You're Dead to Me - The History of Football

Episode Date: September 13, 2019

Where did football come from? Was it really invented in China or is the truth a little closer to home? Why was knife crime such a problem for football hundreds of years ago? And what’s the real truth behind the history of the women’s game? Public historian Greg Jenner joins comedian Tom Parry and historian Professor Jean Williams to teach you the true history of the beautiful game. It’s history for people who don’t like history!Produced by Dan Morelle Scripted by Greg Jenner Researched by Emma Nagouse, assisted by Eszter Szabo and Evie RandallA Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a history podcast for people who don't like history, or at least people who forgot to learn any at school. My name's Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. I put the lols in the lol arts. All right, just look them up,

all right, Google it. You'll find them. In each episode, I'm joined by an expert historian who knows their clop from their cop, and a top comedian with more creative flair than David Silver. Today, we are rolling down our socks, popping our collars, and launching a two-footed Cantona lunge into the face of the history of football. Joining me in History Corner is a professor of football. No, it's not Arsene Wenger. She's an expert in how footy influences culture, the history of the game, and she specialises in the story of women's football. She's from the University of Wolverhampton.

It's Professor Jean Williams. Hi, Jean. Hi there. Thank you for coming. You are a specialist on the history of football, but specifically women's football. How did you get into it? What was the route? The route was playing football and needing a PhD to work at a university. So I put together the things that I love,

which was history and women's football. Pretty good route. Can't complain about that. And in Comedy Corner, he's the pride of Wolverhampton. One of the members of the legendary sketch group Pappy's, co-host of Pappy's Flatshare podcast, multiple Edinburgh Fringe Award nominee, a writer, director, powerful box-to-box midfielder oh it's tom parry hey tom oh that last one that's what really matters to me thank you powerful box to box midfielder i'll take that that's great

uh you're very much the jordan henderson of comedy oh keep it coming i'll take all of this tom you're you're a wolver fan. Yes. I was delighted to hear that Gene was from the University of Wolverhampton. I assume you're a Wolves fan? I'm afraid not, Tom. I'm a Leicester City fan. Unbelievable. Terrible, isn't it? I'm off. Betrayal. Been taken to home games since I was about seven by my dad

and just amazing that we won the Premiership. You know, everyone's favourite underdog. Come on, Leicester. So a Wolverhampton double pivot in midfield today. But we'd better premiership, you know, everyone's favourite underdog. Come on, Leicester. So a Wolverhampton double pivot in midfield today. Brilliant. But we'd better crack on, really, because, you know, the history of football is a fascinatingly complex and quite detailed thing, actually.

I just want to ask very quickly, Tom, this is a show about history. Yes. Specifically, this episode's about the history of football. You're a huge Wolves fan. You're wearing a Wolves shirt right now. I am indeed. Does the history of Wolves Football Club matter to you, or are you more interested just, you know in the games you've seen in your lifetime?

I mean, it's fascinating. Growing up in Wolverhampton, all you're aware of is the glorious past of the club. It's starting to change now because finally we've got a bit of success. But even when I grew up as a kid, my wallpaper was kind of... It was full of dates of when we won the European Cup, back in the late 50s and the 60s. These floodlit games against Honved. They were kind of like these mystical days. date of when we when we won the european cup back in the you know the late 50s and the 60s yeah these floodlit games against honved they were kind of like this mystical you know these mystical days

of like of yore where it's like the honved game and it's like no one knew what honved was oh we used to play honved and it's like who is honved sounds like some kind of knight and it's like oh it's this Hungarian team that we used to play under for the European games. And they were the Barcelona of the day kind of thing. And like Wolves Honved. Still even now we talk about like, oh, Wolves Honved. So you're kind of aware of the past of Wolverhampton Football Club,

but it was always way out of my reach because I grew up in the days when Wolves were on the verge of relegation from the Football League, of bankruptcy. The first time I went to the Molineux, there was only two stands in operation. The other two were derelict. Oh, God.

And so we were a world away from that. It stood on the terraces at the South Bank. So, in fact, that makes you even more aware of the glorious past. There was all that. We're one of those clubs, as Leicester are as well, of sleeping giants. We were always the sleeping giants for us. Now you've awoken from the glorious past. There was all that, you know, we're one of those clubs, as, you know, as Leicester are as well, of like sleeping giants. We were always the sleeping giants for us.

But now you've awoken from the slumber. Oh, the giants have awoken. That's what we hope. So, what do you know? This is the section where I summarise what I think the listeners at home might know about the subject. And to be honest, today's subject is football, so you probably know a huge amount. So it's the world's most

popular sport watched by a billion people. Many of you at home will have a team you support, even if it's just a sort of quick surge of patriotism when the World Cup's on the telly. Or maybe you play football down, maybe it's a question of, you know, five a side by your mates. Maybe you like watching it or placing a few bets, yelling at the referee in the pub. Maybe it's FIFA on your Xbox or 3 3 000 hours of life destroying addiction on football manager that's my story and also of course it's uh it's a global industry it's the money it's the images it's the global superstars messi ronaldo neymar rapinoe bronze beckham moussa sissoko obviously maybe that's just me there's gonna be hopeless bias in this

sorry but where does this come from i mean that's the question you know how does this enormous global game with a billion fans where does it come from how does it originate? It's time to find out so I hope you both limbered up and next to your isotonic sports drink because we're about to kick off with our history of football. So Tom. Yes. Football's beginnings what do you know what do you know about the beginnings of the game? You know what I was thinking that about this in the shower this morning I was kind of thinking the story that I know and it's only from like primary school playground it's like someone tells you is like there used to be a game where or there used to be a village yeah and there was a pig's bladder it's always a pig's bladder yeah and every like

may i don't know bank holiday a pig's bladder gets thrown into the town center did you see like like on the town square and one half of the village wrestle for it against the other half of the village and it's like and then football was born i think that was enough for me i was kind of like oh yeah pigs bladder and the town square and and like as like a nine-year-old you'd be like and that makes sense and then that's kind of where my brain stopped and then suddenly it's italian 90 you gotta go you know you gotta go the pigs bladder we win the World Cup in 66 and then it's Italian item. Okay, let's go. You've missed a few steps there, but it's not bad.

Jean, can we hear a little bit about the origins of the game? I mean, obviously, the surprising thing is China sort of claims the origins. What? Yes, with an ancient game called Shuzhu, which was actually, we would think of it as a kind of form of keepy-uppy, highly stylised and ritualised games in kind of quite formal gear. And Seth Blatter, unfortunately, told China that they'd invented football, which they didn't really. There have been all sorts of ball games that people have played,

obviously, ever since people have been around. Probably, you know, if one caveman kicked a stone to another caveman, that was probably the earliest ball game. Sepp Blatt has given it to the Chinese, hasn't he? Yes, he has, unfortunately. What did he get for that? I wonder. A couple of yen in the back pocket for Sepp. But the thing to draw attention to is that football's always been in the DNA

of the English and the British people. We love the game and we've always loved those kinds of ball games right from folk times. And we know that as historians because it got banned so often. So these kind of Shrove type games that you were speaking about. They're real. They are real. There are uppies and downies versions of the game. Great.

There's even one, it's not always pig's bladder, by the way. Sometimes in Hallerton, in Leicestershire, it's bottle kicking. Bottle kicking? The British will literally kick anything. It's not necessarily a football. In actual fact, bottle kicking in Hallerton is actually two kegs of beer that they move and they play against another local village called Medbourne. Do they still do this?

They still do this now and it's done on Easter Monday. So the idea of just a village or maybe two villages playing against each other and they're essentially trying to get a ball or some sort of thing from one set of, I guess, from maybe the church gates into the other church gates, the other side. I mean, this is a massive game. So it's not even like a question of fans watching the game. It's like people are taking, the whole village takes part.

The whole village takes part, men, women, and obviously it got tremendously rowdy as it continues. And actually it's a kind of invasion game, one village versus another or up is versus down is, which kind of brings in from the very ancient times this notion of football as war, that it's kind of an invasion game and taking over. Oh, it's exciting, isn't it?

And it's crazy violent as well. I mean, some of the most common injuries suffered during football matches. Do you want to guess what they are, Tom? In the medieval period? The hamstring. Sure, sure. Metatarsal. Yeah, yeah yeah someone did their metatarsal i'm sure definitely all of those uh the most common one we find in sources as well as just sort of general you know leg

breaks and all that stabbing whoa hang on happens an awful lot you get a yellow card for that is that yeah i mean that's that's an instant caution no it's just because people used to carry knives on them everyone would carry a knife all the time because you need a knife for just general living. You'd carry a knife for your dinner, you'd carry a knife for all-purpose things, and you'd accidentally stab your mate. So it just happened all the time.

Yeah, there are several recorded deaths, and obviously then this leads on to the notion of banning it. And, you know, there are several monarchs who actually want to ban football because it's rough, it's rowdy, it's dangerous. And they would prefer that people were practising archery, which was a martial skill. Much safer.

Something that they could take away. Have this lethal weapon. It's safer than a football. It's amazing. So one of the kings who bans it is Edward III. Yeah. Another one would be Henry VIII. Henry VIII, VIII even though he

yeah he banned it although he played so he has guess what okay history fact for you Tom have a quick guess he owned the world's first what related to football um FA Cup trophy he just had one made for himself

hand me my FA Cup trophy he had the world's first football boots. No way! Yeah, made from Italian leather. He had them specially commissioned for him in the 50s. This is really good. Umbro are missing a trick here by releasing, like, the King Henry VIII football boots.

They weren't studded and they probably weren't, I mean, they probably weren't like predators. They weren't like, you know, I'm not sure the sort of first touch was that good in them. Not like George Best specials. But also this is a game where people aren't really kicking the ball particularly. I mean, it's a sort of... No, they're stabbing each other.

They're stabbing each other. It's a different game. So why is it called football? I mean, there's two theories to this, aren't there? Yeah. One is that it was the common people playing a game on foot rather than the aristocats who were playing games on horseback. And the other is that it was to do with a kicking

code as well as a carrying code and again that's something we'll come on to more when we talk about modern football because it was really a rough and ready kind of game closer to rugby would you say closer to rugby in respect of it was about, you know, physical wrestling of the ball from your opponent. So, yeah. So either like rugby or like League Two. Yeah. Millwall, yeah. Actually, Millwall plays nice football these days.

I'll take that back. This is obviously an interesting challenge, but you've got the first written source for us is from the Anglo-Saxon period, from the 9th century. Is it a match report? It's not a match report. It's more of a complaint, really, from a guy called Nennius.

So over 1,000 years ago, 1,200 years ago, is the first written report of it. It's essentially a folk game. It's a people's game for a long, old time. We've also got references to football in a couple of Shakespeare's plays. We've got King Lear and A Comedy of Errors both talk about football. And he's a guy from Midlands, isn't he? He's talking about ordinary people

playing a kickabout. We're not talking about an organised game, but it is something that even Shakespeare is noticing. Yeah, and that's another way that football is very much part of the British DNA. It's in our language. So people who write about Shakespeare very often say that he was

born into a Latin speaking tradition. When he went to grammar school, he will have definitely learned Latin, but actually managed to revolutionise our language and football and sport and the way he uses those metaphors in his work are very much part of that. Well, of course, Hamlet, when he reads the football results, says 2-3 or not 2-3. Oh my God. Am I right, guys? Am I right? Do we know if Shakespeare was a Wolves fan?

Have we got any? My guess is that he was probably an Arsenal fan because they're both a comedy and a tragedy. Yeah, very nice. Very nice. Who's his favourite player? Phil Bartley. Sorry, I'll go home.

I'll take that. I do like your Hamlet joke, it's very nice. The important moment, really, the transition moment, seems to be in the 1800s, when it starts to change from being a folk game. Weirdly, it's sort of posh people who give it shape. Yeah, so we talk about this transition from folk football to modern football,

and what we mean by that is that it's when people started to write down the laws of the game, as we call them now, or the rules of the game. And that was often done in the public schools. So public schools very often invented games for the boys that were deliberately exclusive so um eaton for example has two kinds of football game one more reminiscent of what we would think of as soccer or football today and the other more akin to to rugby union right um and it was a way of integrating the young boys into the school spirit and also deliberately exclusionary so that if you didn't go to Eton you wouldn't know what the Eton wall game was so it's got that kind of insider kind of banter status of initiating the young boys into this It's like the top six pulling up the ladder after it

It's like the Super League that they're always threatening to form I see Alright let's talk about I mean in the 19th century there is still the kind of folk game still happening. So in 1848, there's a pub landlord near Bolton who announces that he's going to organise a match between two teams

of unlimited numbers and the prize is a £40 cheese. Hang on, unlimited numbers? A landlord saying that, that's like when you go to a pub quiz. If you go to a pub quiz and they're not limiting team numbers, I'm not interested because there's always a table with 20 people on it. It's like, you go to a pub quiz. If you go to a pub quiz and they're not limiting team numbers, I'm not interested. Because there's always a table with 20 people on it. It's like, that's never fair. Well, in this game, both teams can be unlimited. So that evens it up.

And the prize, £40 cheese. I mean, I definitely... £40 cheese. That's a big cheese, isn't it? That's worth playing for. If the FA Cup wasn't made of lovely shiny silver, what food would you make it out of? Well, I mean, like the caribou cup is what we need to look at. So fa cup's good but the caribou the caribou is an animal you mean carabao

the carabao there you go i mean no one knows how to pronounce the carabao the carabao cup if that became a 40 pound cheese cup then i think people would take more interest in the competition it might be a way to reinvigorate man city wouldn't rotate the youth team no no no they'd put out the first team straight away wensley dale cheese what cheese should it be um you want to you want a hard cheese don't you yeah you do yeah yeah or a red lester red lester yeah it's got to be blue lester surely if you're all right so uh that was in 1848 but we then get this really important moment in 1863 which is the first proper attempt to form an FA, to codify the rules, to make football a sport.

Can you tell us a bit about it, Jean? Yeah, rather pompously, there were 13 original rules and they were called the laws of the game. And that's because the guy who wrote them was called Ebenezer Morley. He was a solicitor by profession and the first secretary of the FA. So he got the idea of written rules from cricket, as many teams did. And as well as laying out the size of the playing field, there were little gems included, such as a player shall not throw the ball or pass it to another.

So it definitely invents a kicking code. Willing where a bear list was gutted. to another so it definitely invents a kicking code willing where bellis was gutted neither tripping nor hacking she'll be allowed and no player shall use his hands or hold or push his opponent opponent so it stops that kind of uh physical wrestling thing the wrestling kind of thing stabbing did they bring the stabbing thing in they tried to prevent stabbing mainly on footwear by saying no player shall wear projecting nails, iron plates or gutter percher on their shoes. Gutter percher? Gutter percher is that hard stuff that's in the centre of golf balls. Oh, right.

So you can imagine that if you had that on your boots and you kick somebody's shin, that would be pretty painful. Oh, wow. So just the 13 rules and then off we went. Yeah, initially, isn't it? And then they gradually start adding little bits and pieces in. So we get... Can I ask about the size of the pitch then? Has it come down from what it used to be?

Yeah, definitely. In the very first rules, it's 200 metres long by 100 metres wide. I would not be a box-to-box midfielder. No. I'd be just positioned at the back, think if that was the case yeah my game is very much about speed so i i would very quickly tire i think going down the right wing and still going down the right wing 10 seconds later go hang on a minute when does this end have they number have they limited the number of players yes they limit the number of players it's the recognizable game form that we

would recognize now. Right. But you can imagine the luxury. If you were a public school boy, you can afford pitches of 200 metres by 100. But once it gets to be an urban game, more a game for the people, then the size of the pitch shrinks. Of course, yeah. 100 metres. That's still quite a big pitch, 100 metres, really.

But 200 metres is massive, isn't it? Yeah. Really huge. So a few of the rules start to get added in a little bit after that. 1870 is when Hannibal is made a deliberate foul. We also see the offside rule going through a few tweaks. Tom, can you explain the current offside rule for us? Oh, here we go.

This feels like the test. This is like the big test in the pub. You know the offside rule, don't you, Tom? Yes, yes. As long as you're in line with the last defending player while the ball is played through, then you're onside? Unless the ball is played sideways or backwards, which is fine. Yes, there we go.

So that's the current rule. Unless the player is... You can also not be interfering with play, all that sort of complexity. But in the early years, the offside rule was a bit more complicated. It's basically rugby, really, isn't it? Because it's any attacking player ahead of the ball is offside. Oh, really?

Yeah. So the ball can't go forward. What? So you're playing the ball backwards until you score? Sideways and backwards, yeah. Yeah, you really have to think of these gentlemen amateurs. One of them was upbraided after a match by his colleague who said he didn't pass to him.

And he said, my dear sir, I'm playing entirely for my own enjoyment. So they're not that interested in passing to one another. It was mainly a dribbling game. It was mainly a dribbling game. Individuals would try and dribble forward. That would seem to be the art and the skill of football they then yeah that's fascinating isn't it good isn't it it's different and then they changed it all a bit because they realized that's not hugely exciting so they changed to a three

player rule uh an attacker is offside if positioned goal side of the third last defender so you need a back three so it's okay it's a bit more conservative. A lot of the modern game really, the back three is embraced. Yeah, exactly that. Jean, historians tend to argue that the Industrial Revolution and the movement of peoples from, you know, you get a huge number of people from the countryside moving into the cities, loads of people coming in from Ireland, from Scotland, but also, you know, just rural workers going into big cities like Birmingham and Manchester and Liverpool and so on,

that really changes the game. Can you explain how that, why that was happening? Okay, so if we say that in 1863 and into the 1870s Liverpool's on, that really changes the game. Can you explain why that was happening? Okay, so if we say that in 1863 and into the 1870s, the FA were not immediately that influential or important. And actually, they were not that keen on popularising their game. And there were tussles with the Rugby Football Union into 1871 and rugby football splits off from soccer. But what really happens in the 1880s and 1890s is that football becomes the game of the people.

As people move into urban centres, they want to take their football with them. And things that help are things like we get a national railway timetable, which gives us a national sense of what the time is, both in London and in Newcastle, say, so that you can schedule matches, people can schedule to go to watch, and also they can compare how their local team is doing against other teams.

So have teams started forming by this point? Are there clubs? There are clubs from 1863. Sheffield Club is even earlier. It predates the formation of the FA. So who was that, the first club? Sheffield. I think Wolves were 1865.

That's pretty early. But again, the Sheffield Club that was then is not as we would understand the Sheffield Clubs now. So it's kind of morphed since then. But the key thing that happened in 1885 is that the FA had to give in to professionalism so that clubs were now paying their players because they were good enough to perform in front of a paying public. A formation of the Football League in 1888. And that really gives people a sense of, oh, how's my local team doing against national sides?

And it starts to build up a greater sense of local pride. And the other big thing, of course, is the invention of the weekend. In the 19th century, you get leisure time. The weekend was invented? As an idea. What? It's not always been there. I mean, there have been Saturdays and Sundays before. We didn't just invent those.

But everyone was working through. But the idea of a leisure, of a two-day little holiday for the working people is a 19th century idea, isn't it? Yeah, most skilled manual workers would work the Saturday morning, which obviously made Saturday afternoon even more special, which meant, as you said, the rush to the pub because they'd just been paid. Sunday was more a day for Sunday observance.

And again, football was not played in this country. The Football League was not played in this country on a Sunday for quite a long time due to Sunday observance. But it made Saturday afternoon really, really special. And even if you couldn't make it to the ground because not everybody could afford it there were these newspapers that will be bought by um public houses called the greenen or the pinken and you could yeah you could readily spot them and a lot of public houses will put them

in their windows so you could read about it even if you couldn't actually make it to the match so that by the time you got back to work on Monday morning and you were talking to your mates about the match, you'd got an opinion. We had the pink papers still. Did you? Yeah, all the way through the end of the 80s and into the 90s in Wolves. That would come out on the Sunday

and it'd be all the reports from around the area. Right the way through to like games that like non-league games and things like that, it'd all be in the pink papers. So that was still there. Yeah, I've never had that before growing up. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, and so in a way football was a kind of,

before we had TV, they were sort of like the, you know, the soaps today. It's something that everybody would be talking about. And so there was enormous, one of the things that's always fascinated me as somebody who was a teacher before I got into doing this is that we've kind of got an anti-education attitude, I think, in broader society. But you ask anybody about football and they will have an opinion. Yeah.

Yeah. So, again, it's something that's very much in our DNA to talk about football. It's always when you're having an awkward taxi ride or something. It's like your go-to. I remember being up in Glasgow and it'd be like, you start to have an awkward chat with the taxi driver and as soon as you run out of things to talk about, you say, who do you support, fella?

And then that's it. Then you're just off for the rest of the way. If he's Celtic or Rangers, it's like, that'll see us through for the rest of the ride. Did they have transfer gossip in the 19th century? Because that's all I do in my day. All I do is get on Twitter and see whose spurs I'm not going to buy. But did football transfers exist in the 19th century?

And if so, were they reported? Yeah, very much existed. If I give the example of Steve Bloomer, who was born in 1874, later of Derby County fame, he became known as R. Stephen within Derby, played for them for 14 seasons. And then, shock horror, he gets a little bit of national glamour because he gets transferred to Middlesbrough. And he would not be in control of that. So the retaining transfer system meant that Derby and Middlesbrough would have agreed that and he would have had

to go. So he didn't have a say in it? He wouldn't have had a say at that stage. And he would also have been subject to a maximum wage. So they used to get about £2 in the playing season and about £1 in the off-season. So it was a fairly precarious way of earning a living. Would he have been full-time then, full-time footballer? Well, as much as he could in the season.

Yeah. Full-time then, full-time footballer? Well, as much as he could in the season. Yeah. But very often they become publicans or they work in pubs or work in other occupations. Some are also professional cricketers in the off-season to try to earn a living from sport all year round. Yeah.

So it was quite precarious. And then when he transfers back from Middlesbrough four years later, by then he's 36. Oh, his years are behind him, he's gone. Oh, I'm 36. His best years are gone. And Derby love that he comes back. You know, they play See the Conquering Hero Comes

because he's got a little bit of glamour because he's appeared in the national newspapers, not just in the Derby newspapers. So the media were really important. So he was like the Beckham of his day, old bloomer, was he? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, an England star as well. So is England up and going now? England's up and going in 1872. Oh, wow. So it's been around since the get-go. The first ever international match, isn't it? It's England versus Scotland, 1872. Oh,

the old rival. Yeah. Did it kick off? I bet it always kicks off. It really didn't kick off. No way! No. Oh, we've just got worse over time. It was nil-nil. Oh.

Was it a bit of fan violence or was it sort of very genteel and cups of tea? It was very genteel. Oh. It was England. No one snapped the crossbar. No, well, that came later. Actually, speaking of England, Scotland, actually, my favourite team of this period,

apart from Spurs, who were founded in 1882, a team called Corinthians. Have you ever heard of Corinthians? No. All right, so Corinthians are a London team, but they were founded with the intention of rivaling Scotland as a national team. And, funnily enough, later on in the century, the entire England team was Corinthian players.

So they did actually achieve their goal. England played Scotland entirely Corinthian. So they did actually achieve their goal. England played Scotland entirely Corinthian. So what became of Corinthians then? Well, they kind of stopped in the 50s, is that right? They're mid-century, they kind of pull it. But what's lovely about them is they're named after an ancient Greek city, Corinth. But they

help share football around the world. They travel the world. There's a Brazilian football team named after them, Corinthians. So they're kind of like the Harlem Globetrotters. Sort of, yeah. They travelled a lot. Real Madrid play in white because of Corinthians. This is great.

We need to kickstart the Corinthians. And Juventus play in stripes because of Knox County, isn't it? So there's this sort of thing of English teams going off around the world and inspiring it. The other thing I love about Corinthians, they were amateurs and they believed in fair play. So much so, they were amateurs and they believed in fair play. So much so, they refused to take penalties because they did not believe that the opposition player

would have deliberately done a foul. Wow. Tough being a Corinthian fan. You get a penalty in the 89th minute. Come on, guys. Just give it this once.

Tom, do you know what a penalty was called in 1891? When they were first introduced? A special kick? The kick of death. The kick of death! That's really good.

I like that. Yeah, so penalties come in in 1891. Another big change in 1891 is referees are allowed onto the pitch. Before that, they're on the sidelines. Ah, just doing the VAR from the sidelines. That's really interesting. Were they allowed on a sidelines. Just doing the VAR from the sidelines. That's really interesting. Were they allowed

on a podium or were they elevated? They were just on the side weren't they? Just running the line with a whistle. But there were umpires on the pitch. One for each team. And the other thing to talk about I guess in terms of football's impact on culture but also there's a sort of ideology behind it as well because football is meant to be

morally uplifting for masculinity. It's meant to be producing sort of good behind it as well because football is meant to be morally uplifting for for masculinity it's meant to be producing sort of good strong healthy christian men yes there was this thing called muscular christianity and this notion was i already like this jesus with a massive six-pack you know christian. The notion was that actually by doing sport, it was a rational recreation that kept you out of the pub and, you know, other pursuits that were not quite so morally improving and therefore football was good for you. And yeah, it was definitely promoted. You were quite right in your comment earlier on that actually pubs had a lot of teams. It obviously made sense. But a lot of teams grew out of church sides.

So again, Everton were originally a church side that had to change their name to Everton in 1872 to enable people from the local area who were not part of that church to play. So yeah, there's a strong link between the church and football. That's really interesting. My dad used to play for a church team. We used to go and watch every Sunday, every Saturday morning.

Really? Yeah, and it was great. You know, there was genuine rivalry between churches. It got quite heated. The other thing, of course, is that football was supposed to sort of combat effeminacy and homosexuality and masturbation as well. It was the idea of, you know, the referee was very much not a wanker. He was a good muscular Christian. But yeah, this idea, you know, in the 1880s...

Stop wanking and go play football. You get people like Oscar Wilde in the 1880s who turn up and they're sort of dandies and they confuse people and there's sort of these big controversies of men who look and dress and act like women. So football was there to sort of counteract that idea. And I guess this has started the fact that there still is no, you know, out male professional footballer

and that kind of relationship between, you know, that's probably, well, it's ingrained, isn't it? There you go. Yeah, the movement to try and bring more LGBT representation into football, you know, is still an uphill battle, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely.

Obviously, we've got Elton John. When Elton John, it was incredible, Elton John buying Watford and being a part of that. It's kind of like if Oscar Wilde could have bought a football club back in the 1980s, maybe we could have started off on the good foot. OK, so we've talked about masculinity, but let's talk about the women's game because it's not a recent history. You know, this summer we had the Women's World Cup where England got to the semi-final and it was watched by 12 million people, which is an amazing thing. But you're a specialist on this, Jean, and the women's game is not a new thing. So where does it start?

Women's football is, in terms of folk football, there were always women's games as well as men's games. And this shoo-zhoo that Seth Blatter so likes, there were women's forms of shoo-zhoo that Seth Blatter so likes there were women's forms of shoo-zhoo as well that went on for centuries so women's football is as old as men's football we should just call it football really and we have images from the 1860s and we then have the first organised game in 1881 in Edinburgh and again to pick up on that rivalry of England versus Scotland men's that's already happened,

it's called England v Scotland. We know that it wasn't England v Scotland because the second match that these two teams have, some of the players have swapped sides. They're just trying an accent. Well, I think they're... Who's Tim? You're... I can't do a Scottish accent.

I don't know why I was going to try. That's the sort of Jack Charlton approach to, are you Irish? Have you ever met anyone Irish? Get in my team.

Get in my team, yeah. Yeah, definitely. And the women were playing professionally in front of large crowds back in 1881. That is unbelievable. Yeah, we'd also had

similar things happening in women's cricket that male cricket professionals would form two lady teams and they would play in front of a paying audience. And very often the male cricketers would abscond with the takings. And guess what? That's what happens this time. The guy abscond with the takings after a couple of matches. after a couple of matches. And then we get the creation of the British Ladies Football Club in 1894

with the beautifully named Nettie Honeyball, who is the playing secretary of the side. Nettie Honeyball. Yeah. That's amazing. I thought that was the name of the game to begin with. I thought you were going to say, to begin with, they called women's football Nettie Honeyball.

I was like, no, that's not quite right. Nettie Honeyball played football. That's right. Nettie Honeyball played football. That's amazing. Have you ever heard of Lily Parr? Lily Parr? No. Have you ever heard of Dick Curse Ladies? No.

All right, so Lily Parr is arguably the top goal scorer in history because she banged in 986 goals in her career. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's even more than Steve Ball did for 100 wonders. She's a phenomenon. So she was the star of the women's game in the 1920s and 30s and 40s. But let's sort of approach why she became such a massive star, because it's linked to the World War One, the fact that men are going off to the trenches and women step in and become the main attraction, don't they? and become the main attraction, don't they? Yeah, definitely.

I mean, I think until World War I, we have to think that most young women up to about the ages of 18 to 21 would have gone into service or they'd be working in factories and then working for the family in the evenings. So if you think kind of Downton Abbey, you can picture that they wouldn't have a lot of spare time to play football. Go play football now. But during World War I, as they move into the munitions work, which is obviously dirty and dangerous,

not only did they get higher pay, they get time for their own leisure. And what do they choose to do with that? Because their brothers and fathers and everybody else is serving over in France, in Belgium, they decide to play games of football in large stadia. And we're talking, you know,

like Goodison Park, for example, in 1920. They play games in large stadia, which ordinary working men largely, and a few women, turn up for week in, week out. And they raise thousands and thousands of pounds for charity. God, that's incredible, because that's kind of like the film A League of Their Own about baseball. It's already a story that's been told over here, really. Well, we do not know. That's a story that needs to be told.

So Lily Parth was inducted into the National Football Museum, wasn't she? She was the first woman to be inducted in in the inaugural year. Yes, as the first big star, and it's great that people love this story, because she was a superstar. So just to give you an idea of the format of these games is that they would have a celebrity kick off and then the ball would be raffled off because it had touched the toe of the celebrity. So if I give you the example of Georges Carpentier, kicked off he was the, he'd just been beaten by Jack Dempsey for the world heavyweight title and he kicks

off a woman's game and they raffle off the ball and people you know raise even more money for charity. I would like them to bring that tradition back to the modern game. Like imagine if they were like okay so it's Swindon against Bournemouth and here's John Bon Jovi

and John Bon Jovi comes out kicks the ball he heads off I'd bid for that football I mean Tom Hanks is an Aston Villa fan I mean you could do it

couldn't you Tom Hanks is an Aston Villa fan he goes to Villa yeah oh Tom you're so close to fulfilling all my dreams come down the road Tom

we'll show you a good time at the walls Lily Park as well as scoring 986 goals, retires at 46. She is famous for smoking like a chimney. She gets paid partially in cigarette packets.

I mean, she really likes smoking. So she's not a good advert for athletes, but she is an amazing player. She plays against men and against women, doesn't she? Yeah, when the Dickers went on tour to the USA, they thought they were going to be playing against the nice ladies of the US colleges who didn't want their girls playing against factory women. So they end up playing nine games against the men's professional teams in the USA and then return to the UK.

Do we know how they fared? It's pretty even, actually. They win, of the nine games, they win a couple, draw a couple, lose a couple. Well, that's not bad at all. But now, obviously, is that what started the resurgence in the US women's game? Because the women take soccer so seriously now over in America. Yeah, because you

already have American football in the US colleges, soccer's perceived to be less violent than American football and therefore more appropriate for women. So that tradition is already established, yeah. The nuance window! All right, well, that's brought us really to my favourite bit of the show,

the nuance window, where we unleash our historian, let them go to town, talking about something they're passionate about. And, Jean, you are a specialist on the women's game. You wrote the history of the women's game. In this new On to Window, you have two minutes to tell us about how it was suppressed and the story of how it's been revived. So two minutes on the clock. Here we go.

OK, thank you. So having said that women's football began in the 19th century, hundreds of games, by 1921, there were 150 women's teams in the UK. And the FA expanded the Football League from two divisions to a third division south and a third division north. Effectively, that doubled the size of the Football League, and no coincidence that they ban women's football in 1921 on the 5th of December. On two grounds, one as unsuitable for women, and secondly, on the grounds that the women like Lily Parr are taking too much of the expense money for their own expenses, i.e. they're being paid as professionals.

In response to this, some women's teams organise a match in front of 44 doctors who declare it to be no more taxing than a day's heavy washing. So there's no medical reason why women's football couldn't continue. But hey presto, this ban travels across the world, travels to Germany because of the British influence in South America. It travels there too. It's actually banned by law in Brazil in case women who are playing football don't go on to have children. And it's not withdrawn until about 1969, 1970, very gradually in a piecemeal way across the world when FIFA begins to take charge of women's football. And they do that because there's been these huge interest

in unofficial World Cups. The one in Mexico is always a really great example. Unofficial Women's World Cup in Mexico 71 played in the Azteca Stadium, the final crowds of 110,000 people paying to watch women play so uh that changes fifa's mind because they suddenly think ah there's a revenue stream here amazing tom thoughts on that that has blown my mind that's incredible i mean of course the fa are the bad guys of course these it's it's but that i didn't know they were that bad guys that's the worst um i don't i mean that's my first reaction the second reaction is i don't think uh i've ever put in enough of a shift during a game for it to be considered a day of heavy

washing i'd love at the end of the game to some say that was a day of heavy washing there parry i've never got that no uh you'd have to really soil your kit, wouldn't you? Yeah, properly would. That is sensational stuff, though. And again, it's an amazing story that just isn't known that that's what they did. So you can see, I suppose, why the women's game has had such a disadvantage, because it was just cut off in its prime, and it's had to sort of get up and running

again isn't it but now it's starting to break through again yeah i mean the first um official england team in 1972 had all to be amateurs and they had to prove that they were amateurs because the fa gave the wfa who at that time was affiliated to them on the same basis as a county association the fa gave the WFA no money whatsoever. So the first England team was formed through central government money that was only available to amateur players. So that's really where we're coming from with this England team. The FA didn't really take control of women's football until 1993.

And, you know, they didn't really promote women's football until the 21st century so we were on a very very slow catch-up um yeah i was out in um uh women's world cup in 99 in usa and their strength and conditioning regime then was insane like oxygen mask vo VO2 max, all the rest of that. We've just discovered that. Yeah. Wow. The FA's shame. That has to be the FA's shame. It's incredible.

Hopefully it's all changing. So what do you know now? All right. Well, I think we've more or less reached kind of the end of learning the history bits, but it's time to see how much Tom has learned. Oh, no! Oh, no!

Not the quiz! I've enjoyed it far too much to be remembering any facts. Well, hopefully some of the facts have gone in. A few of them may have flown over your head, but a couple of these will hopefully have stuck. So let's see how far you get. We've got 60 seconds on the clock. OK, here we go. Ten questions coming up.

I believe in you, Tom. Alright. In which century, give or take, was the first written mention of a ball game in Britain? 16th century. No, it's Anglo-Saxon. It's 1200 years ago. Name one of the alternative names or one

of the religious holidays when medieval football was played. Shrove Day. Shrove Day. Shrove Day. That's exactly right. Which kings wanted to ban football and make the lower classes learn archery? King Henry VIII. Yes.

And Edward III. Yes. Bang on. In which two Shakespeare plays is football mentioned? Okay. Give us one. Comedy of Errors. Yeah. And All's Well That Ends Well. King Lear. Comedy of Errors Yeah And All's Well That Ends Well

King Lear Comedy of Errors I'll accept What was football supposed to help Victorian men stop doing in their private time? Wanking Yes Yeah I remember that one In 1863 what was founded in England?

The Football Association Exactly When were handballs Officially outlawed? In In During the game You weren't allowed to handball During the game

I'll accept that When and where Was the first recorded Women's football match And it wasn't in England It wasn't in England It was in Scotland It was in Scotland

It was in Edinburgh And it was in 187 It was in Scotland, yeah. It was in Edinburgh. Yep. And it was in 187... 1881? Hey, he's done it. I don't know how I came up with that. The penalty was introduced in 1891 and was first known as the... Ball of death. Kick of death. Yes, kick of death. Very good.

In 1872, the first ever international was played between which two nations? England and Scotland. Hello! You have got nine out of ten. Oh, I'll take it. Which is a very strong score. I had some help. I must have had some help. Hang on, it's going out of ten. Oh, I'll take it. Which is a very strong score. I had some help. I must have had some help. Hang on, it's going to VAR.

It's going to VAR. No, it's fine. Nine out of ten. Yes. Well, I mean, we've had quite a romp there through the history of the game. I've loved that. Has it changed your attitude a bit, Tom? I mean, I know you're a big fan of football, but are you now rethinking it?

I mean, the bombshell of the way we've treated the women's game is incredible and that's definitely worth going back and investigating. I love that it's so ingrained in our national history and certainly the history of the people. It still feels that way. In Wolverhampton on game day when you're in the pub and you can't beat that. My nephews are five and

four and we got to the semi-final last season uh wolves the fa cup against watford and i got them we got tickets to go and they so they've just started falling in love with football and with wolverhampton wanderers and the one thing I loved about that was the feeling of going to Wembley when they found out we were going to Wembley to a four-year-old it's the the idea of Wembley now he Jonah doesn't know what Wembley is he hadn't seen the stadium but he couldn't sleep for two weeks and I said to my brother it's almost like that idea of original sin it's like we're born with the original concept of Wembley being this incredible. And it was the biggest day of their lives. We're

going to Wembley. And football does that. It transforms the everyday experience into something magical. And I love that about the game. And no matter how cynical the game's becoming with how it's played and things, you can't the connection to

emotion and magic, it is, and that's what today's done, it really has instilled into me again, it's lovely. So thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right, well, we have reached the final moment of the pod then, so I just, before I hand over to Lineker and Shearer

for the post-match analysis, I just want to thank both of my guests, Professor Jean Williams from the University of Wolverhampton and Tom Parry from the streets of Wolverhampton. It was a physical match out there, but I think both teams will take a point there and be happy with their points. So join me next time for more surprising history

with a couple more top of the league guests. If you've enjoyed today's podcast, please do make sure to share it with your friends, leave a review, do like and subscribe, those sort of things. The show is called You're Dead to Me, so don't miss an episode. But for now, I think we're off to go and see who can do the most keepy uppies and maybe go and find a massive 40 pound cheese for the prize thank you for listening bye

you're dead to me was a muddy knees media production for bbc radio 4 the researchers were emin Agus, Evie Randall and Esther Jarbo the script by Evie, Esther and me the script consultant was professor, Esther and me. The script consultant was Professor Jean Williams and producer was Dan Morrell. Russell Cain here and I'm here to tell you about Evil Genius, the BBC Radio 4 podcast where we take icons from history and then decimate them by slinging mud. Think you know everything about Einstein? You don't. He was a woman hater. You probably think you know about Amy Winehouse, that she was a victim. She had a pretty dark side and we're not shy about exploring it. Evil genius. We take people from history and a panel of three fellow jesters have to vote at the end

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