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

 

The introduction to this article attempts to explain that before football became a competitive professional sport an established and flourishing sporting culture already existed. Foot races, horse racing, boxing, and cricket were the main sports that were popular before the development of professional football. Throughout the 1870’s however football quickly joined the ranks of other popular and commercialized sports which led to it reaching a level of professionalism. This process began due to the rivalry that existed between the countries of Lancashire and Yorkshire which shifted their competition from war and violence to the sporting field.

 

The Rules of Football and Sheffield’s Contribution

“Without that book of football laws, the games would never have been invented and the World would have been a much poorer place’, in fact, the code was very poor and far from disseminating the ‘kicking’ variety of football, it rapidly alienated many of those who were sympathetic to the game.” (1428)

 

This quote discusses the rules that help regulate the game of football that came out of a few different social institutions known as the public schools. There were two different types of the game being played at the time one known as kicking and the other one was identified as handling. They created fourteen laws to govern this new adaptation of football, however the rules that were created and implemented by this new FA organization had taken so much of the excitement out of the game of football that many of the people who helped write the rule book soon dropped out of the organization. So while many clubs had come together to create a new set of rules it seemed that by 1863 many of the clubs who had signed on to this new project were not leaving the club in favor or more favorable rules that were already in place.

 

“Arguably then, Sheffield’s influence prevented the FA disbanding in 1867 and in like manner they transformed the rules of the association game. In many respects, the rules used by Shefield were often much closer to modern football than those of the FA.” (1430)

 

However badly the plan had been to make football a more popular sport it became clear in 1867 that Sheffield had created their own football association that had a foundation of fans and was continue to receive support and gain popularity. This positive attraction to the game of football convinced the FA not to disband but rather to look into what was making this variation of football popular and a success. Small rule changes were making big differences in how people played and enjoyed the game of football.

 

“Essentially football in the Sheffield region was not a commercial game. Rather, it was regarded as a purely amateur pursuit, such gate money as was generated being donated to local charities.” (1431)

Although the game in Sheffield was able to attract more fans and keep them interested it remained a game void of any professional acts. They were able to make money off of spectators but the money was never used to pay players to remain with certain teams like it had been for some teams in our readings about early Brazilian football. Instead their earnings came from athletics meanings that were held annually and received all the money they would need to field a team this process was very different than the one in place ten years earlier in the 1840’s where football matches were plaid with the inclusion of financial gains.

 

 

“Hindle, as secretary to Darwen Football Club and the Lancashire Football Association, was, alongside Dixion, central to the development and diffusion of association football in south and east Lancashire from an Amateur game through to a shamateur one and then to a fully professional sport.” (1437)

 

In the 1950’s however sports had become a business in Lancashire and Manchester and while the style of football that had been played before could not draw large enough crowds for professionalism to really take place as football began to shift more towards the model created in Sheffield this new game of football could be played by professionals and generate revenue. They used commercial gardens that were fenced off that allowed them to charge admission, factors like these were leading the sport of football into become a commercial success.

 

A History of Football in Paris: Challenges Faced by Sport Practiced within a Capital City

 

This article discussed the relationship of football within France and Paris, while explaining the creation of FIFA and other important football associations that helped spread the popularity of football throughout England and France. After explain the creation of such leagues and the influence Parisian teams had over football fans and associations it also explains the fall of the Parisian hegemony and drop off of Paris’s influence in the football world.

 

“Indeed, since it had not yet constituted its own space, football was disadvantaged by a lack of social consideration and political acknowledgement. The domination of Parisian football was exclusively linked to the extrinsic political, economic and cultural influence of Paris, and thus the sport was unable, through its lack of autonomy, to define its own standards of excellence and recognition.” (1137)

 

This quote sums up a lot of what the article is trying to focus on, it begins by explain just how influential Paris was in the sporting world by identifying it as the place that led to the creation of not only the International Olympic Committee but the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) as well. Paris’s international footprint on the sporting world reached even further due to their hosting of the 1900 and 1924 Olympiads and the 1938 World Cup finals. Due to the fact that Paris had such a large hand in the continued growth of football it seemed to make sense that the city would hold the first football championships that were held in Paris in 1894.

 

Parisian teams had so much influence because there were often invited to play teams from different federations and traveled around putting on demonstrations of the sport, by doing so they brought the sport to many outlying areas and were able to attract a lot of attention and grow the sport of football. Parisian players even brought football into the military when they were on tour and the French military supported the continued play of football among its troops, even requesting gear to be sent to them so that they could practice. Problems arose for these Parisian teams in the 1910’s when a new national federation was created and the structure of football that had previously been in place was restructured. The reason Parisian clubs were dropping off in popularity and in influence seemed to be linked to their inability to create an identity for themselves once more club teams came into existence and fans began to follow more local teams that they seemed to relate to more closely.

Questions:

• Why wasn’t there any real resistance to the change in football throughout the years?
• Were other sports negatively impacted by the continued growth of the newly developed football?
• Why would clubs join the FA and create rules by which they had no plans of following?