’ debate.