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How did football come to be the world’s favourite sport? One answer to this question lies in the late 19th century, when a few pioneers saw the potential for football to grow and to become far more popular, and when these same pioneers sought to establish a game rooted in skill rather than the physicality of rugby union.
It’s an era explored in Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes’ second new drama of the year, after ITV’s Belgravia arrived in March. At the centre of the story lie two figures from very different backgrounds. Lord Arthur Kinnaird (Edward Holcroft) played in nine FA Cup finals for amateur sides Wanderers and Old Etonians, and finished his career with five winners’ medals. Later, he was the president of the Football Association for over 30 years.
In contrast, Fergus Suter (Kevin Guthrie) was a Glasgow-born former stonemason who started his career with Partick before moving south. As a Blackburn Rovers player, he would lift the FA Cup three times and played on the losing side against Old Etonians, who had Kinnaird in their team, in 1882 – although Fellowes doesn’t stick to the historical record in this part of the drama.
Perhaps more importantly for the drama, in Fellowes’ reading of the past Suter – sometimes said to have been the first professional footballer – showed the way to the future with his playing style. This was something Kinnaird recognised far more clearly than his privileged contemporaries.
“Kinnaird sees the vision,” Fellowes has noted. “He says to his players and friends, ‘This is where the game has to go – the passing game. It’s beautiful. They need to play it, and we need to help them.’”
One irony of the drama is that it’s the upper-class characters who are most welded to playing a game that’s rough and tough. By contrast, it’s the working-class players, those playing for the teams from the Midlands and northern England that would go on to form the Football League in 1888, who pioneered passing.