Kicking Cousins–Anglo and American Football Ties

You’re a freshman at Harvard in 1827. It’s Bloody Monday. You’re out on the commons field and the upperclassmen bellow a chant: “Football, Freshie—Football, Freshie,” and before you and your fellow first-year classmates know it, you are all standing on a field, pitted against a sea of sophomores amassed at the opposite end of the … Read more

Victorian Football: From Mob Rule to Class Rule

In the early 1800s, British football begins to slowly take a more orderly form, becoming a sport for privileged boys at elite boarding schools like Eton, Charterhouse and Rugby—several of these schools are in towns with long folk football histories. Middleclass and aristocratic young men take the past and forge a future. Britain’s political, theological, … Read more