Providing a definition for the working class has consistently proved a problematic task for Historians. For the purpose of this paper, E.P Thompson’s interpretation in ‘The Making of the English Working Class’[1] contributes the best explanation. Thompson argues that ‘class happens when some men, as the result of common experience, feel and articulate the identity of their interests between themselves’. For a large section of the working class, this identity arrives through football.
Particularly of interest is Thompson’s identification focus. Thompson splits a working class consciousness into two categories: ‘consciousness of identity of interests between working men… consciousness of identity against other classes’[2]. The occupations for the working class ranged from factory work, to blue collar industry and other semi-skilled jobs. Linking with football, a prejudice against other classes only emerged in the 1980s under the Thatcher Administration. During this period, an ‘us’ and ‘them’ mentality developed as Northern working classes were left alienated by Thatcher’s oppressive industrial policies. However, a century earlier, the identity between working class football fans was different. The Saturday Half Day resulted in an alleviating collective experience which sharply contrasted with the dull hardships of factory work: ‘metaphorically football was a way out of the pits’[3].
When focusing on a crisis of class identity, it is necessary to understand the link between the working class and football.
For the purpose of this paper, the strong working class roots in English football will be detailed in this chapter. Especially in Northern England, the connection is one that runs deep. For the majority of football’s existence, the sport has been a working class ‘cloth cap’ game. Workers from Lancashire would become the game’s pioneers, the region alone provided over half the founding members of the football league. Football was the working class choice simply because it was within easy reach of absolutely everyone. The grasp would last a century until the widespread political, economic and social changes of the 1980s.
Professionalism is often wrongly blamed for a declining working class identity with football. This is often due to a restricted view of the dramatic hike in players’ wages towards the late twentieth century. It is important to note that the introduction of professionalism in 1885 resulted in support from the working classes. Those that paid to watch football were likely to be involved in the sport at some level. Rather than being a passive audience ‘many spectators were themselves playing, or had played the game in their youth’.[4] Professional football became a liberator for northern working class men as it transcended the dull necessities of day to day life.
Clubs in the North of England were the first to embrace professionalism. The Football League and Lancashire Cup were set up in the 1880s and the introduction cultivated a working class professional lifestyle. Specifically, Blackburn Olympic F.C was the first to adopt this approach: ‘the game Olympic played has been alternately referred to as northern, working class, industrial, professional…’[5] Although professionalism didn’t arrive officially until 1885, Blackburn Olympic had previously arranged jobs for their players. Olympic’s 1883 F.A Cup winning team was made up of members of the working class: ‘three weavers, a spinner, a textile factory hand and an iron foundry worker: their captain was a master-plumber’[6]. Nevertheless the club’s professional approach drew plaudits from its local working class people. Over a thousand supporters took advantage of the Lancashire railway ‘Cup final special’ and travelled to London for a fare well within the reach of working class men.
Similarly, overseas players also get their fair share of blame for alienating working class fandoms. In reality, international players are anything but a new phenomenon. Burnley F.C Historian Ray Simpson states: “In the 19th century, a lot of north-west clubs were made up almost entirely of imported players”[7]. Whilst it should be noted, these players mostly came from Scotland; the evidence still undermines the misconception that all early football players were from the local area.
The South was yet to embrace a working class connection with football. Olympic’s opponents in the 1883 final were Old Etonians. The establishment of Eton sat in direct contrast to the northern industrial club. The Pall Mall Gazette described the Blackburn following as a ‘northern horde of uncouth garb and strange oaths’[8]. The South’s reluctance and grim outlook on the link between Britain’s workers and football would have consequences. Blackburn Olympic’s victory sparked northern footballing domination. Between 1883 and 1914, working class teams from the North won every F.A cup bar one. Furthermore no southern team would win the first division for another fifty four years. Following the spell of dominance in Northern England, an aristocrat from the south named Charles Edwardes produced an article entitled ‘The New Football Mania’[9]. Similarly, Edwardes describes the working class supporters in a demeaning manner: ‘in their workaday dirt and with their workaday adjectives very loose on their tongues… you would have thought that they were all possessed of some disease of sorts’.[10] More significant is the commercial perspective in which Edwardes operates, he describes the players as ‘marketable goods’ and states that there was ‘a lucrative opening for the smart mediator between players and communities’.[11] The evidence defies the common assumption that a commercial link with football only arrived in the later twentieth century.
Particularly useful for demonstrating the strong affinity between a Northern working class culture and football are diary extracts written by Aston Villa’s Captain Archie Hunter. Football historian Bernard Gallagher collected and edited the passages, one piece shows Hunter previewing their upcoming game with Olympic in 1889: ‘football is the game of the day there… big crowds follow them… I eagerly read Olympic reports’.[12] Hunter was right in highlighting the prominence of the Blackburn faithful. Following their cup final victory, The Manchester and Lancashire General Advertiser remarked that ‘jubilant crowds greeted the Olympic players upon their return and the novelty of such a display’[13]. The celebrations would go into the night as players and supporters drank together in the Hunters’ Pub, aptly named after the landlord and Olympic defender Jack Hunter.
Olympic’s victory founded a specific northern working class footballing culture and identity that would last over a century. In the main, the working classes embraced football’s growing monetary link. The introduction of Littlewoods’ pools in Liverpool in 1923 was widely celebrated. However, a key turning point came in 1961 as players no longer had a restriction on their maximum wage. The next chapter will highlight the institutional changes within the PFA and FA in the 1980s. The concessions made during this period would lay the foundations for the uncontrollable professionalism and commercialism of the Premier League era. Prior to this point, football had successfully balanced itself as both a recreational activity and commercialised amusement. However, footballing institutional changes combined with the disarrangement of working class leisure turned football into a more distinctive middle class game.
Prior to the 1980s football clubs were run in a collectivist fashion. As a result, teams consistently resisted an overwhelming commercial connection with the game. A Daily Mail article from 1956 entitled ‘Soccer Clubs turn down TV’[14] demonstrates the reluctance. ITV were yet to make the breakthrough as supporters’ concerns were firmly regarded by those at the top of their clubs. The rejection of the £110,000 deal was due to ‘fears of creating a nation of fireside football fans’.[15] During the meeting, Burnley F.C Chairman and local Butcher Bob Lord warned of the commercial threat: ‘Televising of matches is likely to take the life-blood out of football… Clubs need money, not TV’.[16] Furthermore, in 1964, the Burnley Chairman banned TV Cameras from Turf Moor for five years. Lord’s behaviour illustrates the inclusive fashion by which football was run. The objection would last until the 1980s; during this period clubs and the league were backed into a corner and were no longer able to resist the growing commercial interest. The TV Deals of 1985 and 1988 would redistribute the power firmly away from the supporters.
The reasons behind the antagonistic attitudes towards Britain’s working classes in the 1980s will be explored in the first chapter of this study. However, it’s worth noting up until this point, a working class connection with football was overall accepted and respected. Charles Edwardes has already been noted for his negative attitude towards Northern working classes; nevertheless, he was still left stunned by the special relationship: ‘Even in their workaday dress they cannot move in their native streets without receiving ovations enough to turn the head of a Prime Minister’.[17] Gary Imlach highlights the cult of a working class hero his work on ‘My Father and other Working-Class Football Heroes’.[18] Following his father’s death in 2001, Gary Imlach researched and provided a biography of Stewart Imlach’s career. Stewart won the F.A Cup with Nottingham Forest in 1959 and his upbringing and lifestyle is one in common with those from the working class. His football wage stood at £8 a week, a figure less than a factory worker at the time. Consequentially, Stewart had to balance football with other jobs in bricklaying and double glazing. Imlach’s similar lifestyle and relatability meant he developed into a working class hero. In an interview following the book’s publication, Gary Imlach conceded how his father’s story is becoming all too rare: ‘Now it’s harder for fans to identify with players now than it was when footballers were part of the community they represented and lived alongside the people who watched them’. [19] The working class hero is a dying breed, just like that of the working class supporter.
[1] Thompson, E. P. Making Of The English Working Class. 1st ed. Open Road Media, 2016.
[2] [2] Thompson, E. P, p14.
[3] Baker, W. (2000). The making of a working-class football culture in Victorian England. [online] History Online.
[4] Baker, W. (2000).
[5] Holzmeister, J. (2016). The 1883 F.A. Cup Final: working class representation, professionalism and the development of modern football in England. Soccer & Society, 18(2-3), pp.218-229.
[6] Baker, W. (2000). The making of a working-class football culture in Victorian England. [online] History Online.
[7] Jolly, Richard. “Football’s Working-Class Roots”. The National 1.1 (2010): 1-3.
[8] The Pall Mall Gazette, (1883). The Football Association Challenge Cup Final. p.27.
[9] Edwardes, Charles. 1892. “The New Football Mania”. The Nineteenth Century Journal 1: 16.
[10] Edwardes, Charles. 1892, p 16.
[11] Edwardes, Charles. 1892, p 21.
[12] Hunter, A. (1997). Triumphs of the football field. 1st ed. Warley: Sports Projects.
[13] Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, Tuesday, April 3, 1883.
[14] Thompson, Eric. “Soccer clubs turn down TV.” Daily Mail [London, England] 21 July 1956: [1]. Daily Mail Historical Archive.
[15] Thompson, Eric. “Soccer clubs turn down TV.”
[16] [16] Thompson, Eric. “Soccer clubs turn down TV.”
[17] Edwardes, Charles. 1892, p 14.
[18] Imlach, Gary. My Father and other Working-Class Football Heroes. 1st ed. London: Yellow Jersey, 2006.
[19] Gary Imlach Interview. 2014. BBC Radio Nottingham. 24th September 2014.
Jack Langford 