This thesis is a study of the development of the management function in professional association football in England from the earliest days of codified and organised football to the present day. I have deployed the theoretical lens of figurational sociology, as formulated and described by Norbert Elias and his followers, notably Eric Dunning. This requires identification and analysis of the interdependencies and power relationships between the emergent function of football management and others forming the broader football figuration. As the game became a professional sport, the manager figure did not exist. Administrators eventually had their title changed from secretary to secretary-manager. In time this became simply ‘manager.’ The primary interdependencies were those of the manager with owners/directors and also with players. I divided the total timeframe for the function into five easily identifiable periods from the 1860s to the present time. My work, from a methodological perspective, was historical/documentary. My sources included existing socio-historical manuscripts, biographies, and autobiographies of former players, managers and directors as well as newspaper accounts and football magazines. I also carried out twelve interviews with former players and managers from the English professional game. The findings illustrate how the function developed from one with low level power chances to one in which there was substantial autonomy during a period when managers’ powers had increased relative to those with whom they shared interdependencies. More recent, wholly unplanned changes within the game led to changes in the management function, with more specific but more limited responsibilities and a loss of functions which had appeared embedded, principally control over transfer activity. In addition, I also illustrate and explain how the broader British habitus which was linked to Britain’s position in the figuration of nations, shaped and affected the management function in professional football.