Football writing, thoughts and more by Gary James
Following the purchase of the oldest surviving FA Cup by Sheikh Mansour I helped Manchester City with the story of the cup and its significance to Manchester. They’ve produced a video telling the story and it can be viewed here:
https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/manchesters-first-trophy-1904-fa-cup-documentary-63745781
For more on the significance of this FA Cup trophy check out the category 1903-04 in the drop down list below.
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ABSTRACT: Association football had become a prominent part of Manchester’s sporting landscape by 1904 when Manchester achieved its first national success. Its journey had been difficult, relying on the efforts of several key individuals whose relentless determination to widen the sport’s participation ensured the game succeeded. This paper provides an analysis of three pioneering figures, John Nall, Fitzroy Norris, and Joshua Parlby, who took the game from its formalized inception in the region through to its first national successes, considering their class, experience, shared history, and connections, while analyzing what these narratives add to the wider origins of football debate. The author concludes that football’s emergence depended primarily on the activities of key individuals from varying backgrounds who provided the energy, enthusiasm, and organizational structures necessary, while relying on cross-class connections, to establish the game within a region.
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Abstract
This paper will focus on the origins and subsequent development of school football in Manchester and its surrounding conurbation between 1880 and 1919. Archival evidence, drawing mainly on the Manchester Schools Football Association (MSFA) collection, will be used to chronicle the expansion of organized competition and sporting opportunities. It will demonstrate that football’s growth in Manchester’s education system owed much to dedicated teachers who encouraged participation at their own schools and organized inter-school competitions. Association football became prominent right across Manchester as young teachers, most notably George Sharples, encouraged pupils to play, leading to a widening of participation and interest that helps to explain how Manchester transitioned from a rugby to a soccer city. Also discussed is the important role of the Manchester and Salford Playing Fields Society (MSPFS) which assisted the game’s growth in schools and amongst schoolchildren more generally by making suitable fields and pitches available. Without the Society’s efforts facilities may have been insufficient to satisfy growing demand at a critical point in soccer’s development.
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ABSTRACT
This paper provides an overview of an oral history project focusing on the experiences of female footballers, in particular those playing for Manchester City Women since its formation as a community initiative in 1988, through to its modern-day position as a leading Women’s Super League club. It discusses the development of the project, analysis of the methodology employed and provides high-level findings on the club’s history, the participants and the research process. For too long female participation, even at England’s most famous clubs, has not been widely recognised, reported on or understood. This project, supported by a professional football club, begins to address these omissions. It does so by focusing on personal testimonies, together with archive material to generate an historical account of how a team, established as a community initiative, developed into a major trophy-winning club.
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ABSTRACT: Contemporary Manchester is recognized internationally as a footballing city, with both Manchester United and Manchester City acknowledged as prominent clubs. However, the city has not always been a force in the game, nor has the game always been important across Manchester’s social spectrum. This paper examines how Manchester first became established as a footballing city, identify- ing that success in the FA Cup in 1904 stimulated interest in the game and con- siders how the legacy of that victory enabled the game to develop in terms of participation and spectating. It also considers the social mix of attendees at pro- fessional games in the city, and closes by concluding that footballing success generated increased interest and was the catalyst for improvement in the infra- structure for both participation and attendance, enabling Manchester’s footballing identity to become established.
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Over the coming weeks I’ll be posting my academic articles here for subscribers to my blog. In the meantime, here’s a link to one, first published in 2014, that is currently free to access on the publisher’s website:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2013.873075?src=recsys
Starting on Saturday 9th January I’ll be posting a chapter each day from the 2010 edition of Manchester A Football History here. These will be available to subscribers to this site with one section posted each day for 35 days.
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