Football Spectatorship in mid-to-late Victorian Sheffield

[RichardB]

Abstract

In mid-to-late Victorian England the footballers of the city of Sheffield created one of the earliest and most vibrant sub-cultures. The extent of midweek football and the types of crowd disorder in Sheffield football around that time provide two of the more interesting areas for study.

The first section of this paper attempts to examine the custom of Saint Monday, the practice of utilizing the first day of the working week as a time for leisure activities, in Sheffield between the years 1876 and 1886. This is attempted through the detailed study of midweek football matches played by clubs from the city and its surrounds during those years. Although Monday will be the principal focus, other midweek days will also come under scrutiny.

Secondly there is an attempt to provide a qualitative analysis of football crowd behaviour in Sheffield prior to 1892. The author seeks to add to the 'football hooliganism' debate by commenting on existing work carried out in this area dealing with incidents before that date. This section of the paper argues that reported incidents during this period appear to have been relatively few though authors of similar studies appear to have considerably underplayed their seriousness.

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