The History Of Professional Football
Thu, 29 November 2007Two major milestones this year:
- Sheffield FC, the oldest non-university football club, formed in 1857, celebrated its 150th anniversary:
- The Players Union, the precursor to the Professional Footballers Association, was formed on 2 December 1907. The PFA is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
There can be no doubting the English origins of association football, in the second half of the 19th century.
The fact is, there is no historical link between cuju and association football. There is however a clear evolutionary path from the mob game played in England in the middle ages to the modern game. (The mob element may have remained within English football until as late as the 1970s and 1980s, but that’s another story.)
In its early years, the ideal of amateur sport held by Victorian “gentlemen” (who were from upper and middle class backgrounds) was to be found within association football, as with many other sports developed or codified in 19th century England. Professionalism was first legalized within football in 1885, and even then, subject to a maximum wage (which remained in place until 1961).
Similar tensions in rugby led to the split between union and league in 1895.
The earlier split between football and rugby took place within the gentlemen classes.
The very impetus to codify the rules of the game stemmed from the gentlemen classes. “The idea was to ‘play up and play the game’ – play your best but play by the rules.”
However, the converging interests of private capital and enterprise (which sought to make a profit from the business of football), and players from working class backgrounds (who needed or wanted to be paid to pay), changed the face of football as early as 1885.
[...] pushed beyond their physical limits puts their long term career at risk, and is a matter that the Professional Footballers’ Association ought to take a greater interest [...]
[...] rajiv on Thu 23 April 2009 While FIOFAFI has its player polls and “Self-Rater”, the Professional Footballers’ Association has its Player’s Player Of The [...]
[...] rajiv on Fri 24 April 2009 While FIOFAFI has its player polls and “Self-Rater”, the Professional Footballers’ Association has its Player’s Player Of The [...]
[...] a long way since the early days of the Association Footballers’ Union, the precursor to the Professional Footballers’ Association, in the late 19th century: The Association Footballers’ Union (1898 – 1901) was the name of [...]
The links to the British Council page are now dead, but I found something equivalent here – Victorian and Edwardian Sporting Values”.
Another relevant article here.