What do toilet paper and club soccer have in common?
According to Forbes magazine, 2007 marks the 150th anniversary for both. Of course, variations of the game have been around for centuries (just like toilet paper substitutes, one hopes). But an important step on the long, fitful path toward organized competition was taken on October 24, 1857 with the founding of Sheffield Football Club. Unlike other inventions from 1857, such as elevators and transatlantic telegraph cable, competitive club soccer didn’t immediately become a big-time commercial enterprise. Sheffield FC didn’t even have any one to compete against, forcing the club to stage games between members–bachelors vs. married men, for example. And it would be nearly three decades later before open professionalism was given the stamp of approval by the FA. It’s hard to believe that just 150 years ago today’s glamour game was a chaotic mess of quasi-professionals whose play was governed by a motley patchwork of rules.
Forbes is a business publication, so the article duly notes how soccer’s worldwide sporting dominance has helped to enrich shareholders of Nike, Adidas, and Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp. Real Madrid and Manchester United are global brands and ownership of top English clubs is the province of the super-wealthy. Apparently this is news to some Forbes readers.
As I read about the beautiful game’s humble origins, I began to think about what life was like in 19th century England. What did people do for fun? Was soccer the only game in town? Just how did it become so popular?
With the help of Wikipedia and a library book called Sports and Games of the 18th and 19th Centuries by Robert Crego (Greenwood Press, 2003), I learned a bit more about Victorian sporting life. Cricket was already the most established team sport. It was far ahead of soccer in terms of standardized rules, organization, and popularity. Crego states that it was “flourishing” a full one hundred years before the founding of Sheffield FC.
And then there’s rugby football. It had begun to evolve separately from the kicking game by the early 1800’s. To my 21st century eyes, rugby seems like anything but an upper-class pastime, but that’s exactly what it was. The working class did take to the oval ball game as the century wore on. In fact, Crego describes how the 1876 Yorkshire Cup Challenge was won by a team of working blokes, much to the dismay of those who considered such men their inferiors. The Rugby Football Union was formed in 1870, just eight years after the London Football Association. The Rugby Football League was organized in 1895 to govern the different style of play that was prevalent among the clubs in the north of England.
Golf and tennis were always socially exclusive but boxing and horse racing thrived among all classes. Writing of boxing, Crego notes, “With Britain at the height of its industrial boom, even the factory hand and the common laborer had money to spend on entertainment.” Professional horse racing took root in the early 18th century. Races were often part of the entertainment at fairs and festivals, where spectators included both farmers and gentry. There were other sports whose appeal was mostly limited to public school students, or anyone else whose means allowed it: cycling, rowing, track and field, cross country running, and even field hockey.
Get the picture? Soccer didn’t develop in a vacuum. It was a survivor in a battle that was as rough and tumble as the economic competition that characterized the Industrial Revolution. Its beauty lay in its simplicity, lack of expense, and accessibility. Marketing, advertising, and public relations gimmicks were not part of the formula.
To get an idea of just how dominant football is in the English sporting landscape, consider the structure of the English Football League system. Fanciful names–to Yank ears, at least–like Wycombe Wanderers and Accrington Stanley populate the current League Two table, far below glittering “brands” like Manchester United and Chelsea. Yet League Two holds a lofty spot in the pyramid, compared to the likes of Moneyfields and Wimborne Town in the Wessex League (Premier Division).
And yet English football as a business couldn’t be described as a smashing success until the top teams split off into the Premier League in 1992. Revenues poured into the new league from the sale of television broadcasting rights, tapping into a huge global demand for its product. According to Wikipedia, the latest TV rights deal (2007) will bring the League 2.7 billion pounds over three years. Compare this to the Premier League’s first sale of TV rights to Sky back in 1991–191 million pounds over five years–and it’s easy to see how the average player’s salary rose from 75,000 to 676,000 pounds per year over nearly the same period (latest figures were for the 2003-04 season). And to think that we Americans have been rather pleased with the 2007 MLS season!
So all of this means…what, exactly? That the conditions that produced English football are so vastly different from those that gave birth to Major League Soccer that comparisons are a waste of time. The complaints of Euro-snobs (like me) about MLS quality are very much beside the point. The Brits, not to mention the rest of the world, should be better than us. They’ve been at it since the game was known as “mob ball” in the Middle Ages.
It will take many decades to cross the canyon that separates the English soccer experience from what we’ve got in North America. There are a handful of oases for those who are trudging across this expanse, namely Fox Soccer Channel, GolTV and Setanta. Most of the time–unless David Beckham’s in town–the local MLS team will welcome weary pilgrims with open arms. Major League Soccer may not completely quench everyone’s thirst. Yet with stars like Blanco, Dichio, Angel, and Altidore, new soccer-specific stadiums, and expanded live TV coverage–it’s no mirage, either.
