It Is Undeniable: Football in England Is More Than Entertainment

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Mere Players: “Roughness” and the Development of Football in XIX Century England—A Discursive Outline

It is hardly a question that football in England is more than entertainment. Many people would recognize that the game is the expression of an industry of gigantic proportions that generates profits not only for players and executives directly involved in the game, but also for a larger number of people on the periphery of the industry. From the lawyers who participate in the signing of television contracts to those involved in the construction, upkeep and cleaning of stadiums, the game is at the core of an enterprise that branches out into different areas of England’s socio-economic life, directly and indirectly supporting thousands of people all over the country. Considering its economic magnitude, it would be reasonable to assume that the game is also a reflection of English society. Whether it is in the global nature of the culture, in its consumerism, or in its class frictions and divisions, British football is in many ways a product, and therefore, a projection of the mother country. By looking at football and its social extensions, then, we can extrapolate the major characteristics of 19th century British society.

Specifically, I will contend that industrialization was a major force in the organization of the sport, that the game reflected the nature of class relations at the time, and that eventually, it also became an expression of masculine working class identity away from neighborhood and work. In other words, the organized game was one of the many organs that grew out of the body that was Industrializing England in the mid-1800s, and as such, it was one of the many expressions of this society. As is the case today, football was a display of a society in which people tried to improve and give meaning to their lives by competing with each other, asserting their identities, expressing their emotions, and building and maintaining social relationships.

Methodologically, I believe historians should shy away from promoting one historical view over another. People are not static. They’re ever-changing, influenced, among many factors, by historical time, social context, physical space, even the workings of a day, the emotions of a minute, the interplay of these and infinite others. If anything, individuals are the product of their experiences and because it is often impossible to interview the actors and witnesses of the past, to read their minds and figure out the unconscious, historians have to settle for an incomplete story based on limited resources and the awareness that the value of their work lies in the contributions they make to the larger historical discourse. Recognition of such considerations makes the balance between historical interpretation and objectivity even more challenging, and the motivations and influences of people’s actions more difficult to interpret. So in an attempt to gain only a partial understanding of the issues that affected the development of football in the middle of the 19th century, I will create a narrative that incorporates some of the major ideas on the role of class distinction and masculinity in the development of football in an Industrializing England. These include Ian Taylor’s view of working class behavior during football games as a resistance to the imposition of bourgeois values, Eric Dunning’s interpretation of workingmen’s actions during games as the expression of a code of behavior produced by the working structure of a “rough” working class environment, as well as a number of popular interpretations dealing with football in the 19th and 20th centuries that address an even larger number of issues. I will use these works to create a narrative in which the game is viewed as a social organ, which when looked at closely, can provide some insight into at least part of the organic make up of XIX century English society at large, intertwined with the ever-changing qualities of the entire configuration of society.

This organ began as a growth in pre-industrial England. During the Middle Ages, and perhaps as early as the Roman times, people in England and in other parts of Europe played a game that in some areas went by the name of football, in others campball, hurling, knappan, and so on.[1] These games were usually part of community events, in some cases involving very few pre-established standardized rules that covered more than a village or a particular countryside area,[2] for standards on a national scale required communication, agreement, and/or commitment to a set of rules and conditions. While it could be argued that religious leaders and merchants served as agents of general values and ideas, that there were migrant workers who occasionally ventured from town to town, in ancient times community traditions were often more important in regulating the behavior of the people.[3] There were monarchs in England before industrialization, but it took years for them to consolidate power, and even then the enforcement of rules was very difficult, for to some degree on a very basic level, these difficulties reflected the limitations of communication. A local leader could have decided to ignore a decree or have interpreted a law in a way that fitted the needs of his particular community and/or his relationship with important members of the locality. Mostly in cases where decrees affected many of them in negative ways and the monarch could hold them accountable, regional leaders would have made the effort to communicate their dissatisfaction and confront the monarch to create a different cultural standard, a different legal code. Taxation and salvation were sometimes the sticky issues, and the limits of royal power began this way; but when it came to the daily workings of village or a countryside area, to the rules of entertainment, for instance, the community was usually more important in creating a behavioral framework.[4] Sports were not an exception to this social phenomenon; and so it was that prior to the creation of a stronger central state with a stronger bureaucracy and system of communication—indeed, prior to the second phase of industrialization—that many games were played all over England that only resembled modern football or each other.[5]

The nature and rules of the game varied from village to village, from town to town, from region to region. Even the balls varied in size, in shape (some were round, others oval), and in composition from different scraps, leather, and the bladder from different animals. The fields were different from community to community in shape and length. Some were rather large by modern standards, in some cases measuring more than a mile in length, with familiar trees and slopes serving as markers along the way. Others were comparable to today’s fields, though even then the number of players was different from parish to parish. In some cases teams of one hundred players could go at each other, violence permissible, a spectacle of brute strength, with players wearing spurs on their shoes to increase the effectiveness of the possible blow. Yet in other cases the number of players was a lot smaller, and the potential violence tamed through adherence to pre-established community rules. There was rarely a referee as this was often the role of local leaders and spectators, or any random person the teams agreed upon. The nature of the score, the markers of the field also varied from locality to locality. Such was the confusion when teams from different communities met, that the players of each team could be guided by different rules, or simply by the individual impulse of a moment. Supposedly it was out of this confusion that the game of rugby was born, when a player decided that it was easier to carry the ball in his hands and run for the score instead of pushing and kicking. Perhaps it is only what would appear to be the modern need for a common national origin and our sense of football posterity that have guided our desire to call these primitive competitions by the name of football. For by modern standards the game as it existed at that time can be compared to no more than a growth without clear definition, uniformity, and the hostility of some matches illustrate that the potential was there for games to become violent and deadly. However, in the long run, that was not the case, for by the late 1800s football had developed into an organized sport with standard rules of play. Furthermore, by the turn of the century, England had developed a professional league with organized games played by different teams and attended by thousands of fans.

The development of modern football was not a sudden occurrence, a spark, nor the product of an overnight dream by a sport genius. Like industrialization, the development of professional football as an organized sport with rules recognized and understood by everyone involved in the game was a process that took many years to unfold. The popularization of football was not uniform, nor did it follow a particular progression, a particular rate of growth, a particular economic pattern that encompassed all of England. By the 1850s and with the exception of a few rules made by some schools, in the cities and in the countryside, men and children still played different games following different styles and modes, the differences resembling those that characterized play prior to industrialization. It was the year 1863, in fact, that marked a turning point in the history of football, and by extension, in the history of sports, for it was that year that a group of middle and upper middle class men met to create a league comprised of 12 teams that followed the same rules and used comparable-size fields and balls, with the players who participated in the matches having a clear uniform understanding of the game.[6] For industrialization, mechanization, and standardization brought people together, linked different communities through infra-structural improvements, broadened markets, and contributed to a stronger state capable of exercising (if only selectively) more control over the population. The development of football was a reflection of these changes taking place in the larger society.[7] In essence, England was becoming a more unified cultural organism.[8] Football was one of its organs now, the railroads, the canals, the roads were the veins of the economic system, and the cities were the heart, evolving, growing, changing, and forever amorphous. The creation of modern football represented an agreement between members of different communities to come together and have fun under the same standard rules. What had been a cyst of pre-industrial England with no clear definition was becoming a useful part of the national social body.

For For many years now scholars gfsd have debated many aspects of the Industrial Revolution: the causes and effects of the process, the nature of the change, and the predominance of some socio-economic factors. Some have emphasized the role of women, of international and internal markets, of the accumulation of capital through agriculture, population growth, the role of the state, consumption, the development of an effective banking system, class divisions, and more. The point of this essay is not to engage this debate, as I perceive it to be in part the classical case of historical truth explained from many angles, but to focus instead on some of the basic structural and social changes that in the long run took place in England as a result of the Industrial Revolution, and to explore how the game of football evolved in accordance and as a result of these changes. Such transformations include improvements in communication by the middle to late 1800s, the development of a distinct working class, and a middle and upper middle class with goals that they often perceived to be different from each other and the aristocracy, and the development of massive cities. All of these socio-economic factors influenced the development of modern football. Industrialization contributed to urbanization, produced the railways and trolleys that allowed fans and players to travel from game to game in a relatively short period of time. How better do a people develop a stronger and more continuous sense of a national identity with their country-mates than through the exercise of activities that promote a sense of a shared experience, of belonging to a nation? Wars were always useful in this respect, but they were risky and expensive, nationalism was an inadvertent effect, not necessarily their aim, taxes were resented, the crown was far away, in many cases it was only a symbol of a distant central authority perhaps of a different religion, and Parliament represented only a minority of the population. Regional allegiances, immediate relationships were often more important. Football was one of the peaceful venues, inexpensive, an activity that people enjoyed, that was played in many versions and at different social levels, bringing people of different regions together, promoting England as a nation, and inadvertently reflecting the country itself.[9]

This is not to say that industrialization destroyed community allegiances. What it did do, however, was create a stronger national network, a larger layer of more solid connections on top of smaller local ones. Class identity, setting yourself apart in a Victorian society through the demonstration of available resources continued to be an important part of the social reflection of the country, especially for a growing middle class carrying the heavy load of insecurities produced by limited safety nets and the presence of a mass of poor, especially when so many businesses collapsed every day all around them. This meant dressing a certain way, acting a certain way, attending certain activities that helped them reinforce the ostensible uniformity of their identity, sharing and creating an exclusive experience, giving permanence, turning the fiction of a higher rank into a physical reality of clothes, styles, behaviors, and laws.

Attending the public schools was one of such activities. In them, boys were supposed to receive an education that was to teach them the values that would help them succeed in society.[10] However many middle and upper class parents (whether they were bourgeois or aristocrats) felt that the schools were ineffective in educating their children, as these institutions were known for the disorderly conduct of some of the boys and for an outdated mode of teaching that reflected the more romantic ideal of an aristocratic life style.[11] Many parents reacted by demanding a pedagogy that reflected the needs of living in an industrial and ever-changing society with measurable objectives and statistics, a time of major profits and loses, when business became large-scale, distinctively set beyond the bounds of agriculture,[12] and never safe as investment. Such a dynamic was instrumental in promoting football as a game that reflected certain values and expectations, and therefore, in setting the stage for its human and physical characteristics.

It was in this educational environment that a group of middle class men from the public schools sat down and in 1863 created a game that served as a mechanism (even if only inadvertently) for the further promotion of their expectations and values in the classroom and beyond the surrounding walls.[13] This can be seen in the way the game was organized. Selfless cooperation was more important than individual competition.[14] And this not to say that the organizers necessarily believed that middle class men should not have pursued their own interests, but like the ideal in society, players needed to follow an external standard of rules that was to represent the parameters within which the interplay between self-control, group care and work, creativity, and competitions were to take place—their performance measured through a final result and the power of figures. Players could catch the ball with their hands, but they could not run with it, they could not wear any cutting objects on their shoes, and pushing and hacking were not allowed anymore. This is really when football and rugby separated, in the difference between pushing, kicking, and how, when, and who could carry the ball.[15] Games were decided by a difference of goals. This set up was a reflection of the workings of an organized industrial society, and therefore football served as a model and a mechanism for social training, like a family to a child. Players, like members of an industrial society, like businessmen and workers, needed to follow standards of behavior, laws, symbols, and social uniformity; like the interchangeable parts of a machine, they needed to follow a standardized form, a script in which the players could improvise on the spot--the rules of the game were indeed to a football player what a musical score is to a great jazz performer or anyone engaged in any social script or play: he improvises to beautify, to stay ahead of the competition, to win the accolades of the fans, make a profit, move forward, and ensure his own security through a higher rank but within the pre-established limits of the community and group.

Perhaps to the leaders and organizers of the Football Association individual competition as a result of a desire for a higher rank came more naturally than a concern for the community. If industrial society were an example, they could see what men were capable of doing to their fellow humans to ensure their own security: child labor and putting men and women to work under despicable working conditions. They could also see that in order to ensure success, men needed to pay attention to tangible mathematical figures and have a sense of the system as a whole—Dickens made a living out of telling these stories. So it comes as no surprise that the organizers and leaders of the FA encouraged players to promote the welfare of the team, of the community first, even if at the cost of their own individual performance. They had to be gentlemen first, control their emotions, use restraint, and channel their competitive spirits, their manly physicality through the framework of rules, values, and team play. In essence, the game was a recreation of an ideal society where men had to have honor, discipline, and courage, and more importantly, follow the rules of the game as they would follow the standards of society as defined by the leaders and organizers of the middle and upper classes. Men were members of their middle and upper class communities and they had to stick to the rules. It was the sacrifice of victory, of reaping the benefits of belonging to a group. “Spends a great deal of money on his dress, ma’am,” said one of Dickens’s characters, reflecting the mentality of the time, and another responded: “It must be admitted that it’s very tasteful.” To which the first replied: “he looks at me as if he gamed,” and the first returned: “It’s ridiculous, ma’am because the chances are against the players.”[16] It was such a view about human behavior and understanding of self that to some degree informed the creation and formulation of football, and the reference to class, gaming, and player have a ring of comical irony in this context, as if society were sport and “men and women were mere players” with costumes and interests that reflected their worth. Such a constructionalist and materialistic view of the world is also illustrated by the words of N. L. Jackson, who throughout his life played the multiple roles of player, referee, and sporting journalist during the early years of the Football Association. His view of the game becomes clearly evident when in 1900 he is quoted as saying that: “Players should never lose their temper… [that] The game should be played for enjoyment…[that a player] should be absolutely unselfish. Play only for [his] side and never keep the ball when [he] ought to pass it. No captain should retain a selfish player in his team, for he sets a bad example.”[17] But of course no matter what the social background, or the intentions of leaders and organizers, people will very likely be competitive, and football, like any social creation, was also a game of ingenuity and display, a balance of staying ahead as individuals and as a group, a competition for a higher rank within the team and against others. The latter meant trying to win games, and a desire to win tied the latter to the former, as winning ultimately meant trying to score more goals than the opposing team. It comes as no surprise, then, that early on the rules and style of football reflected a focus on offensive play despite the philosophy emphasized by coaches and organizers like N. L. Jackson. In a sense, football was a compromise between individualism and cooperation, one of the eternal human struggles. The rules of the FA created a standard that brought players together by giving them a common understanding of the game, of limits and extremes, and of fair play as a group, while individual players represented the power of individualism and a constant desire to exert themselves through finesse, creativity, and rough physicality. Schools like Sheffield still resisted the FA offside rule, momentarily catching the ball was initially allowed, and it was common practice for individual players to keep the ball for longer than it was practical and beneficial to the team. Five, six players in a squad will be focused on scoring without the deliberate[18] use of their teammates, and it will not be until years later that teams following the rules of the FA will develop a more defensive style of play with four defenders, and a sense of glory defined by the short pass and team performance.[19]