Event Report: The origins and evolution of professional football clubs

On 22nd and 23rd June 2023, the Soccer Mad Boffins were in London to attend a British Academy of Management (BAM) sponsored event at Birkbeck, in University of London's City campus.

The two day event featured eight academic papers as well as a key note by Richard McDermott, company secretary at the Football Association (and Birkbeck graduate).

Our own paper was on the early years of the FA, but others focussed on football clubs in England, Scotland and Brazil, sustainability, regulation, and more. The common approach was to examine the way that club football has evolved, using historical or longitudinal studies.

Special thanks to the BAM Business & Management History Special Interest Group, and to our friends at Birkbeck especially Sean Hamil and Professor Geoff Walters who helped to organise the event with us, and to everyone who chaired sessions.

Here are some photos of our presentation:

York Festival of Ideas 2023

On Saturday 10th June 2023, The Soccer Mad Boffins chaired two author discussions at the University of York Festival of Ideas. Or at least we were supposed to, but due to ill health Kevin had to withdraw his involvement at the last minute. So, Alex stepped up to chair both talks on his own, although Kevin had contributed equally to the proposals, planning, and preparing lists of questions.

The first talk extended the Soccer Mad Boffins into cricket. Dr Duncan Stone discussed his recent book 'Different Class: The Untold Story of English Cricket' (Repeater Books, paperback ISBN: 9781913462802) which explores the governance of cricket and impact of social class rigidity.  It also raises questions about outreach, public relations, and 'marketing' of the game to participants and to fans, and Duncan suggested ways to re-imagine the cricket sport 'product' that he believes would help it to become a 'people's game'.

The second talk was with Dr Alexander Jackson of the National Football Museum. He discussed his latest book 'Football's Great War: Association Football on the English Home Front, 1914 1918' (Pen and Sword, Hardback, ISBN 1399002201). Discussion then turned to the National Football museum, and curating sensitive content such as war, as well as the less sensitive topic of current and upcoming exhibitions at the museum, which is definitely worth visiting. An interesting point was how football was used to recruit players and fans to the war effort, how finances were managed to keep clubs in business, the ethics of sustaining sport during war, and how football managed its public relations and its communications/messaging during this difficult time, to it supporters, with examples of advertising from the museum's collection.

Both talks were well attended with lots of great questions from the audience in addition to those asked by Alex.

Afterwards both authors signed many copies of their books for eager attendees.

Thank you to all involved with organising and operating the Festival and for making it the amazing annual fixture that it is.

You can watch the videos of both talks free of charge using the below links;

Duncan Stone - 'different class'

Alex Jackson of National Football Museum - 'Curating the world's game - football's Great War'