"Football is not ‘just a game' as are other sports, it is a whole way of life" (Turner, 1990, p6)
"Football is not a matter of life and death. It is far more important than that." (Shankly, cited in Forsyth, 1990, p81).

In order to examine and account for football's rise as a mass spectator sport, it will first be necessary to look at the historical context of the sport, and that is what the first part of this essay shall be concerned with, although in a very condensed form. I shall then examine some of theories that attempt to address this question, some of which will seem quite diverse and obscure. In answering this question, one will have to consider the rise of football, its decline in the 1970s and 80s, and its subsequent renaissance that we are experiencing at present.

Far from the common conception of football as a comparatively recent sport, there are records that show its existence for at least four centuries, although it would be true to suggest that the medieval notion of football differs somewhat drastically to what we associate with the modern game. It has even been suggested by some that the game owes its origins to the barbaric tradition of victorious Scottish soldiers' "laudable practice of kicking about the severed heads of the defeated English after a battle" (Fisher, 1990, p207). Early games of football would often involve hundreds of players across a distance of miles, between neighbouring villages, and such was the scale of the game that spectating usually amounted to playing as well (R.Taylor, 1992, pp4-6). How then did the sport develop from a mass participatory sport into the mass spectator sport of the present era?

The formation of a governing body, the Football Association, in 1863, to observe that the newly agreed Cambridge rules were abided by certainly went a long way towards this (Nawart & Hutchings, 1995, p9). Football matches were now limited to eleven players a side, ending the mass participation aspect. The FA was committed to amateurism, and was based in London. Indeed, all but two of the entrants to the first FA Cup in 1871 were from London and its environs: Donington School from Lincolnshire; and Queens Park from Glasgow (Mason, 1981, p60). There was an undoubted bias towards the South, and along with the amateur nature of the sport this originally favoured the leisure and upper-middle classes with the time, money and inclination to partake in the gentlemanly sport that had evolved in the public schools.

However football grew in popularity, especially in industrial areas such as Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester and Glasgow, and the advent of better pay and conditions for the workers contributed to the growth of the sport,

"football could only develop as a mass spectator sport on a regular, nationwide and commercial basis when enough time and money became accessible to the mass of potential fans." (Walvin, 1975, p181).

Before long, football clubs needed more than occasional friendlies and cup matches, as players, spectators and club owners demanded more regular fixtures, and the football league was formed in 1888. Almost in opposition to the FA, although using the same rules, the League was a particularly Northern affair, and strongly advocated professionalism,

"it rapidly transpired that the working-class footballers of the northern town clubs could not afford the travel and time off work unless they were subsidized" (Pugh, 1994, p70).

The advent of the Football League in Northern England soon gave rise to a similar set up in Scotland, and saw the development of the Southern League in England, of which Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur were both particularly successful clubs.