A crucible of modern sport: the early development of football in Sheffield: by Graham Curry, New York, Nova, 2018, xxv + 236 pp., $195.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-53613-090-4.

Over the past three decades the so-called "origins of football debate" has dominated the discourse for those of us that have been examining the historiography of football in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. History is very rarely clear-cut, linear or precise and, although modern society has developed a seeming obsession with understanding origins and beginnings, uncovering the specific moment in time that a sporting pursuit was created is a near-impossible task. [Extracted from the article]