In A Class of Their Own: A History of English Amateur Football

Amateur football in England, far from being the pristine recreation that traditionalists portrayed, was beset by divisions, tensions and contradictions during its nine decades of existence. This detailed survey of the amateur game explores the initial glories of the gentleman amateur who codified and controlled the game of football, the rise of pragmatic amateurism and the height of amateur football which saw crowds of 100,000 at the FA Amateur Cup Final, to the sudden abandonment of amateurism as an outdated concept. From the Wanderers to Bishop's Stortford, this is the definitive history of amateur football in England.