ABSTRACT
In accepting that the early years of football’s development involved significant regional diversity, the debate over its origins has recently shifted attention to understanding the game’s growth in a range of local settings. Local studies of football history have, however, focused almost exclusively on Britain’s industrial regions and towns. To date there has been a notable absence of studies examining the game’s evolution in the non-industrialised, semi-rural areas of the south of England. This chapter provides a partial corrective to this omission through an examination of the nature and extent of football play in Winchester prior to the formation of the city’s first soccer club in 1884. This encompasses an examination of the unique version of the game which evolved at Winchester College, and an exploration of the football played by the officers and men stationed at Winchester’s city centre barracks. An assessment of the influence of both on the recreational life of the wider city population is made, together with evidence for a parallel popular football culture, in accord with the ‘revisionist’ view of football’s origins.
