Origin Stories

Chris Lee

Description

Origin Stories: The Pioneers Who Took Football to the World charts the growth of the game in each major footballing country, from the very first kick to the first World Cup in 1930. Football's global spread from muddy playing fields to colossal, purpose-built stadiums is a story of class, race, gender and politics. Along the way, you'll meet the people who established football around the world and discover the challenges they faced. Featuring interviews with leading historians, journalists, club chairmen and descendants of club founders and players, Origin Stories tells the fascinating country-by-country tale of how football put down its roots around the world. The sport's early growth includes a cast of English aristocrats and 'Scotch professors', French tournament pioneers, international merchants, keen students, raucous rebels and more. Origin Stories shows that football's early development was a truly global team effort.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 19 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785319235
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Chris Lee, 2021
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Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785317699
eBook ISBN 9781785319235
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Contents
Introduction
1. England
2. Scotland
3. Wales
4. Ireland
5. France
6. Switzerland
7. Scandinavia
8. Belgium
9. The Netherlands
10. Argentina
11. Uruguay
12. Brazil
13. North America
14. Germany
15. Austria
16. Hungary
17. Czech Republic and Slovakia
18. Spain
19. Portugal
20. Italy
21. Middle East and Africa
22. Asia-Pacific
Epilogue
Credits and Thanks
Bibliography
Photos
Introduction
EACH SUMMER, a preseason friendly football match takes place in the outskirts of Sheffield in Northern England. Here, Sheffield FC and nearby Hallam FC contest the Rules derby . It is the world s oldest football rivalry, played by the world s oldest surviving Association rules football clubs. When the players of this fixture first took to the field on Boxing Day 1860, the two clubs were following the Sheffield Rules . The Football Association (FA) rules - the basis for the modern game - were still nearly three years away from agreement. All football in the mid-19th century was played under myriad codes, most famously those devised on the playing fields of Eton, Harrow, Cambridge, Charterhouse and Rugby. In August 2017, I made my way up to the outskirts of Sheffield to take in the 157th year of this fixture armed only with the kernel of an idea for a story on the world s football pioneers. I was joined by around 500 other people who understood fully the significance of this clash between these two historic clubs. Both clubs now reside in the lower echelons of the English non-league tier system.
Origin Stories: The Pioneers Who Took Football to the World tells the history of the first Association rules football clubs, organisations and tournaments in the major footballing countries across the world. We follow the story from the very first kick of the round ball in each major country in rough chronological order up until the inaugural World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, by which time football had truly gone global. We uncover the pioneers behind Association football s growth and their influence in forging the game. We learn the challenges they faced and see how they overcame them to lay the foundations for what would become the most popular and lucrative sport in the world. I aim to bust some myths of football s foundation stories along the way.
There is a familiar theme that emerges time and again: British workers carrying a ball and a rule book with them to all corners of the globe to keep them entertained during downtime. This global interconnectivity is often the reason why so many pioneer clubs started life in port cities - as in Genoa, Huelva, Antwerp, Le Havre, S o Paulo, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. There are also occasions when enthusiastic sportsmen who spent time in England or Scotland and saw the game first hand caught the bug and set up footballing societies at home. This was the case in Northern Ireland with Cliftonville, Koninklijke HFC of the Netherlands and many other countries. We will also learn of the critical role that royal approval would play in the promotion of the new sport in Scandinavia, Spain, the Netherlands, Romania and elsewhere.
In the second half of the 19th century, conditions were perfect for the rapid global spread of Association football. Domestically in the UK, the rise of urban, industrialised working and middle classes with Saturday afternoon now at their leisure from the 1870s enabled people to gravitate towards their local football club. The growing railway network made getting to and from matches easier for fans, players and officials. Globally, the British Empire was at its peak, joined together by the speed of the steamship and a growing telegraph network. Yet football s popularity would not be imposed by imperial masters, because it attracted local interest of its own accord. Besides, it was via trade connections that the British spread the game, rather than via imperial links. Association rules football is, after all, not as popular in many of the major Commonwealth countries as cricket, or other codes of football, such as rugby or Australian Rules. Here, as in the US and Ireland, the game is known as soccer , to distinguish the Association game from other, more prominent, codes of football.
Dr Kevin Moore, former CEO of the National Football Museum in England and an academic scholar on the history of football, tells me that, were it not for crucial decisions made both by the Football Association and the Rugby Football Union (RFU) in the 1870s, things could have been very different worldwide. According to Dr Moore, rugby could have been the global football game rather than soccer.
The key differentiator was professionalism. In the 1870s, when both rugby and Association football began attracting paying crowds, clubs of either code began to pay players. While many in the FA were against payment of players, when the clubs of the north threatened to break away and go their own way, the FA accepted professionalism in 1885. A potential chasm over payment of players - one that would ultimately divide rugby later in the 19th century - was averted. This paved the way for the creation of the Football League in 1888, which was the first of its kind in the world and one which Dr Moore believes helped drive the sport s popularity. As Dr Moore has written, Soccer chose professionalism and a league. Rugby chose amateurism and no league. This is the moment when it was effectively decided that soccer, rather than rugby, would become the world s leading football game. 1
The period we cover in this book is when the football code war was settled. Historian Tony Collins observes that no football code other than the Association game has qualitatively expanded beyond national boundaries since 1914 - and it still gains in popularity worldwide now, 160 years after its codification. 2 Often, where the Brits went there followed a story of exclusivity; locals often had to wait their turn to get a crack at the game. And it was often the British coaches - who would become known in some parts as Mister - who taught the world in time to eclipse football s mother country at its own game. Local influencers took on the mantle from there and never looked back. This British legacy endures in the lexicon of the global game. That s why you find teams in South America called Newell s Old Boys, River Plate, Everton and Albion FC. It s also why a crack is a striker in some countries, or in Brazil a team is a time (pronounced chee-may ), and in Italy they re keen on pressing and fond of a good cross .
The clubs we encounter in this journey are often not the biggest names in their country, and few even appear in their country s top leagues, but the contribution the pioneers have made is not forgotten. They even have their own association! Sheffield FC s chairman is Richard Tims. Under Tims s stewardship, Sheffield FC has been at the forefront of keeping the story of the pioneers alive. Sheffield FC is behind the Club of Pioneers, a worldwide network of the oldest continuing football clubs from each country. Every so often the family gets together and competes in Sheffield and has attracted guest appearances from high-profile former players. Retired England stars Chris Waddle and Carlton Palmer have turned out for Sheffield FC, while Tom Skuhrav and Gennaro Ruotolo have pulled on the blue and burgundy Genoa jersey.
The inspiration for the Club of Pioneers was to unite the heritage and history of football around the world, Tims tells me. As The World s First Football Club we believe that football s roots should be valued throughout the world. Through our Club of Pioneers project, we aim to recognise the impact that these clubs have had on the development of football in each country. The Club of Pioneers now has registered members stretching across Europe, Africa, Asia and as far away as New Zealand. Tims hopes that by recognising the impact of these clubs they will receive greater recognition and support within their own communities.
This book started as a side project, a theme on my football culture blog and podcast, Outside Write , where I collected stories about the roots of football in the major footballing countries across the world. On this journey, I ve visited Sheffield and Manchester, Glasgow, Italy, Belgium, Berlin and Paris, and spoken to many of the pioneer clubs and prominent local football historians. I ve even had the privilege to meet with and talk to descendants of those footballing pioneers. We ll piece together the contribution of clubs, sponsors, administrators and associations in the nascent era of football.
In some countries, the distinction between British and English is not often understood. In this book I make the distinction where possible, and I am very keen that the role that Scots played in the Victorian era is not overlooked, because it is substantial. History and heritage can never be valued enough, Sheffi