The People's Game: The History of Football Revisited

by James Walvin

At the beginning of the 20th century, soccer was widely accepted as the most popular sport in the western world. Starting in Britain in the 19th century but with roots going back to the late Middle Ages, it quickly spread from there to the rest of the world. Yet here was a game with strong traditional folk-roots; a game originally intended for urban working men. This text tells the story of the remarkable rise of a remarkable game—and the way it became the game of the masses across the globe.

224 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

James Walvin taught for many years at the University of York where he is now Professor of History Emeritus. He also held visiting positions in the Caribbean, the U.S.A. and Australia. He won the prestigious Martin Luther King Memorial Prize for his book Black and White, and has published widely on the history of slavery and the slave trade. His book The People's Game was a pioneering study of the history of football and remains in print thirty years after its first publication.

Reviews

[garry koppes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

A nice potted history of soccer, although focussed almost entirely around the development of the game in UK, nice read.

[Pinko Palest · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the best histories of football. This is basically a social history, so there is not much on teams and players while there are no statistics of games won and lost. But it is one of the defining texts of how soccer came to be