History of Football

Summary

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You're Dead to Me: History of Football

Host: Greg Jenner | Guests: Mally Anne Rees, Ray Winstone | Date: December 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

This snappy, comedic episode of You’re Dead to Me dives into the colorful and chaotic history of football (soccer) with host Greg Jenner, historian Mally Anne Rees, and a comedic assist from Ray Winstone. The team investigates the origins, evolution, and cultural impact of the game—from its bruising medieval roots to the rise, ban, and recent resurgence of the women's game. As always, the show mixes lively banter, well-researched facts, and historical reenactments, providing both laughs and learning.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Medieval Mayhem: The Earliest Football (01:01–05:41)

• Origins: Football-type games can be traced back thousands of years, but the first recorded in Britain appears in the 9th century, described in the Historia Brittonum.
• Gameplay: Medieval football was chaotic—hundreds could participate, using entire towns as pitches, played mostly on festival days like Christmas and Pancake (Shrove Tuesday).
  • "There's some people on the pitch, and by pitch, I mean the whole high street." – Mally Anne Rees (02:52)
• Rules & Referees: Very few rules existed:
  • Carrying, throwing, and even violence were common. No referees were present.
  • "Oi, referee. He just picked up the ball." – Ray Winstone (03:02)
  • "Yeah, that was mostly fine too." – Greg Jenner (03:11)
• Violence & Authority Cracks Down: Anecdotes include a 1321 stabbing during a match, leading to a request for papal forgiveness—a dig at modern VAR (video referee):
  • "It's a bit unusual getting the Pope to referee, although it might still prove more popular than VAR." – Greg Jenner (03:32)
• Royal Bans: Several monarchs (Edward III, Richard II, multiple Jameses of Scotland) repeatedly tried—mostly ineffectively—to ban football:
  • "I said, stop playing football." – Ray Winstone (04:41)
  • The game remained popular, referenced by Shakespeare, and Henry VIII allegedly had his own football boots.

2. From Folk to Formal: 19th Century Football & Rulemaking (05:41–09:27)

• Industrial Shift: Industrial Revolution brings urbanization, shrinking the scope for festival games, but football finds footing among public school elites.
  • "Football was now seen as the perfect sport for the middle and upper classes to show how strong and masculine they were." – Greg Jenner (06:26)
• Posh Rules Chaos: Each school (Eton, Rugby, Sheffield, etc.) devised its own set of football rules, leading to confusion and exclusion of working-class players:
  • "Which football though? Eton rules, rugby rules, Sheffield rules..." – Ray Winstone (07:09)
• Unified Code: The FA is Born: In 1863, the Football Association (FA) was founded to standardize rules. Heated debates, especially about tackling/ball handling, caused splits.
  • Birth of rugby from football dissenters.
  • "If you lot can't play nicely together then you're not playing at all." – Ray Winstone (08:31)
• Iconic Names: Shoutout to Ebenezer Cobb Morley, a seminal figure in codifying the game.

3. 20th Century: Wars, Women & Worldwide Football (09:27–13:39)

• Interrupted Only by War: Football flourished, growing in appeal—with women's involvement rising, especially during and after World War I.
• Women's Football: Women had likely played for centuries, but the first recorded Scottish match (1888) divided teams by marital status. The British Ladies Football Club (founded 1895 by Nettie Honeyball) championed emancipation:
  • "I look forward to the time when ladies may sit in Parliament." – Mally Anne Rees as Nettie Honeyball, quoting (10:32)
• WWI – Rise of Factory Teams: With men at war, women's teams (notably Dick Kerr Ladies, led by superstar Lily Parr) drew massive crowds (53,000 at one 1920 match!), sometimes playing against men's teams.
  • "She had a kick like a mule. She could nearly knock me out with a force shot." – Mally Anne Rees quoting Joan Wally (12:19)
• Bans & Comebacks: Despite popularity, the FA banned women from FA-affiliated pitches in 1921 (ban lifted only in 1970). Resistance continued, and recent years have seen a powerful resurgence in the women’s game.
  • "Just imagine all the brilliant women's footballers the world missed out on because the FA was scared of a little competition." – Greg Jenner (13:18)

4. Quick Recap & Quiz (13:39–14:23)

A fast-paced quiz recaps the main points:

• Major festival days for medieval football? (Christmas and Pancake Day)
• Which major game split off? (Rugby)
• Star striker of the Dick Kerr Ladies? (Lily Parr)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Rules & Anarchy:
  • "Oh, and there wasn't a referee." – Greg Jenner (03:14)
• On Medieval Parental Priorities:
  • "It was sort of the medieval version of your dad telling you to stop playing football in the garden and do something useful like wash his car." – Greg Jenner (04:19)
• On Women's Emancipation via Football:
  • "I founded the association with a fixed resolve of proving to the world that women are not the ornamental and useless creatures men have pictured." – Mally Anne Rees as Nettie Honeyball (10:32)
• On Lily Parr’s Legendary Power:
  • "She kicks like a mule and breaks arms like a Swan." – Ray Winstone (12:29)
  • "In 1920, around 53,000 spectators came to see Lily and her team play." – Greg Jenner (12:35)
• Comedic Skewering of FA’s Ban:
  • "Just imagine all the brilliant women's footballers the world missed out on because the FA was scared of a little competition." – Greg Jenner (13:18)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:01] – Introduction to football’s deep roots and earliest records
• [02:52] – Medieval folk football: community chaos, festival days, and playful voice acting
• [03:32] – Lethal football incidents, papal intervention, and the “VAR” joke
• [04:19-05:41] – Royal bans, Shakespeare references, and Henry VIII’s footie boots
• [06:10] – Industrial revolution and rise of schoolboy football
• [07:45] – FA’s creation and rules wars
• [08:31] – Emergence of rugby, jolly threats to end it all, and Ebenezer Cobb Morley’s cameo
• [09:27] – Modern football arises, women’s early games, and class divides
• [10:32] – Nettie Honeyball’s rally for women’s emancipation
• [11:13] – Dick Kerr Ladies, Lily Parr’s stardom, and legendary tales
• [12:35] – The FA ban and women’s football’s rocky road to resurrection
• [13:39] – Greg Jenner’s recap quiz
• [14:23] – Close (content ends)

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Tone & Style Notes

The episode maintains the original show’s hallmark: informative, irreverent, and inclusive, mixing historical analysis with rapid-fire jokes, sound effects, and postmodern asides. The banter between the historian and comedians keeps things snappy, with gentle ribbing of both the past and the present.

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Episode Takeaways

• Football, in its many rowdy forms, has survived kings, bans, and upheavals, with each wave of players adding new layers (and rules) to the game.
• The rise, suppression, and resurgence of women’s football reveals the sport’s enduring, universal appeal and the way social change is reflected on the pitch.
• As always, history is more than just dates—it's chaos, convention, rebellion, and occasionally, a mule-like kick to the goalie's arm.

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For deeper dives:
"If you're a grown up and want to learn more about the history of football, listen to our episode of You're Dead To Me with Professor Gene Williams." – Greg Jenner (14:23)

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End of summary—no homework required!

Transcript

[Ray Winstone]

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[Greg Jenner]

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[Ray Winstone]

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[Mally Anne Rees]

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[Greg Jenner]

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[Mally Anne Rees]

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[Ray Winstone]

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[Mally Anne Rees]

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[Greg Jenner]

Gain Super Flings for next level laundry. Hello, welcome to Dead Funny History. I'm Greg Jenner, I'm a historian and I want to tell you about something cool. Football. My favourite. We can trace ball games back thousands of years, even though modern football has only been going since around the 1850s in medieval Europe, it was less like this and more like this.

[Mally Anne Rees]

My wind. Dems.

[Greg Jenner]

Ow.

[Ray Winstone]

My spine.

[Greg Jenner]

One of the earliest references to ball games in Britain is from the 9th century in a book called the Historia Brittonum, which means the history of the Britons. Written, we think, by a Welsh monk called Nennius. It describes boys playing ball.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Hello and welcome to this coverage of a game of ball that I can see going on outside of my monastic cell. It's one group of boys against another group of boys.

[Greg Jenner]

Historians have referred to the medieval game by lots of names.

[Ray Winstone]

Folk football, mad football.

[Greg Jenner]

They were big community games, usually played in towns and villages on festival days, sometimes Christmas Day.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Ho, ho, ho. Goal. Goal.

[Ray Winstone]

Goal.

[Greg Jenner]

But mostly on Pancake Day.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Pancake Day.

[Greg Jenner]

Yup. It's also called Shrove Tuesday. Now, these games could sometimes stretch the length of a town and could involve hundreds of players.

[Mally Anne Rees]

There's some people on the pitch, and by pitch, I mean the whole high street.

[Greg Jenner]

There were fewer rules.

[Ray Winstone]

Oi, referee. He just picked up the ball.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah. You were allowed to carry the ball and throw it in the goal.

[Ray Winstone]

Oi, ref. He's just punched me.

[Greg Jenner]

Yeah, that was mostly fine too.

[Ray Winstone]

Referee.

[Greg Jenner]

Oh, and there wasn't a referee.

[Ray Winstone]

What?

[Greg Jenner]

So look at me, mate. I'm just a historian. Now, this football could be really, really gruesome. In 1321, William de Spaulding accidentally stabbed his friend during a game of football and had to ask the Pope, John xxii, God's referee here on earth, to let him off. It's a bit unusual getting the Pope to referee, although it might still prove more popular than var.

[Mally Anne Rees]

And play is stopped. As we consult a variety. That's Vatican approved review. And here Comes His Holiness with the.

[Ray Winstone]

Result in nominee Spiritual Sancti of Sight.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Amen.

[Greg Jenner]

So everyone must have loved football. Right From in the 14th century, King Edward III and K. Richard II tried to ban footy, telling people they should be learning archery instead. Much handier for wars. You see, it was sort of the medieval version of your dad telling you to stop playing football in the garden and do something useful like wash his car. In the 1400s, football was banned by James I, King of Scots, stop playing football. And James ii.

[Ray Winstone]

I said, stop playing football.

[Mally Anne Rees]

James iii, please, please stop playing football.

[Greg Jenner]

And James iv, please stop playing.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Oh, what's the point?

[Greg Jenner]

But football remained popular. Shakespeare's plays referenced the game. And even Henry VIII had a pair of leather boots in his great wardrobe. You wouldn't want to be marking him.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Now, coming on, number eight, King Henry viii, King of England and defender of the faith.

[Ray Winstone]

Yeah, I'd let him score, mate.

[Greg Jenner]

Luckily, despite all these kings shouting, stop.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Having fun and come die in a.

[Greg Jenner]

Field for me, the games kept coming, like an overstuffed fixture list at Christmas. The Shrovetide game in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, still happens today. And it has goalposts which are three miles apart. Imagine the tactics.

[Mally Anne Rees]

So what do you reckon, boss? Short passing, Slow build up from the bag?

[Ray Winstone]

The goal is three miles away. We go long, strong midfield, past the bus stop, see if we can catch the 16A to get past their defence.

[Greg Jenner]

But everything changed in the 19th century with the coming of the Industrial Revolution.

[Mally Anne Rees]

All right, that's enough fun. Get to work, you lot.

[Greg Jenner]

As working class people moved to cities to work in factories, there were fewer big, rowdy festival day games. Instead, posh students in elite public schools began playing football.

[Ray Winstone]

Aha. Now it's our turn to play. What ho.

[Greg Jenner]

Football was now seen as the perfect sport for the middle and upper classes to show how strong and masculine they were.

[Mally Anne Rees]

So if you posh guys are all dead strong now, you could play against us commoners without worrying about getting hurt, Right?

[Ray Winstone]

Ah, well. Well, we'd simply love to. Yep. But we've scheduled all our games for when you have work. What a shame. What? Ho, ho. Chuff, chuff.

[Greg Jenner]

When posh people got into football, they also brought a bunch of rules with them. Gone was the free for all chaos of medieval matches, replaced by the chaos of lots of different rules from lots of different public schools.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Got a day off now can we play football?

[Ray Winstone]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But which football, though? Eton rules, you know, rugby rules, Sheffield rules. The kind where we play with big balls, small balls, open Pitch closed pitch, no pitch, pitch next to a wall. Big goals, small goals, no goals, touchdown goals.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Ah, never mind.

[Greg Jenner]

So how did we end up with everyone playing by the same rules? Well, in 1863, the Football association, the FA, was founded in England and an advert was put in a London newspaper inviting representatives from clubs and posh schools to meet and to discuss the adoption.

[Ray Winstone]

Of a general code for the rules of football.

[Greg Jenner]

Two of the main issues were around tackling and carrying the ball, and people had a lot of opinions.

[Ray Winstone]

So when a player has possession of.

[Mally Anne Rees]

The ball, but how does he have possession? Can he hold the ball with his hands by his feet? Can he catch it, rush with it? Can other players tackle him? Hack his shins go out? His eyes tickle him?

[Ray Winstone]

Oh, never mind.

[Greg Jenner]

Some schools even left in protest. And eventually a new sport splintered off called rugby. Never heard of it. The FA's founding secretary got so frustrated with everyone arguing about these rules that in 1867, he very nearly got rid of the entire FA.

[Ray Winstone]

If you lot can't play nicely together, then you're not playing at all. I will turn this Football association round and nobody will get a boo Voosella.

[Greg Jenner]

But at least as compensation, he got to have the best name ever. Ebenezer Cobb Morley.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Ebenezer, tonight you will be visited by three ghosts who will show you the true meaning of football. Turns out it's having lots of rules.

[Ray Winstone]

Oh, spirit, I shall keep properly codified football in my heart all year round. You boy. What day is it today?

[Mally Anne Rees]

Today, guv'?

[Greg Jenner]

Nor?

[Mally Anne Rees]

Why, it's Pancake Day. The best day to play Woolish 300 a side football.

[Ray Winstone]

No, this is the one thing I didn't want to happen.

[Greg Jenner]

Going into the 20th century, nothing could stop football apart from World War I. Oh, and World War II. That aside, the game flourished and evolved into the spirit sport we know today. Everyone has been encouraged to play and watch and love football as long as you're a man. Although women and girls had probably been playing footy for ages, one of the first recorded women's matches was in Inverness in Scotland in 1888, with teams divided up by marital status.

[Ray Winstone]

Welcome to the Inverness Derby with the married women versus all the single ladies and gentlemen. All the single ladies. If they want to switch teams, they're going to have to put a ring on it.

[Greg Jenner]

The British Ladies Football Club played their first game in 1895, captained by its founder, Nettie Honeyball. What a brilliant name for a footballer. That's like having a banker called Volta Moneybags. Or a Sprinter called Usain Bolt. Oh, wait. Nettie said.

[Mally Anne Rees]

I founded the association with a fixed resolve of proving to the world that women are not the ornamental and useless creatures men have pictured. My convictions are all on the side of emancipation and I look forward to the time when ladies may sit in Parliament.

[Greg Jenner]

The women's game was incredibly popular, and when the lads went off to war in 1914, many women swapped domestic housework for factory jobs. Not only were women doing different jobs, they were also being paid more and they had more time off. And what did they do with their time off?

[Ray Winstone]

Gold footy.

[Greg Jenner]

They often formed factory teams and one of the biggest teams was Dick Kerr Ladies. It was named after the tram manufacturing company where the women worked. They weren't all owned by some dodgy geezer named Dick Kerr.

[Ray Winstone]

If you're looking for lady footballers, come on down to Dick Kerr's Ladies. I'm Dick Kerr and I've got ladies, ladies, ladies, lady goalkeepers, lady fullbacks. That's Dick Kerr's Ladies. Round the back of the factory yard, Preston.

[Greg Jenner]

The star of the team was Lily Parr, a footballing superstar. Even though she didn't exactly live the healthiest lifestyle. Being a big smoker. Imagine how good a player she'd have been if she'd had healthier habits.

[Ray Winstone]

Lily, you've gone grey. Why don't you switch out cigarettes for orange slices?

[Mally Anne Rees]

I feel invincible.

[Greg Jenner]

Lily was only 14 when she started playing for Dick Kerr Ladies as their star striker. Her teammate Joan Wally said, she had.

[Mally Anne Rees]

A kick like a mule. She could nearly knock me out with a force shot.

[Greg Jenner]

There was even a story that she once kicked a ball so hard it could have broken a male goalie's arm.

[Ray Winstone]

She kicks like a mule and breaks arms like a Swan.

[Mally Anne Rees]

Ow.

[Greg Jenner]

In 1920, around 53,000 spectators came to see Lilly and her team play. And not only did the team tour Britain, they even went to America and sometimes even played against men. Lily retired in her 40s and lived to an old age with a woman named Mary. A happy ending for Lily, but a less happy time for women's football in General. Yup. In 1921, when there were 150 women's teams in the UK, the FA banned women from playing football on any FA affiliated grounds. But some women kept playing in open defiance of the ban, which was not lifted until 1970. Yeah, I know. Just imagine all the brilliant women's footballers the world missed out on because the FA was scared of a little competition. Thankfully, the women's game is back big time. I hope Lily Parr would have been proud of the likes of Mary Earpst and not tried to break her arm.

[Mally Anne Rees]

But I love breaking goalies arms.

[Greg Jenner]

Stop that Lily. Oh, and that's full time. So how much do you remember from today's speedy history lesson? Let's find out. Pencils at the ready. Question 1 Medieval folk football sometimes involved the whole town and it was usually played on which festival days?

[Mally Anne Rees]

Christmas and pancake day.

[Greg Jenner]

Question 2 which game that allows carrying the ball split from football in the late 1800s?

[Ray Winstone]

Rugby.

[Greg Jenner]

And question three who was the Dick Kerr ladies star striker in the 1920s?

[Mally Anne Rees]

Lily Parr.

[Greg Jenner]

Well done. Join us next time for another snappy history lesson. And if you're a grown up and want to learn more about the history of football, listen to our episode of youf're Dead to Me with Professor Gene Williams. Thanks for listening. Bye. This was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4 Dead Funny History was written by Jack Bernhardt, Gabby Hutchinson Crouch and Dr. Emma Nagoose. The script consultant was Professor Gene Williams. It was hosted by me, Greg Jenner and performed by Mally Anne Rees and John Luke Roberts. With the American Express Platinum card, you can access over $3,500 in annual value with benefits and eligible purchases across travel, entertainment and more. There's nothing like Platinum. Learn [e-mail] Explore Platinum Enrollment Requirements monthly and other limits in terms of play.

[Ray Winstone]

Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough.

[Greg Jenner]

And that was the first time that.

[Ray Winstone]

Anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are gonna come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.