A country of two halves
England’s beautiful game has gone south
IN 1888 the world’s first football league was launched in England. Half the 12 teams competing in the inaugural season came from the north and half from the midlands; none was from south of Birmingham. Long after, the sport remained “a game of industrial England”, as Roy Hattersley, a deputy leader of the Labour Party, wrote in 1990.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “A country of two halves”
From the August 13th 2016 edition
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