Stunted growth: the early development of football in Derby and South Derbyshire

Abstract

This article attempts to further our understanding of the early development of modern football by examining events in Derby and South Derbyshire. Examples of the mob form of the game were common in the county and progress might have been expected to have been swift in terms of initial growth. However, advancement in the city of Derby was slow and it fell to a local elite in rural South Derbyshire to provide the necessary impetus. It is suggested that this urban tardiness may have been a product of the prohibition of the mob game in Derby, an event which may well have stunted the sport’s growth.

Notes

1. Bandyopadhyay, Soccer & Society.

2. Tacchella, The Derby School Register, 52.

3. The surnames of Geare and Eaton appear regularly in the Derby School Register and, though I am speculating, it does not take a giant leap of faith to believe that the two mentioned here were former pupils of that establishment. Indeed, Reginald Geare was a much celebrated pupil, being Captain of the school, presumably this means head boy, together with also captaining both the football and cricket teams.

4. The Moravian School at Ockbrook was founded in 1799 and still has links to the protestant denomination of that name. There are thirty one ‘congregations’ of Moravians still active in the UK. My thanks go to Gary James who alerted me to the Fairfield, Manchester ‘settlement’.

5. The Derby Mercury, November 20, 1867.

6. Ibid., 29 January 1868. Among the Sawley players were familiar surnames synonymous with Derby Grammar School including Sowter, Bennett, Eaton, Stevenson and Johnson.

7. Tacchella, Derby School Register, 62.

8. Communication with Stuart Basson, Chesterfield FC historian, March 1, 2010.

9. Spital Mills overlooked Spital FC’s football ground in Chesterfield and were owned by the Mason family. Tobacco was cut and packaged for pipes and for hand-rolling, with cigarettes also being produced. By the 1880s the factory employed more girls than any other business in the town and became one of the largest centres for the trade in the country. It eventually declined and closed around 1907.

10. The Derby Mercury, October 21, 1868.

11. Interestingly, Fenn also attended Blackheath Proprietary, a noted rugby-playing establishment whose representative, FM Campbell, was largely responsible for the split at the Football Association in 1863.

12. The Derby Mercury, March 3, 1869. The word ‘rouge’ may be an indication of diffusion of this method of scoring from Eton College or simply be a description of a way of eliminating drawn games by way of ‘minor points'. For a more detailed explanation, see ‘Three men and two villages: the influence of footballers from rural South Yorkshire on the early development of the game in Sheffield’ in this special issue.

13. Morris, Vain Games of No Value?, chap. 5.

14. Nottingham Review, April 1, 1870.

15. Ibid., February 16, 1870.

16. Ibid., February 26, 1868.

17. Ibid., March 2, 1870.

18. Ibid., January 26, 1870.

19. Ibid., December 29, 1869.

20. Green, History of the Football Association, 53.

21. Foss, Notts. County.

22. The Derby Mercury, January 26, 1876.

26. Curry and Dunning, ‘Early Development of the Game in Nottinghamshire’.

27. Nannestad, ‘Sabbath Breakers’, 48.

28. Curry and Dunning, ‘The “Origins of Football Debate”’’.

29. See Nannestad, ‘Sabbath Breakers’ and Curry and Dunning, ‘The Problem with Revisionism’.