‘The Most Famous Amateur Football Club in the World’: Creating and Curating the Corinthian Brand

Corinthian FC (1882–1938) was one of the world's most famous football clubs, despite never winning a league championship or a cup competition. At a time when association football, especially in Britain, was establishing itself as a form of commercialised entertainment with clubs organised as businesses and employing working-class professionals, the Corinthians became the principal standard-bearers for gentlemanly amateurism, effectively creating and curating a niche brand which had middle-class appeal and proved remarkably resilient. Pursuing this analogy focuses attention on the core values with which the club was associated and the strategies pursued to protect the brand it had created. This article seeks to explain the appeal of this elite touring club in England and also overseas, where it focuses especially on its visits to South Africa in 1897, 1903 and 1907.