Football Blog
History Worth Saving?
It’s sometimes said that people who take an obsessive interest in something show signs of having had a mis-spent youth. Perhaps if you’re reading this, and take an interest in both this site and the Facebook offering at
https://www.facebook.com/WVintageColours/, you might quietly recognise yourself in that suggestion.
On Planet Earth, the four biggest things are arguably politics, family, music, and football. Given that the latter was codified and exported around the world by the British, it’s hardly surprising that here in the UK some of us are obsessed not only with the game itself, but with its roots.
Both this site and the Facebook page are slightly off-beat in one important respect: they take absolutely no interest in football after about 1939. The Second World War curtailed the vast majority of organised football, and perhaps in reaction to the First World War — when football had continued more or less throughout the conflict — the game was brought to a halt. In many ways, that feels like a natural full stop. What followed was a different world, socially and culturally, and eventually a very different game.
What fascinates me is everything before that point — the formative years, when football was still finding its identity.
It’s been discussed on the Facebook page that much of what happened in the early decades of the codified game — particularly from the 1870s through to the 1890s — is still open to debate. That’s why arguments about things like Newton Heath’s colours often miss the point. I can’t see how anyone can be absolutely certain that Newton Heath didn’t play in gold and green halved shirts when, quite simply, no one living was there.
The uncomfortable truth is that we cannot be completely sure about many aspects of football’s earliest years. Much wasn’t documented, much was lost, and what survives is often fragmentary. But uncertainty doesn’t make history worthless — it makes it human.
The Scottish Club Colours series, in particular, revealed an embryonic game keen to make its mark. It did so with flamboyant strips, experimental designs, and a sense of visual identity that feels almost alien when compared with the standardised kits of the modern era. These were clubs and players announcing themselves, not brands refining themselves.
That is what I’ve been keen to put back in front of people: not a re-imagined past, but a re-introduced one.
Modern football culture, however, has largely made up its mind about what matters. The “best England team ever”, the “greatest players of all time”, the “golden eras” — almost without exception — are drawn from within the last thirty years. From the television age. From what we have personally seen, recorded in high definition, endlessly replayed, ranked, debated, and monetised.
And perhaps that’s understandable. We value what we witness. Memory feels more real than history.
But just because we didn’t see something does not absolve us from at least glancing at it. The absence of television footage does not mean the absence of quality, importance, or meaning. Football did not begin when Sky Sports arrived, nor did greatness suddenly appear in colour and slow motion.
The men who shaped the game’s tactics, positions, rules, culture, and communities did so without sponsorship deals, without global audiences, and often without even certainty that the clubs they played for would still exist a decade later. Many of them are now reduced to names in ledgers, grainy photographs — or worse — forgotten entirely.
So the question isn’t whether modern football is better or worse.
The question is this: is football history worth saving at all?
If the answer is no — if only what we personally witnessed has value — then these stories, colours, faces, and clubs can quietly disappear. They will not be missed by an algorithm.
But if the answer is yes, then preservation matters. And preservation doesn’t begin with museums or governing bodies. It begins with curiosity. With a willingness to accept uncertainty. With an interest in what came before the game became a product.
Saving football history doesn’t mean pretending the past was perfect. It means recognising that the modern game rests on foundations laid by people who deserve to be seen again — even briefly, even imperfectly.
This project exists to ask that question, and to offer more than one possible answer.
Because history only survives if someone decides it is worth the effort.