The birth of English Football

[Mister E]

Preview of a new Netflix serial, here
No mention of Villa, McGregor or Rinder: the focus seems to be on class and the role of the Public schools in developing the game.
I'm just crafting a letter to my MP about this disgraceful re-writing of history ....

[Mister E]

 

[The Edge]

This is a disgrace. I fully expect the club to prosecute the fukkers.

[cdbearsfan]

Well, we weren't involved in the birth of football. We were involved in the birth of league football. If the programme concludes prior to the late 1880s we have no grounds for complaint. If they discuss the early days of the Football League and we don't get a mention, we very much do.

Maybe we could feature in the second series?

[SaddVillan]

The fact that it focuses on class as opposed to the game itself isn't really surprising as it's been written by Julian Fellowes (who wrote Downton
 Abbey) aka Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford.

I doubt very much if he knows much at all about football.

He conflates Blackburn Rovers and Blackburn Olympic into a single club - "Blackburn".

They were the first " industrial" teams to contest the final.
Rovers lost to Old Etonians in 1882 and Olympic beat Old Etonians in 1883. The posh amateurs never featured again
Rovers won the next 4 finals.

[cdbearsfan]

Erm... the next three, not the next four. A rather more important team won the 1887 Final.

[TopDeck113]

History of Football

Pre-history: Posh boys codified the game
1992: Football began

[Brazilian Villain]

There was an Off The Ball podcast (BBC Scotland) in May last year that was very informative. There was a soccer historian on explaining how the English teams imported Scottish players to revolutionise the game down South. Anyway he mentioned that one of the first recorded (if not the first) instance of soccer violence was Villa playing Queen's Park (in 1879?) and that lots of drunken Brummies travelled up and basically made a nuisance of themselves in Glasgow (sounds like the 1976 Rangers friendly in reverse). Any know more about this from a Villa perspective?

[dave.woodhall]

There was an Off The Ball podcast (BBC Scotland) in May last year that was very informative. There was a soccer historian on explaining how the English teams imported Scottish players to revolutionise the game down South. Anyway he mentioned that one of the first recorded (if not the first) instance of soccer violence was Villa playing Queen's Park (in 1879?) and that lots of drunken Brummies travelled up and basically made a nuisance of themselves in Glasgow (sounds like the 1976 Rangers friendly in reverse). Any know more about this from a Villa perspective?

John (who else?) Russell has written about games with Queens Park. I'll look at his work.

[Brazilian Villain]

There was an Off The Ball podcast (BBC Scotland) in May last year that was very informative. There was a soccer historian on explaining how the English teams imported Scottish players to revolutionise the game down South. Anyway he mentioned that one of the first recorded (if not the first) instance of soccer violence was Villa playing Queen's Park (in 1879?) and that lots of drunken Brummies travelled up and basically made a nuisance of themselves in Glasgow (sounds like the 1976 Rangers friendly in reverse). Any know more about this from a Villa perspective?

John (who else?) Russell has written about games with Queens Park. I'll look at his work.

Cheers Dave! The guy on the podcast was IIRC an Irish academic based in Scotland and seemed very authoritative on the early days of football albeit with a Scottish slant. He didn't say there hadn't been violence previously at games in Glasgow but rather this was one of the first reported incidents.

[SaddVillan]

Erm... the next three, not the next four. A rather more important team won the 1887 Final.

Correctamundo CDBullyweefan.

Miscounted - added Rovers' 1886 replay to their number of wins.

BTW - Blackburn Olympic and The Wednesday hardly ever get mentioned when people are asked to name FA Cup winners.

[N'ZMAV]

I'm looking forward to the re-birth of English football in about 2 years.

[dave.woodhall]

From the expert:

Another slur on our great name.

Not least because although we played them at home we did not go to Glasgow to play Queens Park until 01/01/1885.

But the LNWR did run a special excursion train from New Street (our first ever – doubtless more to do with Hogmanay than the football) arriving Glasgow 6.15 am so plenty of time to imbibe.

However I have revisited the Glasgow newspapers which did not report any crowd disruption (there were only 4,000 there!!!) using such phrases as ‘a very spirited game' and 'heartily applauded'.

 

[Mister E]

Well, we weren't involved in the birth of football. We were involved in the birth of league football. If the programme concludes prior to the late 1880s we have no grounds for complaint. If they discuss the early days of the Football League and we don't get a mention, we very much do.

Maybe we could feature in the second series?

My opening post was slightly tongue in cheek, but your point is well made.

[Rotterdam]

There was an Off The Ball podcast (BBC Scotland) in May last year that was very informative. There was a soccer historian on explaining how the English teams imported Scottish players to revolutionise the game down South. Anyway he mentioned that one of the first recorded (if not the first) instance of soccer violence was Villa playing Queen's Park (in 1879?) and that lots of drunken Brummies travelled up and basically made a nuisance of themselves in Glasgow (sounds like the 1976 Rangers friendly in reverse). Any know more about this from a Villa perspective?

There's was an influx of Scottish players into the English game as they 'invented' the passing game.
I teach a bit of this in A Level PE, it's quite interesting really. The public school boys were a huge influence.