As Fleetwood beat Arsenal Eric Hobsbawm on Football Cup competitions & class
The Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote about the link between a working class identity and culture and the rise of professional football. Hobsbawm himself was certainly a football fan and was suspected of being an Arsenal fan. Unfortunately despite the author of an impressive new intellectual biography of Hobsbawm, Emile Chabal being an Arsenal fan this still not been confirmed.
In the Invention of Tradition (jointly with Terence Ranger) Hobsbawm argued that the history of football cup finals tells the historian more about the development of an urban working class culture than more conventional sources.
In the Making of the Working Class 1870-1914 (a nod and a critique of E P Thompson as Hobsbawm notes) he argues that an increasing secular tendency saw working class support for unions and the Labour Party but it was also characterised by fish and chip shops and cup finals.
On 27th October 2026 Fleetwood in Fylde beat Arsenal in the Football League Cup on penalties. A significant proportion of the inhabitants of Fleetwood were there, famous for the production of Fisherman’s Friends. There were also (Sky) 933 Arsenal fans.
A reminder that football is about more than big money and superstar players. On the night football can beat both. What Hobsbawm would made of the result as an historian may have differed from his perspective as a fan…
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