Football in the First World War

Why wasn’t football banned on the home front when men were fighting and dying in France and Belgium? Did war halt the march of commercialisation in the sport? And why did the number of red cards surge between 1914 and 1918? From goal gluts to illegal player payments, Alexander Jackson tells Spencer Mizen how the First World War changed the face of English football.

Alexander Jackson is the author of Football’s Great War: Association Football on the English Home Front (Pen & Sword, 2022)