1883 Cup Final: 'Patricians' v 'Plebians'
Until 1883, the Football Association Cup was won every year by former public schoolboys. As Christopher Andrew shows here, at the Cup Final that May, a working-class team from Lancashire snatched the honours from the Old Etonians.
Of all popular movements in modern history, the most popular is surely football. The game which has swept across the globe in this unprecedented way is a British invention, an improbable by-product of the early Victorian reform of the public schools.
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