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) Continue reading →

Class Ethnicity and Color in the making of Brazilian Football PCQ

The Football of Brazilian Elites

This section of the reading brings back the idea that soccer was used as a way to help English settlers establish relationships with some of the locals around the colony. Football was a means of staying busy for English workers without the inclusion of any Brazilian players. Because the game was mainly played solely by the English it was easy to associate the game as something meant solely for the upper classes. People frequented the game in suits and ties similar to how baseball games originally became popular. The leisurely activities early on have always been linked to the elite classes because they could afford not to be working all day. The origins of football in Brazil seem to have begun as a spectacle where players and spectators went to see and be seen by members of their own social status.

“Players also frequented dances at the clubs; playing football regularly was one of the several characteristics of an elite lifestyle. Several football clubs were made up of university students, and access to law, medicine, and to a lesser extent engineering was a form of social reconversion. For the declining Brazilian rural aristocracy, or an expanded reproduction of the new scholarized urban elites.” (243) Continue reading →