football

football (soccer). Medieval football was extremely violent, akin to modern hooliganism. Repeated attempts were made by the authorities to suppress it as dangerous, disruptive, and a diversion from archery practice. At Ashbourne (Derbys.) a variant of the old game is still played at Shrovetide.

Modern football developed with the growth of large industrial towns. In the early 19th cent. the game declined in popularity in the face of overcrowded and cramped streets and considerable official disapproval. It survived among public schoolboys and at Cambridge University where, in 1848, a first attempt was made to compile a common set of rules. Previous rules were local and much disputed, with disagreements about charging and hacking, the number of players, the size and shape of the ball, and the duration of the game. The Cambridge rules were adopted by a number of clubs and the game made some progress in the 1850s. A further attempt to produce standard rules, at the Freemasons' Tavern in London in 1863, led to the formation of a Football Association, from which some clubs soon seceded to follow a handling code.

At this stage football was an upper middle-class game and strictly amateur. The new Association launched a cup competition in 1872. Queen's Park, the Glasgow team, entered, but scratched on finding travel costs beyond them. Wanderers beat Royal Engineers 1–0 at the Oval before 2,000 spectators and the following year beat Oxford University 2–0. Gradually the strength of the game moved towards the midlands and the north, where clubs were beginning to pay expenses and retaining fees. A watershed was the 1883 Cup Final, when Blackburn Olympics beat Old Etonians 2–1. In 1885, after protests, professionalism was accepted. Attendances began to edge up. The Cup Final at Manchester in 1893 between Wolves and Everton was watched by 45,000 people, and the attendance at Crystal Palace in 1901 to see Tottenham and Sheffield Wednesday was 111,000. With professional teams dominating the cup competition, an Amateur Cup was instituted in 1893, changed in 1974 to the Challenge Vase.

In 1888 twelve clubs from the midlands and north, including Preston North End, Accrington Stanley, and Blackburn Rovers, formed the Football League. The first two seasons were won by Preston. Over the next four years, sixteen more clubs joined, including Nottingham Forest, Sunderland, and Everton, and a second division was added in 1892. There was considerable competition from the Southern League, but by 1914 the Football League had extended south to bring in Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Fulham, and Bristol City. The Scottish League began in 1890 and an Irish League the same year. Many clubs developed from works teams or from church or chapel. Stoke City and Manchester United both originated with railway workers, Aston Villa was an offshoot of a Wesleyan group. In most large towns in Britain, the Saturday afternoon match became part of the leisure pattern of working men.

After the First World War, a third division was added to the Football League, divided into north and south. Attendances remained high. When Wembley stadium was opened in 1923, well over 126,000 people crammed in to watch Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham 2–0.

During the Second World War, league competitions were suspended, though exhibition matches, with guest players, remained popular. In the 1948/9 season, more than 40 million people paid to watch football in England. Recognition of the game was accorded by knighthoods to Stanley Matthews, the Stoke and Blackpool winger, to Alf Ramsay, manager of the World Cup victors of 1966, and to Matt Busby, manager of Manchester United. But by the 1980s attendances were falling in the face of rival leisure activities, greater social mobility, and a growing distaste for the coarseness and hooliganism of the terraces. Many of the old grounds seemed vast iron hulks, echoing to depleted crowds, relics of a bygone age. From this parlous state, the game was rescued, largely by television. Fresh interest was injected into the third division by the introduction of promotion and relegation from the (Vauxhall) Conference League, which has produced cliff-hanging finales to several seasons.

The first international football match took place at Partick in 1872 between England and Scotland, ending in a 0–0 draw. One of the earliest international games between non-British teams was at Vienna in 1902, when Austria beat Hungary 5–0. FIFA was founded in 1904 but international competition did not make much headway until after the First World War, when the World Cup competition was started in 1930. England did not take part until after the Second World War, and was able to retain a comfortable sense of superiority. This was shattered in 1950 by a 1–0 defeat from the USA, followed three years later by a 6–3 defeat at Wembley from the Hungarians, and was not totally restored by victory in the World Cup at Wembley in 1966. In European competitions, British clubs like Manchester United and Liverpool, often with a good stiffening of foreign players, have done remarkably well, but apart from its triumph in 1966, the English national team has tested the patience of its supporters.

The modern professional game has been dogged by a number of disasters. In 1902, 25 people were killed at Ibrox, home of Glasgow Rangers, when a stand collapsed; 33 were killed at Burnden Park, Bolton Wanderers' ground, when crush barriers gave way in 1946; the young and gifted Manchester United team was almost wiped out in an air crash at Munich in 1958. More recently, fire swept through Bradford City stand in 1985 killing 52 people; the Heysel stadium disaster in Belgium the same year claimed 38 lives; and the death of 93 spectators at Hillsborough in 1989 led to the Taylor inquiry, which made urgent recommendations for improved safety. Recent developments towards premier leagues and super leagues have made life difficult for small and unfashionable clubs and a number of them have fallen by the wayside. At times the professional game seems in danger of being overwhelmed by television and press coverage, with as much attention given to managers as to football, and by heavy administration. Inflated wages, following the Bosman ruling (1995), plunged many clubs into debt. But underpinning the 90 or so professional clubs in the English league are the semi-professional leagues, and the vast number of amateurs, of all shapes, sizes, and talents, who play on windswept recreation grounds in Saturday or Sunday leagues, where attendances are measured in single figures, and it is not unknown for teams to turn up with nine men. See also Wembley stadium.

Nicholas J. Bryars/ and Professor J. A. Cannon