Matthew Taylor - The Association Game

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British football has a powerful sense of its own history. The culture of the game is replete with reminders of the past. We are constantly told of Britains instrumental role in the development of what is now the world game: that it was the country that invented football and then proceeded to bestow it upon the rest of the world. During major international championships, the English press focuses on the achievements of the boys of 66 and the 30 or 40 years of hurt since the last major triumph. The Wembley Wizards of 1928 and 1967 hold a similar place in Scottish sporting folklore. Football supporters are, in a sense, historians themselves; conveyors of particular forms of oral tradition and popular history. Even the most present-minded fans retain a keen awareness of the past, if only through the knowledge of the traditions, records and histories of their clubs and the competitions in which they play.

Footballs late-twentieth-century rehabilitation, exemplified in its structural, economic and cultural overhaul, heightened this sense of history and popular nostalgia for the games past. For the British press, Matthews death highlighted much about changes in football and society more broadly, reinforcing assumptions about the moral decay and decline of both.

Academic historians of sport have been anxious to distance themselves from these more popular interpretations of the past and from notions of heritage and nostalgia. Eager to establish the credentials of their subject as a legitimate area for scholarly inquiry, they have focused on how sport fits into the broader social milieu and what it tells us about wider historical trends. Sport has been envisaged in this sense as a lens through which important aspects of social, cultural, economic and political life can be illuminated and set in sharper focus. In this manner, the historical study of sport in Britain has made considerable strides over the years. From the earliest forays of individual academics who in the 1960s and 1970s began to write journal articles and monographs, the history of sport has become established as a vibrant and productive subject for scholarly research. Taking their lead from more adventurous North American and Australian colleagues, British historians began to establish their own journals, associations and, latterly, research centres. Over time, the sub-discipline of sports history has become recognised and the work of sports historians incorporated into the historical mainstream. It is hardly surprising that this research activity has been dominated by the study of football, by far the most prominent and popular sport in Britain today and, alongside perhaps cricket and horse racing, for much of the twentieth century.