Not as much as the popular culture makes out. Association football (as opposed to folk football) was codified in English private schools such as Uppingham, and at Cambridge University. Working class people played very different forms of football at the time, including carrying the ball etc. Association football was the more genteel form of the game. It used to be the main sport at Eton College, not rugby.
Several of those games are cheaper to go and watch. In fact, it's cheaper to go to the opera or ballet than the football as someone pointed out to me, even though those have a different image. Season tickets to major clubs are extortionate. (Yes, that includes the SPL.) It isn't as working class as it makes out, other than the fact anyone can play it in the park. (But the same is true of other sports.)
Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football (which looked more like rugby) and has basically covered up its posh origins. The "football" our ancestors played seven hundred years ago has almost no resemblance to soccer.
> depending on where you are in the UK,
I specifically referred to English clubs. The fact that other home nations prefer different sports has no bearing on English culture. The fact that multiple sports are considered working class has no bearing on the fact that football is one of those sports.
> Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football
Irrelevant. My frame of reference was working class people over the last century. What Mediaeval England did was never part of my argument.
> What Mediaeval England did was never part of my argument.
Maybe not yours. But what is association football today is actually the gentrified code, which was only taken up by the working class later on. Most Working class football was rougher and more like rugby, gridiron and Gaelic, not soccer. But if you read most soccer histories, you'd think it was a smooth transition between the two.
It's used this working class status thing to put down other sports. I've seen that so many times.
Even in the early twentieth century, there were plenty of "gentleman amateur" football clubs that were part of a much older tradition.
I can tell.
> Maybe not yours.
So why do you continue to talk about it? I know the history and it’s not relevant to my argument.
> It's used this working class status thing to put down other sports.
I’m not doing that, so it’s irrelevant to this discussion.
> there were plenty of "gentleman amateur"
This is the only part that’s relevant. It’s not a rebuttal because a small number of clubs doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority were being supported as part of a working class community.
If we're talking about games out in the park, then football is "part of a working class community" that way. But most major clubs consist of eleven millionaires (plus reserves) controlled by a billionaire. Nowadays the players and the owners have little connection to whichever town they are based in. Nowadays, many of the fans of English clubs, and even the Old Firm, have never lived in (or near) the cities the clubs based in. They may have never even lived in the UK or the same continent. Man U is the most obvious example, but there are plenty of such fans of other such major teams.
Even if we go back a hundred years, the major clubs were owned by factory owners and other such types. Profit was a motive even then but not to the modern day levels where the jerseys change every other month to milk the fan base.
If you want working class football, then it's well outside the premier leagues and even first divisions. But unfortunately that's the stuff most people are interested in watching.
Anyway, I've probably written way too much on this subject. Other sports are available. Some of them are a lot more entertaining too.
I never said that.
> If we're talking about games out in the park, then football is "part of a working class community"
I never said that though it’s true, it’s not necessary for my argument.
> Even if we go back a hundred years, the major clubs were owned by factory owners and other such types.
True but irrelevant to my argument.
> If you want working class football, then it's well outside the premier leagues and even first divisions. But unfortunately that's the stuff most people are interested in watching.
Modern day Premier League attendance is a mix, depends on the club and it’s harder to assess because the class makeup of the UK has changed a lot in the past 50 years.
> Anyway, I've probably written way too much on this subject.
You have, most of it total nonsense. Best you stop before you show yourself up even more.
I know far more about the early history of association football than you do, pal. I was good friends with Professor Grant Jarvie's parents for years, before they passed away. Prof. Jarvie is the premier authority on sports history in Scotland. I learnt far more off him than I ever would off you, and we've discussed early soccer together. I've also researched some of these things personally. By research, I mean looking at original physical documents in the National Library of Scotland, not Google and Wikipedia.
If all you have to bring to the table is personal abuse, then that is on you, not me.