How Football Began

<p>This ambitious and fascinating history considers why in the space of sixty years between 1850 and 1910 football grew from a marginal and unorganised activity to become the dominant winter entertainment for millions of people around the world. </p><p>The book explores how the world’s football codes - soccer rugby league rugby union American Australian Canadian and Gaelic - developed as part of the commercialised leisure industry in the nineteenth century. Football however and wherever it was played was a product of the second industrial revolution the rise of the mass media and the spirit of the age of the masses.</p><p>Important reading for students of sports studies history sociology development and management this book is also a valuable resource for scholars and academics involved in the study of football in all its forms as well as an engrossing read for anyone interested in the early history of football.</p>