Early sports match announcements in The Times in the 1860s
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | As the analysis of data from the Times Digital Archives shows, the earliest match announcements of football matches were made in the form of letters to the editor, which contrasts with e.g. cricket match announcements that had been appearing in the form of adverts in the same newspaper since the 1780s. This fact seems to reflect the tentative emergence of football and its slow but gradual institutionalization, resulting from its shift from an obscure pastime to a popular spectator sport in the late Victorian era. The genre of the letters to the editor appears to have served a broader function than today – it was a communication forum where individual readers could communicate information to others via the editor, as well as engage in heated intellectual debates, e.g. about the need for rules to regulate the newly constituted sport of football. |