ABSTRACT
Starting in the 1850s, the embryonic Association and Rugby forms of football spread into the wider society. Two more general social developments underpinned this process: an expansion of the middle classes, which occurred correlatively with continuing industrialisation, urbanisation, state-formation and ‘civilisation’; and an educational transformation usually referred to as the shift towards the ‘public school games cult’ (Marples, 1954 : 119). There is no need for us to analyse these wider developments at this point. It is enough to note that the games cult helped to establish social conditions conducive to the spread of football in its embryonic modern forms, above all playing a part in transforming what were destined to become Association Football and Rugby into status-enhancing activities for adult ‘gentlemen’.
