Please note that there is a version of this episode with slides, if you prefer. You can watch the video on YouTube here.

In the pursuit of covering the history of Canadian football, we've accidentally found ourselves covering the history of all football. Now that we've finally gotten out of our "ball-play" jokes out of the way, there shouldn't be any double entendres going forward. Right?

In this episode, we investigate the primordial soup of proto-football games being played in 19th-century fancy-boy English schools: the one renowned for how badly the ball and field both suck, the one whose name ("Winkies") is the most normal part of its terminology, and the one whose headmaster had to excise a component for reminding him of "a bizarre sexual ritual." And then there's the Wall Game.

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Intro: "The Log Driver's Waltz" by Wade Hemsworth (performed by Kate & Anna McGarrigle)

Outro: "Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Techo" by BKS (featuring Don Cherry)

Major sources:

"Living Sports History: Football at Winchester, Eton and Harrow" by Steven Bailey (1995)

"An Elementary Guide to Win Co Fo" by Michael Fontes (2025)

"Football: a study in diffusion" by Graham Curry (2001)