Hey Guys, I'm looking for a recommendation on a good book that deals with the development of the English Football League during it's pre WW2 days. The league is pretty unique in it's incredible depth and roots in England, practically every reasonably sized town in England has a football team and thousands turn out to watch their teams every week, even as far down as 5th division football while other footballing powers such as Germany and Spain struggle to put together two well supported leagues. I can't think of any other professional national sporting league which has such a widespread national representation/participation other than College sports in the US. Also the way it grew out of the Industrial Revolution and became one of the first national sporting leagues alongside the baseball leagues in the United States is fascinating to me from a social history perspective.
I've had a look around on the internet but not found anything that looks like it's the definitive guide, some self published stuff, some very old outdated stuff, some single season guides, loads of league table histories and the odd compendium of interesting facts but nothing that looks to be a good historical analysis of the growth of the game, it's social role in Victorian and Edwardian Britain and it's links with regional identity and city identity in England. So does anyone have any recommendations?
See what James Walvin has written on the subject. I've seen him give interviews in which he describes the transformation of football from early modern folk game to urban, industrial sport; he's also a social historian generally, so that kind of transformation of culture through industrialization is right up his alley theoretically. I've no idea what specific titles he has on the subject though.
Another name to check is the (wonderfully terrifying) Wray Vamplew, who has written about the economics of sport in late-19th Britain, as well as "crowd disorders." I don't know his work too well, but he appears to be cast from the same mold as Walvin, with a focus on the cultural effects of industrialization.
Not sure if this is allowed. I checked the national football museum shop, It looks like they have a book for sale about the history of football during World War 1 to accompany the exhibit they have there.
http://www.nationalfootballmuseum.com/shop/product/the-greater-game-10z/
If you are in Britain, the museum is worth visiting along with the peoples history museum which has wonderful information on the rise of football clubs from trade unions.
James Walvin, The People's Game is a good starting point.
Matthew Taylor, The Association Game: a History of British Football looks promising but I haven't read it.
David Goldblatt, the Ball is Round is a vast global history but there are some very good chapters on England.
If you have journal access, have a look through The international journal of the history of sport, The Journal of Sports History and Sport in History.