There are already several excellent books on the history of football in the United Kingdom. The Leaguers is nevertheless an extremely worthwhile addition, not least because it offers something distinctive in terms of content and approach. Matthew Taylor makes it clear that the book is not intended as a conventional social history of sport. Beginning from the “assumption that football was important in and of itself” (xiv), his approach focuses on a specific institution, the Football League, and on its role in developing the football industry. It is perhaps surprising that this is the first book to concentrate on the Football League, an institution that at that time (pre–Second World War) was effectively professional football's governing body. This omission allows Taylor to provide an absorbing insight into its key role in developing the cultural phenomenon that football was and remains today.
The content is wide ranging, with individual chapters focusing on key themes, including the League's internal structure and politics; relationships among the League, its member clubs, and the players; relationships with football supporters and the wider public; competitive balance; and redistribution of income. It is instructive to observe that so many of the issues identified by Taylor as being crucial to the development and structure of football at that time continue to be so important today, for example, the distribution of revenue between clubs, labor relations, and the relationship between British football and European football. Yet another is League membership and franchising, an issue revisited by the Football League amid much acrimony in 2001 when it rejected Wimbledon's proposal to relocate sixty miles to the city of Milton Keynes, a new city with a growing population and no professional football club—a decision later overturned by a Football Association commission. Interestingly, in view of the League's decision in the Wimbledon case, Taylor observes that in those early days there was already evidence of an informal franchising system in the League, with clubs with greater economic strength and potential, reflecting things like population and transport infrastructure, being much more likely to gain membership from the League. The allegation that money drives football is far from new.
At a time when the Scottish and Welsh Football Associations have rejected the participation of their players in a United Kingdom team when London hosts the Olympics in 2012, and when there is regular talk of Scottish clubs participating in league football in England, the discussion on that concept of British football is interesting. From its formation the Football Association regarded itself as more than an English national body. Also the League's founder, the Scot William McGregor, apparently envisaged the possibility of Scottish and Welsh clubs playing in the Football League, his ostensibly Anglocentric title in fact reflecting his hope that in future Scottish and also Welsh clubs would be admitted as members.
One of the most interesting sections of the book is that on employment conditions and labor relations. While not denying the League's regulations could be very oppressive for players, Taylor steers clear of the emotive master-servant relationship often portrayed previously, instead choosing to analyze the operation of the labor market in a broader context reflecting the complex and multilayered environment inhabited by players, clubs, directors, and the League. Notwithstanding this broader context, evidence of the weakness of some players’ position is provided, most notably with regard to the power given to clubs to terminate any player's contract with fourteen days notice where a player proves “palpably inefficient” (96). Not only was this potentially a catch-all clause that could cover any reason why a club might wish to rid itself of a player, the unfairness was then compounded by an appeals process weighted heavily against a player: while a club could draw on any number of witnesses to justify its decision, a player was allowed no legal representation. It is no surprise that the accusation of “palpable inefficiency” marked the end of several players’ careers. What is surprising is the evidence presented, which shows that those few players who did choose to appeal against the termination of their contracts to the League's Management Committee were often successful: over the period 1912–32, sixteen players had their appeals sustained, while only thirteen had their appeals dismissed. That said, as Taylor notes, “it is unclear what future prospects, if any, a player had in League football in those circumstances” (97). Other players were more fortunate. There is a revealing discussion of the opportunities that players had to make money beyond the contractual terms agreed with their club. The discussion on additional income that star players like Dixie Dean, Billy Meredith, and Jimmy Guthrie could earn either through “under-the-counter” payments or the advertisement and endorsement of goods is all the more intriguing in the context of the current interest of the UK tax authorities in both the payment schemes employed by clubs like Arsenal to mitigate players’ tax bills and the use of companies to manage players’ image rights and avoid taxation.
The book is extremely well researched, making extensive use of archival materials, and is well written. It will be of interest and of use to academics studying sport from historical, social, and economic perspectives. But more than that, The Leaguers will be greatly informative to football supporters who seek to understand the foundations upon which organized football is played in England today.
