How Football Began: A global history of how the world's football codes were born

How did football start? Why did the modern codes of football - Association, American, Australian, Canadian, Gaelic, Rugby League and Rugby Union - all emerge within barely a generation during the nineteenth century? And why did Association football eclipse all of them to become a truly global game?

These questions are the starting point for How Football Began. It charts the rise of football from its origins, through the creation of the first clubs, its emergence as a mass spectator sport to it becoming a world game on the eve of World War One.

It explains why football divided into Association and Rugby codes, and how the rugby code itself split into league and union, Australian, American, Canadian and Gaelic. It discusses the false starts of women’s football and the obstacles women faced to play the game. And it examines the ways in which soccer spread across Europe and Latin America before World War One.

Most of all, the book unravels the social and economic reasons for the game’s rise throughout the world and to seek to explain why the game came to mean so much to so many people, how it could bring people together and tear them apart, make women sing for joy, and grown men weep openly on the streets.

‘Especially of great interest for readers interested in the early history of football. The book is not about football only, but about the society that created it, and I especially appreciate that women’s involvement in the various football codes is included, which seldom is found in football research.’ - Bente Ovèdie Skogvang (former FIFA referee and current FIFA referee observer)

CLICK HERE for more information and an extensive preview of How Football Began.