S1E11: How Public Schools In England Invented Football

HistoryChatter resumes the discussion on the early History of football based on the pioneering research of E G Dunning.
As discussed in an earlier episode, traditional football began as a bloody and unruly contest among the poorer classes in England. By the eighteenth century, however, it underwent a major change in its career.

The seven earlier public schools saw their students take it up. Incidentally, these schools too were at the time going through a transformation themselves. Initially set up to educate poor students, now they were taken over by students from the aristocracy and the gentry. Urbanization and industrialization had been pulling away the poorer sections into the ranks of industrial labourers.

At public schools, football moved into an existing structure of relations between senior and junior students. The seniors themselves hardly obeyed any rules, since the masters appeared to come from relatively lower classes. There were several instances of student rebellions in all public schools in the early 19th century. By the 1840s, Thomas Arnold, the legendary Master of Rugby, came up with a set of new rules.

These rules struck a fine balance between disciplining unruly senior students and moulding them into responsible leaders. Other public schools followed suit.
In 1849, Eton College introduced the rule that hands cannot be used at all during the game and a goal has to be scored under the bar posts, not above them. This was the final separation between Rugger and Soccer.

The game spread to the rest of the country over the next twenty years and to the rest of the world subsequently. That story will be taken up later.

Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay

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