A century from now — assuming the world isn’t hit with a series of nasty EMPs that wipe out everyone’s hard drives and destroy the electronics we need to read discs and flash memory — we’ll have pristine HD video of football matches that will show people just how incredible Lionel Messi and Wayne Rooney really were. Clearly, technology has come a long way in 109 years, which is how old this footage of a Newcastle v. Liverpool match is.
This footage comes from something called the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection, which depict English life in the earliest days of film. The British Film Institute has been digitizing and uploading to YouTube, and their clips are among the oldest surviving footage of early 1900s football in England. Other clips feature a Merseyside Derby from 1902, footage of Sheffield United’s celebrity goalkeeper Fatty Foulkes, Manchester United playing its first season with that name — rather than Newton Heath, the name that’s been referenced in the supporters’ “Green & Gold” protests against Malcolm Glazer.
If these old film clips reveal anything, though, they reveal this — while video technology has changed dramatically, Association football has remained pretty constant for the last 110 years. The athletes and the tactics might be more impressive these days, but the game itself remains pretty much the same.
Rugby also hasn’t changed too much, as this Oldham v. Swinton “Northern Union” match from 1901 demonstrates. Interestingly, though, this match took place five years before rugby league’s “play-the-ball” rule was instituted, and instead of the tackled player heeling the ball back to a teammate, there was actually a scrum after every tackle. In a way, it was a bit of like American football in 1901.
I haven’t been able to find any American football videos quite as old as these, although this footage of the 1915 Rose Bowl between Washington State and Brown should give you an idea of how much different the gridiron game is compared to 95 years ago:
(Early soccer vids spotted on EPL Talk.)
1 response so far ↓
1 Blog Of Sport // Mar 25, 2010 at 10:55 am
Frankly i have to say this is a very nice post.. at least for those who are not aware of english football history can learn a lots of thing from this post obviously.
also he did a very good job by posting these old videos here. surely people will collect these stuffs.
Big hamp for the poster. Thank u