Old’ Football and the ‘New’ Codes
Some Thoughts on the ‘Origins of Football’ Debate and Suggestions for Further Research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12220082 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gavin Kitching (UNSW Sydney, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 13 |
| Pages | 1733-1749 |
| Publication date | 2011-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of the History of Sport (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0952-3367 • E-ISSN: 1743-9035 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09523367.2011.594679 |
| OpenAlex | W1974833739 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 18 |
| References cited | 6 |
A close reading of recent contributions to the ‘origins of football’ debate suggests that there is now more consensus among scholars about the broad sequence of events than is rhetorically allowed. However, this consensus itself rests on some shared conceptual and methodological illusions. These include: a continual naivety about the use of the name ‘football’ in the primary source materials; asystematic underestimation of forms of play (and a collateral overestimation of the importance of rules and codifications) in the development of football; and, above all, a widely shared, and very dubious, conviction that the pursuit of the historical origins of football is a meaningful activity. This article analyses each ofthese illusions in turn and suggests some methodological and substantive alternatives to them. These alternatives sum to the conclusion that the origin of both modern football codes is a far more remarkable and many-sided story than has been appreciated, even in the very best research to date. Moreover, it is a story whose many dimensions and implications go well beyond the borders of Britain, and indeed beyond the history of ‘soccer’ or ‘rugby’ alone
Collateral · Conviction · Epistemology · Football · Political science · Sociology · History · Law · Philosophy · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports Analytics and Performance · Sports, Gender, and Society
Historia, deporte y sociedad. El futbol en la ciudad de México durante el porfiriato (1892-1910)
Historical Frameworks and Sporting Research
The ‘Chimera’ of Origins
The Emergence of Football in Nineteenth-Century England
Football in Australia before Codification, 1820–1860
The Origins of Football Debate
The Origins of Football Debate
Sporting Entertainments, Discarded Possibilities and the Case of Football as a Variety Sport, 1905–1906
Football before codification
The codes diverge
Reclassifying history
Introduction
Speaking of football
The emergence and development of association football
Cultural Marginalization and Folk Football in England
The British isolation from world football in the middle decades of the twentieth century – a myth
It’s a far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts. Isn’t it?’ the changing space of informal youth football in the UK
Ascetic Athleticism and the Spirit of Fair Play
| Citations per year | 1.38 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |