International Football History Conference 11-13 June 2026, Fulham

International Football History Conference 2026

11 - 13 June 2026

Fulham Pier/Riverside Stand, Fulham Football Club, London

The 2026 annual International Football History Conference will take place at Fulham Pier/Riverside Stand, Fulham FC, London and will be held over two days (12 & 13 June 2026) with evening activities/social gatherings anticipated to take place on Thursday 11 (informal welcome) and Friday 12. As always, we anticipate there will be a fantastic collection of papers presented with contributions from leading academics from across the globe, including many leaders in their field, as well as early career researchers and others with a passion for football (of all codes) research.

There will be a social gathering attached to the conference on the evening of Friday 12 June held at the Barnes FC Social Club.

A provisional list of presenters and topics will be posted here soon.

The conference organisers are: Conor Murray, Max Portman, Wray Vamplew and Gary James. Gary James: 'The inaugural International Football History Conference was staged in 2017 and proved popular with leading academics, early career researchers, football historians and students. That was followed in 2018 & 2019 by further enjoyable conferences. Covid meant we had to cancel our 2020 & 2021 conferences but, in 2022 we returned with another great conference. In 2023 we took the conference to Glasgow and the historic Hampden Park Stadium, then to Cardiff City, Wales in 2024 and the National Football Stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 2025. Now, we're off to Fulham, London for what promises to be another significant conference with world leading research presented, while also providing networking opportunities, as well as the potential for collaborations.'

London has excellent international links by air to many global cities.

The main part of the conference will run from Friday morning c.08.30 and end on Saturday about 18.00.

COST OF ATTENDANCE

Note: Due to capacity limits it is suggested delegates register as early as possible

The rates are:

£139 (delegates in employment) and £129 (students/unwaged/retired delegates) plus Eventbrite fees with discounted early bird rates for those registering before 10 February 2026 (£129/£119 plus Eventbrite fees).

Since 2022 we have added a special day rate for those who can only attend on one day and we will do that again this year for those who can only attend on one day.

Delegates will need to make their own arrangements regarding accommodation & travel for the conference. If you would like some advice on where to stay please contact the organisers via [email protected]

As with previous years there will be awards in connection with papers presented. Routledge will be providing these for a daily Best Paper Award and for our inclusivity award.

Those presenting this year (some details may change):

Conor Heffernan: An English Team in Ireland? The Curious Case of the Dublin Dons

Mark O'Neill: Football Club Ownership Regulation, and to what extent it aligns with the supporter perception of good ownership?

Gráinne Daly: When the Stars of Gaelic Football Aligned on the Diamond: The Polo Ground’s hosting of the 1947 All-Ireland Football Final

Pedro Filipe Oliveira da Silva: The Estado Novo regime and the Portuguese national football team in the 1966 World Cup

Edoardo Molinelli: Footballers against Fascism: Italian Professional Players and their Role in the Resistance (1943-1945).

Cameron Huggett: Football Unites, Racism Divides: Intersections Between Fanzines and ‘Official’ Anti-Racist Campaigns at the Local and National Level, 1994-2003

Gary Winter: Picturing Football: football photographs in the collections of the Historic England Archive

Stephen Walsh: Poetry, history and football: HIGH BALL TO THE WEE MAN

Celia Valiente: Dictatorships and Women’s Football: The case of Franco’s Spain, 1939-1975

George Kioussis: A Clock, a Pocket Watch, and a Keychain: Gift-Giving among Soccer Officials

Jessica Hargreaves: How competitive balance in association football has evolved over time

Ian White: The Fulham Dream – A History of Fulham Rugby League Club

Patricia Gregory & Lori Hoey: Friends of Fulham LFC 1975-1991

Tony Shaw & Alan McDougall: Cold War Football

Jamie Banks: “Fit fans don’t abuse booze”: alcohol and the sponsorship of Scottish football, 1982-89

Kevin Neill: John Marsh, 1842-1880: Football’s Unsung Hero

Sian Allpress: Echoes of Glory: the heritage assets of Tottenham Hotspur

Franziska Blendin: Forgotten Heroines – Recovering Women’s Football Histories panel: Women’s Football in Hawaiʻi: Archival Gaps and Oral History

Sascha Düerkop: Forgotten Heroines – Recovering Women’s Football Histories panel: Jamaica: Remembered Success, Forgotten Foundations

Adam Beaumont: Forgotten Heroines – Recovering Women’s Football Histories panel: Iceland and the Visibility of Women’s Football Histories

Lorenzo Venuti, Milan Sovilj & Richard Mills: PANEL: Football as a Tool of Inter-State Affirmation in Central and South-East Europe, 1918–1948

Lorenzo Venuti, Milan Sovilj & Richard Mills: PANEL: Football as a Tool of Inter-State Affirmation in Central and South-East Europe, 1918–1948

Lorenzo Venuti, Milan Sovilj & Richard Mills: PANEL: Football as a Tool of Inter-State Affirmation in Central and South-East Europe, 1918–1948

Sami Koskelainen: HatTrick instead of Heysel: history of European men’s elite football since the 1980s from the perspective of Finland

Carolina Nascimento de Oliveira: From rags to riches: the history of football as a mirror of economic history in Portugal (1950-2005)

Julien Beaufils: “Ostalgie” Through Fanzines? Group Identity in the Post-Reunification East German Fan Scenes (1990s-2010s).

Arran Hicks: English Football Tactics, The Match of the Century and the Centre-Half Problem

Alex Jackson, Peter Watson and Richard Mills: “Mr. Storey has never been mobbed, “and I trust I never shall be.” Exploring the experiences of British Referees in South America, c.1937 to 1960

Alex Jackson, Peter Watson and Richard Mills: Violence in Valparaiso and Arguments with Audax Italiano: Football encounters involving British referees in Chile between 1950-1953

Alex Jackson, Peter Watson and Richard Mills: ‘Down with the Bloody Serbian Monarch!’ The tale of a team, a boycott, and a diaspora at the Uruguay World Cup

Chris Lepkowski: 1980s TV Deals & The Premier League

David J King: Barnes - the unheralded birthplace of Association football

Phil Martin: The initial Formation Meeting of the Football Association (FA). Forgotten for 162 years.

Stuart Gibbs: Lily Flexmore: The Story of a Show Girl

Paul McFarlane: Celebrations, Commemorations and Controversies: The 1921 Scots Soccer Tour of Canada (and the United States)

Andy Mitchell: Edinburgh’s Meadows – a crucible for football in Scotland’s capital

Kieran Manchip: Revered Rutherford, football origins and archaeological findings

Andrew Groves: Temporary Monuments: Football, Menswear Branding and the Rewriting of Working-Class Space

John Wilson, John Clarke, John Stocks & Steve Wood: A ‘Quagmire’ and ‘A loose and baggy monster’: Classifying and Chronologically Ordering Football Clubs

Roger Titford: ‘Here is the writing of the football results.’

James Reade: Who was the best? Applying the Elo rating system to English football very early days”

Max Portman: Bubbles Blown

Peter Wolstencroft with Andy Coleman: A model of excellent ownership in football

Ashley Hickson-Lovence: About / to / Fall / Apart: Fictionalising Elements of the Death of Emiliano Sala

Walter Hunt: “Budai must score!”

Interview: Mark Orton: Football and the Balkan Diaspora: How the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s continue to shape international football

Phillipp Gollner: “Cultures don’t fight wars. That’s why they’re cultures:” Ivica Osim, the last Yugoslavian

Christian SCHRÖDER: SEPARATE LEAGUES, SHARED GAME: Confessional and Migrant Football Communities in Germany and the Netherlands

Malcolm Dowden: WJT Collins 'Dromio', Welsh Rugby Historian & Journalist

Chris Lee: A Century of Football Against Fascism

Gary James: Remembering Pickles

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