The Victorian Football Miscellany

I started collecting bits and pieces of writing that I liked, posted a couple on the internet, got some good feedback, and that led to Goal-Post.

By the end of the Victorian era it was very popular. Attendances, particularly for cup games, were almost comparable to those of today. Of course there was no TV or radio, but newspaper coverage was really popular, and publishers realised they could sell more papers by increasing football coverage. When the FA was formed in , football was way behind cricket and the likes of pedestrianism and rowing in the popularity stakes, but by it was probably the most popular game in the country.

Would people going back today be able to recognise the game? What are some of the most significant differences? By the end of the Victorian era the game looked much the same as it does today, but if you went back and watched a match in it would have looked very different. For starters there were no goalkeepers.

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Any player could catch the ball and set it down for a free kick. There were no corners or penalties, and the original offside law basically outlawed any forward pass.

The Victorian Football Miscellany

The pitch looked a bit different, too. There were no pitch markings, no crossbars over the posts, and no goalnets. How does it feel to re-discover the birth of important moments in the game such as the penalty kick or the crossbar?

I just find it really interesting. Other researchers have been there before me, and a lot of the facts are available on the web, but to actually go back and read first-hand accounts makes it much more immediate and involving. The Liverpool Mercury covered the dispute between Everton and John Houlding that led to Everton leaving Anfield in its football columns throughout the early part of The club divided into a north and south team and on 23 March , 10, [notes 2] spectators watched the inaugural game at Crouch End , London.

Unlike in the matches of , players no longer had to wear corsets [11]: They still had to wear bonnets, with the game being stopped if any woman headed the ball and it dislodged either bonnet or hairpin which had to be replaced before the game could resume. The reaction was generally one of being heckled by the crowd, and press censure, [12] bordering on derision. Despite this, the club went on tour, sponsored by Lady Dixie, [8] and in the following two years played some exhibition matches. The strain of playing so often took its toll, and by September the ladies could only field a few players.

They were also broke, and arriving in Exeter found they had insufficient funds to either leave or pay their hotel bill. Appeals to the mayor of Exeter fell on deaf ears and he refused to pay.

The ladies had to be rescued by friends, and the activities of the club came to an end. Women's football once again fell into obscurity until the First World War , when Lloyd George required women to work in factories whilst the men were at the front. On Christmas Day, , the first recorded match between factory organised women's teams, occurred in Ulverston , Cumbria. In a year when the cultural, social and public concern over what was decent and what was unnatural were already focused, [notes 3] football for women raised important issues within Victorian society, including dress reform , the feminine ideal , women's sexuality , and the rigid British class structure in a way that no other sport could.

Lady Dixie, a keen advocate of women's rights, [14] believed that football was excellent for women's physiques, and predicted a day when it would be as popular with girls as with boys.

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She, therefore, saw football as a weapon of subversion and a means of pushing the boundaries , since the members of the club played openly in knickers and blouses. Nettie Honeyball was well aware of the political ramifications, telling an interviewer that:.

North team, 23 March