Metatarsals and magic sponges: English football and the development of sports medicine.

This article looks at the development of sports medicine within Britain using professional soccer as a case study. It explores the relationship between sport and medicine within wider society and argues that a cultural resistance, based on the persistence of a voluntary tradition and an amateur ethos, largely shaped the evolution of sports medicine. Footballers, however, as professional athletes, have been regarded as assets and to a certain extent their value has been reflected by the medical care they have received. The article will focus on four areas of sports medicine: football’s duty of care to its players and the welfare that clubs have provided for them; how the roles of football’s medical practitioners—doctors and trainers—have developed; how treatments for injuries have changed over time as medical knowledge improved; and finally, some ethical issues that have re- volved around the role of the football club manager.