This week's 'Rugby Reloaded' looks at the new Netflix series about the early years of English soccer 'The English Game. Does it present an accurate account of the rise of working-class teams in soccer and the importance of Scottish players to the game? Or is it ultimately a romantic defence of the British class system and a distortion of the history of football? The episode also looks at the use of the term ‘Scotch Professors’ and discusses why it is unhelpful and ahistorical to look at nineteenth century football through the lens of the present.

For background on the series, there’s an excellent interview with its historical consultant Andy Mitchell on the ‘Narrowing the Angle’ podcast that can be heard here.and you can listen to a fascinating round table discussion from the Football Scholars’ Forum here. Update: for an in-depth analysis of the series, I’d highly recommend Christiano Presutti’s article in Medium The English Game, quasi tutto, non tutto, quello che ho da dire [The English Game: Almost everything, but not everything I have to say]. If you don’t read Italian, it’s worth wrangling with Google Translate [other translation programmes are available] to read his deep-dive into the series and the issues it raises.