Football and Education: Wales - Rugby or Football?

Growing up in Wales, P.E. lessons were dominated by one sport - rugby. Gareth and I both attended the same high-school in Cardiff, and both enjoyed playing the game from time-to-time. But for us, football was always our number one. Coming from Wales, people are sometimes surprised that rugby indeed takes a back seat in our interests and that our love for football only grows stronger each day. This got us thinking, what really is the most popular sport in Wales? Our recent paper - "Football and Education: Class, Identity and the Dunce Hat", looked in depth at the role football has played in schools since the 1850s and highlighted its influence on children around Britain. The next step for us was to look deeper at the sport and its role in schools in different areas of the UK, to see if certain regions are indeed impacted heavier than others. In a land so used to rugby, how has football changed the lives of school children across Wales? Heading back to the birth of associatio