Page 1 of 22 SCHOLARLY ARTICLES Mike Huggins is with the Charlotte Mason Learning Resource Centre, Department of Education, University of Cumbria, Ambleside, Cumbria, United Kingdom. Huggins Association Football, Betting, and 1930s British Society Association Football, Betting, and British Society in the 1930s: The Strange Case of the 1936 “Pools War” Mike Huggins University of Cumbria In the mid-1930s, British attitudes toward gambling were complex, diverse, and confused, with cash betting still largely illegal, and social reformers and nonconformist religious groups generally strongly opposed to betting in all its forms. Yet horse race betting was a newspaper staple, and throughout Britain, legal credit “football pool” betting involving small stakes was hugely popular. Put briefly, the famed 1936 “pools war,” as the press dubbed it, was an attempt by the Football League Management Committee, the regulatory body for the three divisions of the English Football League, to put the “football pools” companies (organizations that made their money from punters betting on League games) out of business or diminish their impact. As Dave Russell succinctly explains, the League was “fiercely opposed to the game’s association with any form of mass gambling” and attempted “a form of sabotage by refusing to announce the fixture list until two days before games were due to be played,” but was soon forced to back down and “chose once again to adopt a legislative route.” 1 Study of the “pools war” therefore sheds light on critical connections between football and gambling during this period. Pool betting on what the English sometimes called soccer first surfaced in more effective commercial form in the early 1920s. The pool coupons, weekly distributed in newspapers and by agents, listed the various matches to be played that Saturday. Bets were credit bets, very limited in amount, and paid the following week. Punters filled in their coupon, predicting the results of various numbers of matches, depending on the competition. Money was then “pooled” by the company and the proportion left, after profits and expenses, was shared out between the punters who had achieved the top result for a particular competition. So for a small “investment,” lucky punters could win huge “dividends.” Entries, which had to be proved to be sent before kickoff time, were usually made by post or less often via agents who walked a local route, collecting coupons and taking a percentage as a fee.