Football is probably the most popular sport in the world. Yet, serious academic research on football did not begin until the 1960s.

That was a full hundred years after standard rules were introduced for the game. This episode of HistoryChatter recalls the pioneering research of E G Dunning on the history of football. It is the first part of a two-part series.

In this part, football in England is recalled since the first written reference to it in the twelfth century. It was a rough and unruly pastime of the lower classes for nearly 600 years. It had no rules and often enough looked liked like a bloody fight.
It would be regularly deplored as a lowly game and banned. I recall some of the instances of this early life of football before it would be ‘civilized’ by the 1850s. That part will be addressed in the next episode.

Hosted by Dr. Anirban Bandyopadhyay 
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