Steve Bailey: Science in the Service of Physical Education and Sport: The Story of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education, 1956-1996, Chichester, England, John Wiley & Sons, 1996, pp. xvii+342, £60, ISBN 0-471-96924-9
Steve Bailey, Director of Physical Education at Winchester College in the United Kingdom and a sport historian, was invited in 1994 to produce a history of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE). Bailey was introduced to the Executive Board and General Assembly and worked diligently through March 1996 to complete the manuscript before the Pre-Olympic Scientific Congress in Dallas, Texas. Financial support for the project was provided by former Council Vice President, Tetsuo Meshizuka. During his research and writing, Bailey worked closely with John Coghlan, Chairman of the ICSSPE Editorial Board.
Currently, ICSSPE is a major promoter of research and communications relating to sport science and physical education throughout the world. An `organization of organizations,' ICSSPE is composed of almost 200 organizations and institutions of research and higher education that have both governmental and non-governmental affiliation. The Council has accepted financial support from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and has the primary goal of encouraging international cooperation in sport science regardless of ideology or background. Accordingly, ICSSPE acts as an `umbrella' organization with Vice Presidents representing `Sport Sciences,' `Physical Education and Sport,' and `Scientific Services.' It facilitates research, publications, conferences, and awards through an extensive group of committees and associated international organizations. Some of these include the : International Committee for Sport Pedagogy (ICSP); International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA); International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry (ISAK); World Commission on Sport Biomechanics (WCSB); International Research Group on Biochemistry of Exercise (IWGBE); International Federation on Adapted Physical Activity (IFAPA); and, International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport (ISHPES). ICSSPE publications such as the Bulletin, Sport Science Review, Sport Science Studies, and Technical Studies, are also crucial in fulfilling its mandate.
Early interest in establishing a global coordinating body for sport and physical education began at the World Congress of Physical Education in Melbourne in 1956 when a Provisional Committee was set up. Several meetings followed and the first Statutes of the International Council of Sport and Physical Education (ICSPE) were agreed upon in Paris in 1958. While this was clearly the beginning of the Council, its formal foundation did not occur until the Statutes had been amended and adopted by the first General Assembly in 1960 in Rome. Shortly thereafter, UNESCO, the central supporter of ICSPE at the time, issued a press release announcing the formation of the ICSPE. Membership was opened from 1960 on and in 1982, the Council chose to include `Sport Science' rather than just `Sport' in its official title, thus becoming ICSSPE in 1983. Some of the individuals most responsible for the inception of ICSPE were: Fritz Duras (Australia); Carl Diem (West Germany); Ernst Jokl (USA); David Munrow (United Kingdom); Dorothy Ainsworth (USA); Philip Smithells ( New Zealand); Candido Bartolomé (Philippines); T.K. Cureton (USA); Ferenc Hepp (Hungary); Barbara Dodds (Kenya); Inutaka (Japan); and, Major (United Kingdom). Joining this group were: Renato William Jones, director of UNESCO's Youth Institute at Gauting, Munich; Martti Karvonen (Finland); René Bazennerye (France); Marie-Therèse Eyguem (France); Antonio d'Oliveira (Portugal); Diederich Schmull (Netherlands); and, Hossain Banai (Iraq).
Bailey begins the book with a succinct and very helpful introduction to ICSSPE. The second chapter which describes the evolution of other international organizations in physical education and sport is important and necessary to place ICSSPE in the proper world-wide context. Here, Bailey attempts to answer `why was it not until the 1950's that the climate was suitable for the establishment of a sustainable international organization such as ICSPE?' (p.7) This is followed by Bailey's detailed analysis of the events that finally led to the formal establishment of ICSPE form 1956 to 1960. The remainder of the book is devoted to a chronologically organized examination of the ICSSPEits organizational structure, contributions, key figures, and officers. Based upon the terms of each PresidentPhilip Noel-Baker, 1960-1976; Roger Bannister, 1976-1982; August Kirsch, 1983-1990; and, Paavo Komi, 1990-1996these chapters are extensive, well documented, and have numerous subsections. The book concludes with a contemporary look at ICSSPE `at the crossroads of science, education and sport.' Here, Bailey concludes that its `umbrella' function `is now needed more than ever, especially once the specialized research activities have been dispersed to the most appropriate expert groups.' He also writes that `there is no other international meeting place for all aspects of sport science to benefit form the diversity of membership and experience,' and that ICSSPE's ability `to act as a forum for interchange and multi-disciplinary stimulation is what makes it crucial.' (p.312)
Bailey does a thorough job reconstructing events from Minutes of meetings, correspondence, and secondary sources. He received exceptionably good cooperation from past and present members of ICSSPE, but had total and full editorial authority to write the history as he saw it. As is the case for most institutional or organizational histories, authors must constantly "walk a tightrope" and attempt to present information as honestly as possible without unjust criticism of key individuals. In this regard, Bailey succeeds admirably. His writing style is as lively as possible given his task and content. The text is aided by a good selection of photographs, an index (although several names are missing and others appear on more pages than listed), notes, bibliography, several appendices, a list of acronyms (which is crucial to following the history of ICSSPE), and well written introductions and conclusions to each chapter.
Particularly important is that Bailey's history of the founding, development, and contributions of ICSSPE provide yet another part of the story of how sport and exercise science grew and prospered during the twentieth century. My own recent book, Out of Many, One: A History of the American College of Sports Medicine (Human Kinetics, 1995) and The History of Exercise and Sport Science, edited by John Massengale and Richard Swanson (Human Kinetics, 1997), shed additional light on the topic. When Sport and Exercise Science: Essays in the History of Sports Medicine, edited by myself and Roberta Park (University of Illinois Press, 1992) is also taken into consideration, Bailey's contributions of international developments help bring us closer to an overall understanding of the history of sport science throughout the world.
Jack W. Berryman
University of Washington
John Bale: Landscapes in Modern Sport, Leicester University Press, 1994, pp. xiv + 211, £35/£14.99 (paperback), ISBN 0 7185 1464 5
In 1994, as an Australian academic briefly attached to De Montfort University, I was fortunate enough to hear John Bale deliver a paper on `Topophilia (literally, love of place) and Sport'. The thesis that Bale developed summarised his considerable work in the cultural geography of sport and is expanded upon in chapter 6 of Landscapes in Modern Sport. Sustained by nostalgia and personal memories, by smell, sound and other tactile qualities topophilia and a sense of place are integral to the sporting experience.
I was impressed by Bale's paper. Moreover, at that time the board of the North Sydney Rugby League Football Club was considering moving from their traditional home ground at North Sydney Oval, a venue the club had occupied since 1910. As the Bears' official historian I dashed off a position paper to the club's board of directors on `topophilia' and why moving was a bad idea. Perhaps because the North Sydney Bears' board does not contain anyone of the intellectual acumen of a certain Wigan bookmaker, my paper apparently received sympathetic consideration. North Sydney stayed put amidst the wonderful Port Jackson fig trees of St Leonards Park. It could be that John Bale has more than one antipodean fan.
Landscapes of Modern Sport is an impressive if sometimes pedantic book which brings together much of Bale's extensive writing in this area. Seeking to `provide a broad and interpretive study of the sports landscape' Bale employs a interdisciplinary perspective uniting sports studies and cultural geography. nis `basic thesis is that sports have emerged as highly rationalised forms of modernity which, as much as much as (and arguably more than) any other form of culture, possess the potential to eliminate regional difference as a result of their rule-bound, ordered, enclosed and predictably segmented forms of landscape'. (p. 2). The book's chapters deal with the antecedents of sports landscapes, the impact of artifice and geometry, sport's conquest of nature, `placelessness', topophilia and topophobia, sporns landscape icons as myth and finally postmodernist speculation about the landscapes of `post sport'.
All chapters may be read, as Bale advises, in any order. Sometimes this is a liability for it hinders the development of a coherent argument. Despite his protestations (p. 121), the representation of sports stadiums in chapter 4 as `prison-like' sits uneasily with the topophilic attachments documented in chapter 6. The more theoretical chapters [like chapter 4 which unsurprisingly draws heavily on that out-of-form Parisian scrum half Mick Foucault] are less impressive than others where Bale allows his enthusiasm for sport and not semiotics to shine through. That Pinochet used the Santiago sports stadium to confine dissenters in 1973, or that the Vichy government employed the Paris Cycling Stadium to incarcerate 13000 Jews in 1942 says as much about the manifestly practical attractions of large sporting stadiums for such appalling purposes, as it does about Foucault's ramblings about `enclosed, segmented space'.
John Bale is capable of writing with great elegance and flair but because he chooses to immerse his prose in the gobbledygook of cultural studies, he also produces ponderous sentences like: `Non-sportised configurations of body culture do not require spatial specificity'. (p. 69) As with Foucalt on stadiums, there is no particular need to use Roland Barthes to describe a rather obvious point about the importance of imagery of cricket in promoting `Englishness and Southernness', as well a nostalgic representation of `Merrie England' before `muggings, the urban underclass, shopping malls and high rise blocks'. (p. 163)
In short, it seems at times that the potential of Landscapes of Modern Sport is threatened by too much theory. Rather than assisting, it obscures meaning. Yet, despite Bale's dogged theoreticism, many fascinating pieces of empirical detail survive. These include F.W. Taylor's interest in sport and the consequent rise of scientific management practices in organised sport, as well as the point that the concrete car-racing track was the protoype of the autobahn (p.68). Elsewhere, Bale makes it quite clear that he dislikes car racing. It is certainly true that Hitler bankrolled the Mercedes and Auto Union Formula 1 campaigns of the late 1930s for ideological purposes. This is well documented elsewhere. In Australia, however, golf, which Bale admires, was the more natural habitat of 1930s fascists if only because the elite membership of golf clubs and the wide open spaces of golf courses allowed Australian storm troopers to practice their training and drilling in secret.
In the final analysis the lived experience of this particular sports fan does not support Bale's general thesis that `placelessness', together with the homogeneity and sterility of modern sporting stadiums is breaking down regionalism and a sense of place. Sydney's two modern football stadiums - the SFS and Parramatta Stadium - are chalk and cheese, if only because the former is well designed to give patrons an excellent view of the game and the latter is not. Without doubt, the worst football ground in the whole of England is Don Valley in Sheffield. Yet it is a disaster not because of its insistence on `segmentation' and pervasive modernity, but because it combines other sporting and entertainment uses, a cycling and/or athletic track, with football. The result is that the game takes place on a pitch several hundred yards away from the grandstands. The immediacy of the spectacle, so attractive at wonderful grounds like Knowsley Road, or Central Park, is lost.
Sometimes it is unclear whether Bale approves of sport's modernisation, sentimentalises the sports landscapes of the pre-industrial era, or like many cultural studies scholars, suggests that we all have to go along with Rupert Murdoch and his kind, because in the final analysis they are going to win anyway. I think that Geoffrey Moorhouse is closer to the mark about the emotional significance some fans may invest in a sports ground when he argues, in Trevor Delaney's The Grounds of Rugby League (privately published, Keighley, l991):
...for many of us [Rugby League] fans (the ground) is probably the most familiar place in our world outside of our own home. We have usually come to it as children, we have grown up in it, we have experienced some of our most uplifting moments and our deepest depressions in it, and eventually we take our children there and pass it on to them for safekeeping and for their own stability in the years to come. The home team's ground...is part of our continuity as human beings, keeping us in touch with both our past and our future, while reassuring us immensely about our Present.
It is a refreshing fact about sports fans that so many of us continue to feel this way. Long live topophilia!
Andrew Moore
Department of Humanities
University of Western Sydney, Macarthur
John Bale and Joe Sang: Kenyan Running: Movement Culture, Geography and Global Change, London, Frank Cass & Co, 1996, pp.xvi + 209, £29. 50 ISBN 807146849, £13. 50 ISBN 0714642185 (paperback)
How are we to explain the seemingly phenomenal success of East African athletes in the sport of track and field? One approach, advocated by Roger Bannister, former mile world record holder and currently a consultant neurologist, is to explain such success in biological terms. During 1996, in a series of speculative statements, not grounded in any `scientific' facts, Bannister highlighted the importance of `race' in determining the success of East African athletes. On reading Kenyan Running, it is clear that, on this occasion, Bannister is firmly on the wrong track.
John Bale and Joe Sang have produced an excellent account of the emergence and development of Kenyan athletics. This carefully crafted text demonstrates, time and again, the socio - cultural determinants of sporting success. In offering a cogent, social scientifically based account, Bale and Sang provide a clear riposte to advocates of biological determinism. In particular, in chapter six, the environmental and racial myths associated with `Kenyan' success are carefully dissected. Besides, who are these `Kenyan' men who succeed in specific athletic events? This book provides the answers. The debunking of biological determinism is an important achievement in itself. This book, however, does more than this. It has several other virtues.
In Kenyan Running we see not only the theoretical advocacy, but also the empirical demonstration, of an approach to the study of sport that draws on geography, history and sociology. While I would have liked the authors to have been even more explicit in this regard, the book provides a very good example of the potential stemming from a blending of different disciplines. No doubt, advocates of these disciplines would have liked to have seen more of `their' knowledge base in the book, but what has been produced provides an important pointer to what inter - or multi - disciplinary research can achieve.
Bale and Sang also provide a detailed account of a century of Kenyan involvement in modern athletics and, in doing so, assess the role of tribal traditions, colonial heritage and `development' processes. In these areas they provide a solid account of the actual dynamics involved. Drawing on traditional geographical methods, but also in keeping with new geographical directions, the authors provide a series of astute historical geographical insights. They are not content, however, to explain the `success' of Kenyan athletics solely in terms of `internal' developments. The authors show how such processes have to be explained in terms of the globalization of sport.
This connection between Kenyan athletics and the global sport system is another virtue of this book. For them, the emergence of Kenyan athletics is bound up with the globalization of sport. Drawing on Wallerstein's World System theory, Bale and Sang interpret Kenyan athletics in terms of a process of `underdevelopment'. Far from western coaches and sporting aid assisting Kenyan athletics uniformily, these authors argue that aspects of the sport have been, wittingly or otherwise, `underdeveloped'. For example, and in very concrete terms, Kenyan field athletic performance has declined over time. In contrast, through a combination of `channelling', self selection and role modelling, some Kenyan men excel at middle and long distance racing. This very success, however, leads to a dependent form of development. The `natural' resources of Kenya are drawn away from the periphery to the core. In sporting terms, the core involves American colleges and the European Grand Prix circuit. Bale and Sang rightly point to the costs, as well as the well publicised `benefits', of these processes.
The debate regarding sport and globalization is complex. The Wallerstein model has been rightly criticised by Robertson and Featherstone in the mainstream literature. It is no surprise then that reservations can also expressed in the context of the study of sport. The role of cultural relations, civilizational exchanges and lived experiences do not occupy a central place in the model. To be fair, Bale and Sang are keen to address aspects of these issues. Perhaps, however, in their conclusion to a fine book, they should have shown how their approach fits in as part of the debate about sport and the global system more generally. In addition, it would have been helpful to have returned to the theme of debunking the myths and biological determinism that underpins much of the media reporting, coaching beliefs and sport science assumptions concerning Kenyan athletic success. These are, however, minor quibbles. This is a book that can rightfully claim to be both imaginative and path - breaking.
Joseph Maguire
Loughborough University
Hilary McD Beckles and Brian Stoddart (eds): Liberation Cricket - West Indies Cricket Culture, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp. xii + 403, £45, ISBN 0-7190-4314-X
I don`t know how much space will be afforded to the following events by a sports historian of the future when looking at West Indian cricket during 1995 and 1996 - the team`s erratic performance in the Wills World Cup, their embarassing defeat against Kenya, their remarkable collapse in the semi-final with Australia, and the retirement from international cricket of captain Richie Richardson, to say nothing of Brian Lara`s absence from the tour to Australia and allegations of deep discontent and personality clashes within the West Indian camp during their English tour. Events which are in such marked contrast to the success of recent years, as the West Indies, under the captaincy of Clive Lloyd and Viv Richards, won a string of Test rubbers and one day titles.
But now in the `Lara era` of West Indian cricket, the focus of attention has been clearly on individual, rather than collective success, as the Caribbean team have slipped from top spot in Test rankings. But this is not the first time, or probably the last, that disputes have bubbled to the surface, and the events of the past twelve months or so are certainly a microcosm of the struggles, conflicts, feelings of injustice and inter-island politics which have been part and parcel of West Indian cricket.
Indeed, these are the central themes of this excellent book which powerfully provides a historiographical framework for the students on the inaugural course on the island`s cricket history at the University of the West Indies. Published to coincide with the University`s ground-breaking decision to run this course, this well balanced collection of papers and essays will also provide food for thought for students elsewhere with a keen interest in the history, ideology, sociology and politics of the West Indies.
The aim of the book is to also trace the events which led to the West Indies becoming the most feared team in world cricket, with a series of graceful, flamboyant and savage batsmen , cunning and wily spinners and, in more recent times, an awesome quartet of pace bowlers. But this is not a re-working of Manley's (1988) detailed history, and rather than glorifying the deeds of the three W's, Ramadhin and Valentine, or Roberts, Holding, Croft and Garner, the book pursues C.L.R. James' argument that cricket represented the most sophisticated and sensitive cultural lens through which the sociological development of the West Indies can be viewed from the Emancipation era of the 1830's to Independence during the 1950's.
The editors pay handsome tribute to James' belief, and with the articulate help of leading academics, both inside and outside the Caribbean, the book centres on the paradigm that cricket strengthened the reproductive capacity of a coloured mentality or has been an ideological tool of creole nationalism and a vehicle for anti-colonial feelings. At the same time, they argue that West Indian cricket, for so long a means of bringing together these geographically and politically diverse islands, also reflects a variety of deep cultural conflicts and ideological disputes over race and class, as well as fluctuating feelings of unity or conflicts between the islands.
Many of the articles revolve around what Beckles and Stoddart believe is the central ideological pulse of West Indian cricket culture - "what did the imported/imposed Victorian cricket ethic do to or for West Indians - white and black, and what in turn did these ethnic groups do to or for it." As Cashman (1988) observed, the analysis of sporting diffusion under colonial domestication is a relatively new arena for sports historians. Most of the traditional English theories about cricket`s evolution, especially on the village green, paint a picture of a host population, divided by differences in status, but mainly pulling together with common or shared values, often under a philanthropic or religious leader. In Part One, entitled "Colonialism and Cultural Imperialism", the book shows how a level playing field never existed in the Caribbean, and that cricket in white and black communities developed separately and all within a cultural framework that reinforced the elite position of the white, planter-merchants.
With the help of the perceptive pen of Keith Sandiford, the crux of the dualist argument that Beckles and Stoddart present is that cricket was a vehicle of colonial oppression, with the elite colonial community viewing the game as a zone of exclusive cultural activity, consistent with their aspirations and outlook. In contrast, the blacks and coloureds saw the cricket field as a space upon which they could slowly encroach and promote their quest for democratic revolution, set in motion by the anti-slavery legislation.
This theme is then developed in Part Two - "Creolisation, ideology and popular culture"- which shows how the game was politicised and ritualised within the framework of a more radical, anti-colonial tradition, allowing the emergence of afro-cultural expressions, and a means whereby diverse groups such as Bajans and Jamaicans, to name but two, could each establish their niche within a format of non-protest and sporting order. Attention is also paid, in keeping with the James philosophy, to beyond the boundary and the carnivalisation of crowd responses and the appearances of characters such as King Dyal, who receive almost patronising attention from some commentators on Test Match Special.
Maurice St.Pierre, in an excellent socio-historical analysis, highlights how the way the game is played in the Caribbean has also been re-shaped in sympathy with the experiences of its practioners. He concludes that "this deviation from the way the game is played in England, not only tends to belie the meaningfulness of the saying "it's not cricket" as far as West Indians are concerned, but also suggests the extent to which cricket, like other facets of the West Indian situation, reflects the impact of this duality of cultural influences."
In Part Three, there is a sensitive exploration of the mechanisms of race and gender relations within the Caribbean, with Hubert Devonish making a thorough analysis of African and Indian consciouness. Hilary Beckles adds an important essay looking at the rise of women's cricket (an area often ignored when studying the spread of cricket) and in so doing some interesting comparisons are drawn with trends within the men`s game. The basis of the articles in Part Four is that cricket, especially on the smaller islands, was the popular forum for uniting the human resources of the Caribbean. The highlight of this section is to read again James` (1963) "Proof of the Pudding" essay, and his eloquent analysis of the rise of Frank Worrell in 1958/59 as the first coloured player to regularly captain the West Indies.
Indeed, it is in James' honour that the final section of the book - "Philosophy, art and literature" - is dedicated, with some handsome tributes being paid to James for intellectualising popular culture. At a time when so much is written, or spoken, worldwide about sport and sports history, it is gratifying to read Brian Stoddart's closing paper and praise of "Beyond a Boundary"- "if a reading of his now ageing but timeless classic on Caribbean cricket could convince a few readers that it is possible to convey complex ideas in an elegant style based on a rich multidisciplinary background rather than through convoluted jargon grounded in one-dimensional viewpoints, then so much the better."
This is a pioneering volume which will stimulate further research on the impact of the colonial domestication of cricket, as well as other sports, and the important differences with existing Anglo-Australian, and even American, models of sporting ( and spatial ) diffusion. It could also lead to comparative studies in other nations, such as South Africa where sporting excellence and hegemony in the post-Apartheid era now symbolises the emergence of Mandela`s nation after years of isolation and segregation. If such work is undertaken, I hope the researchers do heed Stoddart`s plea and read a little James beforehand!
Andrew Hignell
Wells, Somerset
Brian Brivati, Julia Buxton and Anthony Seldon (eds.): The Contemporary History Handbook (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 488, £60, ISBN 0-7190-4835-4
In reviewing a large volume of diverse articles such as this, one can only provide a general overview of the publication as a whole, despite the fact that each article reflects considerable research and as such deserves individual attention. Limited space also necessitates that I must be largely descriptive rather than analytical of the content. To go into too much detail about any one of the chapters or take one particular author to task would prevent a balanced review, despite the fact that virtually all of the articles raise interesting, thought provoking and sometimes highly contentious points of view. To do justice to them all would take up at least the equivalent to one normal issue of The Sports Historian.
Since an excellent synopsis of the forty one essays is provided in the Introduction by Brian Brivati, I have reiterated many of his words in the next few paragraphs below. I hope this is acceptable.
The Contemporary History Handbook is divided into three parts: debates, international perspectives and sources. The third section is in turn divided into general archives and debates, printed sources, oral/audio sources, visual sources and electronic sources.
Part One opens with the text of a lecture delivered by Eric Hobsbawn in 1993 which considers the role of the historian amidst the rebirth of European War and the renewal of nationalism. John Erickson's essay on world security sketches the shape of some of the on-going strategic problems provoked by nuclear proliferation. Richard Cockett in his essay `end of history', and Joe Bailey in his `post modernism and post-modernity' consider the responses and disputes surrounding the cold war. Other chapters include Shamit Saggar's `Whose history? - national narratives in multiracial societies', Andrew Graham's `Debates in contemporary political economy' and Lucy Noakes `Sexing the archive', which raises the gender issue. The final two chapters are on `Citizenship and the European Union' by Elizabeth Meehan and the writing of contemporary British political history by Brian Brivati.
International perspectives are considered in Part II in essays by Michael Twaddle on `The European scramble from Africa', Karen Wells on Ethiopia, George Philip on Latin America. Ian Neary looks at `Japan and the Pacific', Chris Hughes on `China', Philip Boobbyer on the last ten years in Russian and the Soviet Union. Julia Buxton examines the liberalization of Eastern Europe, Gerard Alexander looks at contemporary conservatism in the United States. Tom Nossiter has a chapter on India and John Young completes the section with a historiographical examination of Britain and `Europe'. There is an appendix to the international section which lists (albeit very scantily) biographical sources for Africa, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe and China.
The third section is the only one on which I feel reasonably qualified to pass informed judgement.
Rather than comprehensively listing guides and bibliographies related to specific sources, as I have done in my own guide to historical sources for Sport (History of Sport: A Guide to the Literature and Sources of Information, 1994), the emphasis in this Handbook has been to discuss the nature, validity and reliability of individual sources, pointing out peculiarities in using this source, precautionary measures and modes of interpretation. Each chapter contains footnotes, a list of further readings and the addresses (including telephone numbers) of archive holdings.
The first section of Part III deals with archival sources and policy issues with chapters by Angela Raspin on Private Papers, Dermot Englefield on Parliamentary Sources, Bradley Smith on National Archives in the United States. Nicholas Cox discusses the public records as part of the National British archive. Antony Gorst and Brian Brivati discuss the Waldegrave initiative on Public Record Office releases. Philip Taylor makes a case for preserving our contemporary communications heritage.
These are followed by chapters on `Using contemporary written sources' (using three case studies) by Brian Brivati, on the press by Chandrika Kaul, books and journals by Michael Kandiah and survey and opinion polls by Tom Nossiter. Oral and audio sources are discussed by Michael Roper, Anthony Seldon and Siân Nicholas. The section on visual sources include chapters on photography by Brian Harrison, film by Jeffrey Richards, television by Margaret Scammell and newsreels by Howard Smith.
The final part pays attention to electronic sources. Rather than going into any detail on sources themselves they are discussed in policy terms by Seamus Ross, Edward Higgs, Lorna Hughes and Brian Brivati. If asked which section, if any, provided a weak link then I feel it would have to be this one. Even by the time this publication was drafted there was much useful information accessible via the Internet or available in machine readable form which is not mentioned. The MIDAS project which makes census data readily accessible, the ESRC data archive, IHR-Info, etc are not even mentioned.
Overall, the balance and choice of what is included is sensible. The reader is stimulated by a series of excellent historiographical essays which identify key issues and the state our thinking on them in contemporary society, not only in and on Britain and Europe but also the rest of the world. He is then introduced to a wide and diverse range of source materials up to and including modern forms of electronic communications and informed of problems associated with their use. At the end of all this, there should be few historians (regardless of their previous activities) not left with burning ambitions to get out into the field to pursue important lines of enquiry in an informed and skilful manner.
I firmly believe that despite its price tag, this book represents excellent value for money and is a must for all historians of the contemporary world. I personally would rather have this compact volume on my library shelves than 100 books on more of specific historical themes or topics. It represents an excellent model for a proposal I put to the North American Society of Sports History last year to mount a sports historian's handbook on the World Wide Web. Hopefully, before too long we will have something complementary to this volume with historiographical chapters specifically written for the sports historian.
Richard William Cox
UMIST
John E. Findling and Kimberley D. Pelle (eds.): Historical Dictionary of the Modern Olympic Movement (London: Greenwood Press, 1996), pp. 500, £63.50, ISBN 0-313-28477-6
We are now used to a multitude of new publications on the Olympic Games appearing every four years. 1996 has spawned even more than usual as we celebrated 100 years since the first of the modern Olympic Games. So what, if anything, is so special about this particular publication? Let me put you right straight away. This is no run-of-the-mill listing of times and medal winners. It is a series of scholarly essays on each of the Olympic Games since 1896 (winter and summer) preceded by a prologue on the Ancient Games and appendices providing biographical synopses of each of the Presidents IOC, details of Olympic documentary and feature films and a general bibliography of published works.
Each essay has been written by an eminent scholar, most of whom will be household names to regular readers of this and other sports history journals. Every contributor was asked to emphasize such matters as site selection and development, political questions and controversies, collateral events, programmatic change and political and economic consequences, keeping the discussion of winners and losers to a minimum. Each author was also asked to provide a substantial bibliographical essay to guide interested readers to the best primary and secondary sources on each Games. This they have managed to achieve admirably, each with their own particular style and strengths.
Each section is of approximately the same length - six pages, some more abstract and analytical than others. Non are weak. What every chapter does provide the reader with is an insight into issues surrounding that Olympiad, contemporary interpretations of those events and a launch pad for future research.
There can be no doubt that this is a desirable acquisition for all Olympic scholars, an absolute must for all libraries supporting research in sports history. Let's hope that a paperback edition is soon available to make it affordable to the individual.
Richard William Cox
UMIST
Richard Giulianotti and John Williams (eds.): Game Without Frontiers: Football, Identity and Modernity - (Popular Cultural Studies Series) (London: Arena, 1994), pp. 380, £14.95, ISBN 1 85742 220 1 (paperback)
Guilianotti and Williams` book sets out to investigate "the way football clubs at all levels are both determined by and are the social symbols of the historical influence of tradition and modernity and the subsequent forms of individual and group identity to which these processes give rise".
This they do by collecting papers and essays written by 15 authors - including themselves - from 7 countries whose contributions (stemming from a 1992 international conference) are characterised by "a leitmotiv of methodological and cultural variety".
The enterprise appears driven by a somewhat fearful contemplation of the then impending 1994 World Cup, the subject of a key-note introductory essay by the editors , the underlying theme of which being that because US sports are sold in a crudely `consumerist' way, partaking of what the authors term the "TV McDonalds Culture", a "properly cultural product" like soccer could never hope to `take-on' with US fans. With their tendency to consume sport as a "pleasant leisure experience while it lasts", US fans, the authors clearly hope, will prove impervious to soccer's mysterious, more complicated appeal.
Much of the article seems stale some two years on, while certain anticipated spin-offs from the USA World Cup, including an exacerbation of ethnic strife and a re-education of American sports fans concerning soccer's subtleties, clearly didn`t occur. In fact, as we now know, the tournament was `consumed' (with a reasonable amount of relish) and has now been almost, but not quite, forgotten. (Pro-football has re-appeared and interest seems high, but we have seen all this before).
Nevertheless, the fear remains on behalf of Guilianotti and Co that football may ultimately be transformed by rootless commercial forces, similar to those at work in the USA, thus striking a mortal blow to the notion that our national game is not just mere entertainment but rather an alternative form of existence.
The editors divide the collection into three sections: `Tradition and Modernity'; `Identities: local, ethnic, national'; and `Subcultures of Opposition'. In the first, soccer's export to Europe from the Mother Country, the impact of `modernity' on Austria's top club, the `ethnology' of support for Glasgow Celtic, Bernard Tapies' impact on Marseilles and the transformation of Britain's football grounds following the Taylor Report are all examined. All are interesting papers (Ray Boyle's on Celtic particularly so), but a clear division emerges between the British writers\academics and those from the rest of the world.
The British adopt an almost `fly-on-the-wall' approach: street level, terrace-wise, the concerns are with locality, language and even dress-sense rather than economics and politics in the broader sense. This division continues into part two where John Williams' long, documentary-style piece on a local `black' Midlands football team sits oddly alongside Wray Vamplew's intriguing but distanced account of violence on the terraces in Australia.
Edward Archetti's paper on the role football has played in Argentina in cementing national male identity in those not born Argentinian seems, to this reader at least, to have situated football and its impact in a sufficiently broad enough context for it to illuminate both the game and the society in which it flourishes. The danger prevalent among the British contributors seems to be that of failing to keep a similar distance from the subject under investigation and thus, like the undercover policeman who `goes native', losing perspective.
This is particularly true of the contributions to the last section which is concerned with hooliganism in France, Italy and Great Britain. The French and Italian papers, by Patrick Mignon and Antonio Reversi respectively, are carefully constructed, mix observation with statistics, provide interesting and illuminating social history as context and venture little by way of definite conclusion.(Roversi`s parting comment that, "...the concept of sport as `healthy'...is probably a `de Coubertinian' idea which is now out of date and without any real effectiveness" being a nice understatement!).
The British contributions from Richard Guilianotti and Gary Armstrong are utterly different. In `False Leeds: the construction of hooligan confron tation', Armstrong embarks on a seemingly endless series of coach-trips with a handful of Sheffield United fans up and down the motorway system of Great Britain in search of various threatened mischief, documenting every verbal and facial tic as one supposes an anthropologist might when seeking to understand the motives and methods of a tribe of monkeys.
Whatever `fresh reading' such a study supplies of `locally-centred and meaningful conflicts which surround football-related disorder', they are lost on this reader. And I suggest such studies lose any sense of relevance they may have had hours if not minutes after they are committed to paper - for the rapidly shifting sands of youthful fad and fashion are dangerous foundations upon which to erect the grand structures promised here.
Collecting evidence relating to the minutae of clothing worn by tiny groups of `fans' decades ago, along with noting the contents and texture of the meat-pies they choose to consume at half time,and then mounting such `evidence' upon an edifice of learned references to Barthes, Foucault, Goffman, Habermas etc (and there are 59 such references in Guilianotti's piece on Hibs) can surely produce little but bemusement in all but a tiny proportion of those professing an interest in Planet football.
The experience of reading such articles reminds me of an `artist' friend who collects items of rubbish washed up on beaches which he then presents in finely constructed boxes, along with impressive maps and documents relating to each `exhibit'. It all seems very significant (although talk of art and he will refer to the environment, and vice versa). But one can never escape the fact that, no matter how impressive the packaging, one is still looking at pieces of randomly collected rubbish: voguish and attractive, but utterly without meaning.
John Harding
City and Islington College
London
Elliott, J. Gorn (ed.): Muhammad Ali, The People's Champ, (Urbama and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), pp.xi-xvii, 1-200, $24.95, ISBN 0-252-02188-6
The contributors to this collection of essays are nearly all academics, just one journalist is included. Many of them have an impressive pedigree of achievement, not least as writers on boxing. Randy Roberts, for instance, has written on Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey. Jeffery Sammons has published a work on the role of boxing in American Society. David Wiggins is a particularly influential historian of sport, and is editor of the Journal of Sport History. However, those mentioned and the other contributors including the editor Elliott Gorn have one thing in common. They all accept that Ali was "The Peoples Champion" and, as Sports Illustrated argued fairly recently, that he is still the best known athlete in the world. These are worshippers at the shrine, and the shrine was present. That is, this collection of essays emerged from a conference attended by the great man himself. It took place in the presence. One imagines a conference focusing on Geoff Boycott with the cricketing sage in the front row! Interestingly, one of the contributors tries to address the difficulty Ali's attendance created, and the way he discusses the problem is worth noting.
Jeffery Sammons at the end of his essay "Rebel with a Cause", feels obliged to add a postscript. He reckons that Muhammad Ali's attendance at the conference probably did influence "my tone and treatment". Suggestively though, this is not his main concern. On reflection, nothing about Ali troubles Sammons more than his sexism. He notes that Ali's open and outrageous (Sammons's adjective) affair with Veronica Porche in the Philippines did not dampen his hero worship then, but as time has gone by, he, Sammons has had to do some rethinking. This has been particularly necessary given that Ali has such potency as a role model and symbol. Sammons feels that the intense masculinity of boxing culture must share, probably with the Nation of Islam, most of the blame for Ali's sexism. Inevitably, Mike Tyson is mentioned at this point of the discussion. Once again, when the rhetoric fades and time for reflection occurs, a sporting idol is found to have feet of clay, if not Clay. Perhaps most worryingly for Sammons, if this problem is overlooked, then, Ali, "helps create a climate for Tyson". This could be described as veering too far in the direction away from hero worship but it may be a useful antidote to some of the less critical observations made in this volume.
Of course, all the contributors have some lively and well-informed things to say, and when they are focused on the phenomenon of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali both in the States and internationally, much of the discussion is persuasive. It is only when Ali the all too real individual is mixed up with the perception of a dazzling athlete and the image created by the athlete and those who observed him, that the excesses of sporting idolatry become obvious. As occasionally happens Ali (like a Ruth, a Bradman or a Jones to take a rather arbitrary threesome from the past) became very much more than a sportsman, a competitor. He became a symbol, a symbol that could transcend even the objectively extraordinary reality of his achievements.
Robert Lipsyte, a columnist with the New York Times discusses in the Prologue just how marvellously newsworthy Ali always was. (Given the lighting of the Olympic Flame at Atlanta, one might say is). Michael Oriard is intrigued by the Hero in the age of the modern mass media, he uses this as a framework for his discussion of Ali. Given this reviewer's earlier remarks, it is unsurprising that Oriard sees Ali as a hero among heroes. Randy Roberts offers a slightly different, more specialised context, by focusing on the politics and economics of television boxing. For a British reader he is particularly interesting on A.B.C.'s planning of their coverage of the Cooper fight at Highbury, knowing that Cooper's thin skin would ensure a short contest. Othello Harris puts Ali firmly into the framework of the Black Athlete in his generation, with the inevitable, but far from dull, discussion of Smith and Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. Harris is in no doubt that Ali has made it much easier for today's black athletes to be more assertive and less concerned about humility. Ali offered a strikingly different persona to that of Joe Louis.
Gerald Early offers a reading of The Greatest: My Own Story. Some of his discussion is a little obscure and perhaps his solemnity does less than justice to Ali's sense of the ridiculous. David Wiggins's piece is one of the most ambitious because it focusses on the Nation of Islam. There is clear evidence of careful research, and there is no shortage of insight. Wiggins is particularly good on Ali's apparently chance meeting with Malcolm X in Ghana. By the time of this meeting the two men were moving in very different religious and political directions. Wiggins concludes his piece by emphasising that Ali eventually came to a much gentler view of mankind, particularly white mankind, than would have seemed likely in the period immediately following his conversion.
Thomas Hietala concentrates on Ali's experience of racism in his youth, and his reactions to the changing circumstances of the sixties. Much of the later focus is on the impact of the Vietnam War, but Hietala also has much to say about the Nations of Islam and its internal divisions.
The epilogue to the book is provided by the only female contributor, Elizabeth Alexander. It takes the form of a poem, `in Twelve Rounds'. One of her most telling points is made when she writes on Ali's behalf,
I'm still making up
for the foolishness
I said when I was
Clay from Louisville
Those lines deserve careful consideration, and are one of the best keys to understanding Ali offered in this collection. The book as a whole helps as in the task, despite the reservations expressed. Nonetheless, all the contributors are on surer and safer grounds when they focus on the phenomenon and the forces which created it, rather than the man himself. Perhaps more journalists should have been asked to contribute. They know, or anyway knew, that it is best to "print the legend". Students of popular culture are at their best when they try to understand and discuss this process. It seems to this reviewer predictable that the most insightful comment on Ali the man is made by a creative artist in the Epilogue.
Steve Ickringill
University of Ulster
John Harding: Lonsdale's Belt: The Story of Boxing's Greatest Prize, (London: Robson Books, 1994), pp.xii + 351, £19.99,
ISBN 0 86051 846 9
There are probably two names associated with the history of boxing that will be familiar to the British person with little more than an intelligent interest in sport: the Marquess of Queensberry, and his famous rules, and Lord Lonsdale, with his equally famous belts. Boxing lends itself readily to myth-creation and Harding is careful to avoid this trap, for just as Queensberry had little to do with the rules bearing his name, he makes it clear that Lonsdale probably did not think of the idea of `his' belts, although he certainly paid for the first one. He presented it to the National Sporting Club (NSC) in 1909 and saw it awarded to Freddie Welsh for winning the British light-weight title that year. Since then it has been the practice to award one of these belts to the winners of all British title fights in each weight division. The winner holds the belt for as long as he is champion and if he wins three title fights in the same division the belt becomes his property.
Harding is aware that the significance of these belts lies in the way they were used by the NSC temporarily to strengthen its control over boxing in Britain at a time when its power was waning. The NSC wanted to ensure that all championship contests were fought at the club and that only men who held a Lonsdale belt would be considered champions. They attempted to ensure such exclusive control by the conditions laid down for the award of the trophy. These included: that the qualifications for entry were decided by the NSC; that the winner, having held the trophy for six months, could be challenged by anyone considered by the NSC suitable to do so; and that all contests for the trophy had to take place in the NSC or under its direct control. This inspired innovation did not find universal favour at first. `Peggy' Bettison, and other older committee men suspected that the awarding of belts would be regarded as a `bribe' and as a sign of weakness by the increasingly money-conscious boxers they needed to attract. However, the appeal of the belt was to prove to be the status it conferred, not its monetary value or the pension of £50 a year which became available at the age of fifty. Its introduction was eventually to regularise the awarding of championships. The holder of a Lonsdale belt was recognised as British champion in his weight class, and before another man could claim the title, the holder had to be fought and defeated. Consequently, belts acquired a symbolic value in excess of their monetary worth. Even the most money-conscious were prepared to fight for them at a reduced rate in the expectation that winning would boost their price in the national and international market place. The Americans - although not eligible for belts - also found them attractive because of the prestige that beating a holder conferred. The NSC was given a new lease of life, warding off for a time the threat developing to what many regarded was its anachronistic control - as a private club - over boxing.
Harding, biographer of Jack Kid Berg and author of a centenary history of the famous Lynn Boxing Club, is well aware that the Lonsdale belt grew out of political controversy and continues to be surrounded by controversy, demonstrating throughout the book his keen interest in social processes. The changing role of the NSC, competition with the European continent and America, the colour bar, the role of the provinces vis-a-vis the metropolis, the rise of terrestrial television and the impact of satellite broadcasting, these and many other significant changes are examined and their importance assessed. The book has relatively little to say - to the author's credit - about Lonsdale the man. Not that Harding is unaware of the extent of Lonsdale's involvement in the sport. He points out that Lonsdale sponsored the sport financially and politically over a period of some fifty year and contributed much more to it than the better-known Queensberry.
However, the personalities, and the fights, are not neglected. Indeed, Harding supplies us with an interesting blend of social commentary, assessment of individual contributions and `match reports'. The attempt is made to make connections between personalities and conflicts - whether those conflicts occurred within the ring or out of it - and more general social developments. The tensions between early impresarios and the NSC, and the later struggles between promoters like Solomons and Levine and the British Boxing Board of Control are contextualised, while an effort is made - less successfully but commendably - to draw connections between types of fighter and fight, and the social, economic and political climate of the time. This technique probably widens the appeal of the book.
My criticisms are relatively minor - and can be traced to the fact that this is a book about boxing by a boxing enthusiast. Such enthusiasm is a strength, of course. However, it also means that issues that less involved people might wish to see addressed receive rather cursory treatment. Harding seems wary of offending anybody associated with the sport - this could be interpreted as even-handedness - and makes little or no mention of the seamier side of boxing, its `criminal' associations, its medical and `social' dangers, the less than benign influence of its cartels. However, it must be admitted that even with something of which he seems to strongly disapprove - the proliferation of titles, weights, and the commercial pressures which have devalued the sport - he is at pains to understand those changes.
It is a pity that books of this type - although not necessarily produced for an `academic' market - are not properly referenced. The unfortunate impression given is that histories of sport need not adhere to the standards expected of other histories and other historians. One might have expected Harding, as a serious historian himself, to have had a vested interest in increasing the usefulness of his book for other academics, although perhaps this was a publisher's decision.
Ken Sheard
Centre for Research into Sport and Society
University of Leicester
Christopher R. Hill: Olympic Politics. Athens to Atlanta 1896-1996, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 256, £14.99 ISNB 0 7190 4451 (paperback)
In this revised edition of a work first published in 1992, Christopher Hill brings the reader up to date with the Olympic scene. New chapters have been added on `South Africa and the Olympic Games', `Atlanta 1996' and `The Olympics and the third millenium'.
Of the addditions, I found this new third new chapter on the future of the Games to be the most thought provoking. Since the very beginning, the IOC has been faced with problems of varying degrees of magnitude. Such matters as the site of the first Modern Games in 1896, the Nazi Olympics of 1936 and the two-Chinas question are but a few examples of the controversial issues which have faced the IOC and more recently the question of amateurism was the biggest single problem facing the Olympic Movement. As Hill points out, the IOC solved this particular difficulty in 1981 by formally abandoning its commitment to amateurism and passing the responsibility regarding eligibilty to the International Federations.
With this matter disposed of, the IOC now face a far bigger problem. The question of `Gigantism' cannot simply be passed to the Federations and, despite regular statements to the contrary, the IOC show a marked reluctance to face up to the ever-increasing size of the Games. A little cosmetic pruning to the programme takes place here and there but at the same time new sports such as beach volleyball, softball and women's football were added to the schedule for the 1996 Atlanta Games. The author is an astute observer of the Olympic scene and recognises the increasing power of the International Federations who, quite understandably, put up strong resistance to any proposal designed to curtail their Olympic involvement. An enlarged Olympic programme brings not only more competitors to the Games but the number of attendant officials also grows in proportion and this results in delegations of unmanagable and quite unnecessary size from certain countries.
Publicly the IOC say that sports will be added, deleted or curtailed according to their international popularity; but are the IOC really in control of such matters? Evidently not. It is the television companies that make the decisions. Lugeing must be the most minor of minority sports and there are probably no more than 100 competitive lugeists in the whole world, yet it remains on the Olympic programme. Why? Because it looks good on TV. There are many other sports that fail by a wide margin to meet the IOC's stated criteria of universality. Until the matter is addressed with honesty and resolution, the issue of Gigantism will remain a problem of growing magnitude. The solution is straightforward, either reduce the number of sports or limit the number of competitors and team officials. It will be interesting to see if the IOC do either.
Among the wide range of issues covered in this stimulating book, Hill cites the lost ideals of Olympism. While these ideals have long since been sacrificed, the Olympic Games remain the world's major sporting festival but a multi-sport world championship would perhaps better describe the occasion. The Games have moved so far away from Baron de Coubertin's original concepts that they can only claim to be `Olympic' by virtue of their heritage. These problems are not insurmountable but it is hardly likely that the IOC, an organization that rates itself so highly that it applied for a seat on the United Nations, will take heed of the thoughts of a single author however logically he presents his case.
Christopher Hill takes an intelligent and dispassionate view of the current Olympic scene and one must hope that some of the problems he highlights will have been resolved by the time a third edition of his book is published. Of course, it is equally likely that some of these problems will have increased in magnitude and distance future Games even further from Coubertin's original high-minded ideals.
Ian Buchanan
President
International Society of Olympic Historians
Jeff Hill and Jack Williams (eds.): Sport and Identity in the North of England, (Keele: Keele University Press, 1996), 196 pp, £35, ISBN 1 85331 082 4
Current academic preoccupation with social identities, especially those related to a sense of place, has opened up rich possibilities for sports historians. Few areas of human activity share sport's particular capacity to construct a sense of belonging. Hopefully, this volume will help remedy a situation whereby studies of `Englishness' rarely consider one of its most potent constitutive forces.
While adding considerably to our knowledge of `northern' identities, it must be said that the seven essays gathered here do not form a notably coherent body of writing. Admittedly, the book's title allows for considerable flexibility of content and approach and all contributors are at pains to stress a complex situation in which groups and individuals have subscribed to multiple and overlapping identities and which cannot be reduced to a simple formula. However, the thoughtful introduction leads the reader to expect that contributors will emphasise the constructed nature of territorial allegiances and explore the ways in which `those living in the North have perceived themselves and the nature of their relationship with other parts of England and especially London.' In short, this appears to be work rooted in the `linguistic turn' and concerned with the power of myth. A number of contributions, though, do not really address this issue directly. This is particularly the case with Catriona Parratt's piece on the construction of working-class womanhood at Rowntree's York-based Cocoa Works, 1898-1914. Ironically, this is one of the most informative pieces in the book, an excellent contribution to the literature on both company culture and women's leisure. Nevertheless, it tells us very little about northern identity and, partly because it did not loom large in the Rowntree project, not a great deal about sport.
Two other pieces tend not to deal specifically with northern identities. Jack Williams' closely researched study of church-affiliated sports clubs in the period 1900-1939 concentrates rather on the social and institutional structure of church and chapel sports teams. His patient work on local newspapers, club histories and oral sources does, though, provide much valuable material, especially to those interested in such issues as secularisation, gender roles and class relations. Brian Holland, Lorna Jackson, Grant Jarvie and Mike Smith's study of `Sport and racism in Yorkshire', while incorporating some wide-ranging observations about the study of sport and race and brief comments on Yorkshire cricket, is largely taken up with a study of an anti-racist campaign led by Leeds United fans in the 1980s and early 1990s. Offered as an example of the `painstaking research' required if the study of sport and race is to move beyond `broad generalizations and explanations', this essay provides a useful, essentially descriptive picture of a racist terrace culture and attempts to counteract it via the fanzine Marching Altogether. The authors are sensibly cautious in their estimate of the fanzine's impact, claiming only that it has proved to be `a credible tool in the resistance to racist chanting and fascist political activities in the stadium.' It is disappointing that we are not given more information about the social background of both the racist element at Elland Road and, more importantly, those behind the anti-racist campaign. It is also a pity that the authors touched only lightly on the issue, potentially central to this book's purpose, of the relationship between `Yorkshireness' and racism. In cricket, but perhaps in other sporting arenas as well, various cultures of exclusiveness, often related to race and gender, have been defended by recourse to discourses of `tradition' which stress the separateness (and thus the `justifiable' nature) of certain cultural practices within the county. County loyalty gives a peculiar twist to the racist story which others might try to explore.
The remaining four essays are more concerned with the book's central purpose. Alan Metcalfe, an important pioneer of the regional dimension of sports history, adds another movement to his `Northumbria Suite', this time focusing on the ways in which sport `represented and reinforced' the values of East Northumberland mining villages in the century to 1914. Especially instructive suggestions include the notion that Newcastle United's success from the late nineteenth century helped construct a distinctive north-eastern sensibility, overriding some of the hostility traditionally directed by mining communities toward their large neighbour and the more contentious claim that mining communities played and watched football in a manner `different from the way it was played by other groups [representing] different concepts of masculinity.' This latter argument is based largely on evidence from the records of the Newcastle- dominated Northumberland Football Association claiming that sides from mining villages were especially prone to violence and bad language. Is this hard evidence or simply an example of precisely the kind of assumption that should be probed more deeply by those interested in studying the construction of community image?
Tony Mason provides a short but pithy contribution exploring whether the ways in which football was played, watched and organised might have added to people's sense of belonging to `somewhere called the North.' His source material, especially a report from a Times correspondent fallen amongst Barnsley supporters in 1910, is skilfully deployed and he builds an argument suggesting that sport more surely reflected and reinforced local and national identities than the somewhat nebulous regional ones. Richard Holt's Sport and the British played a vital role in opening up the issue of sport and regional pride and it is good to see him return to a subject, the changing nature of the northern sporting hero (most definitely not the heroine) which he touched on suggestively in the book. Holt concentrates on the way in which various individuals from the pugilists, bowlers and rowers of the early and mid-nineteenth century to the stars of cricket, soccer and Rugby League of the later twentieth century have been held to represent certain supposed northern characteristics and values, including competitiveness, determination, humour, loyalty and lack of pretension. He also demonstrates a parallel process culminating in the 1960s, whereby changed patterns of cultural representation and consumption have tended to draw northern heroes into a wider national culture. Although the reader is sometimes left with the feeling that the author has tried to cover too much ground, this essay both adds much to our understanding of the `imagined north' and opens up territory for others to explore.
Arguably the strongest contribution is Jeff Hill's splendid consideration of the role of the FA Cup and the Rugby League Challenge Cup finals in shaping geographical loyalties. Hill is especially good on the role of the local newspaper in generating a discourse of `community', one which stressed the town team as unifying agent and which sought `a magical resolution of the many tensions and internal conflicts that in fact beset the communities.' Like Mason, Hill ultimately sees local and regional identities as tending to be subsumed into a wider sense of nationhood as the Cup Final gained an ever firmer place as national ritual from the 1920s. I suspect that, especially in the inter-war period, the northern `invasion' on Cup Final day probably carried a greater element of challenge to the southern establishment than he suggests. However, to register possible disagreement is merely to acknowledge the stimulating nature of Hill's work.
Overall, although the component parts of this work never quite add up to the whole, we are encouraged to expect at the outset, they all include material and ideas of value and the best pieces make a substantial contribution not just to the literature of sports history but to wider debates over the nature of national identity. Readers will finish the book with both a much enlarged notebook and numerous ideas for future research.
Dave Russell
University of Central Lancashire
Richard Holt, J.A.Mangan, Pierre Lanfranchi (eds.): European Heroes - Myth, Identity, Sport, (London: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 184, £12.50, ISBN 0-71464578-8
The book originated in a seminar organised by the Centre for European Culture at the European University Institute in Florence in the early l990s, on the theme of the sporting hero in contemporary Europe. While none of the sporting heroes in this book can be regarded as contemporary, nonetheless their biographies certainly have a relevance for modern sports historians.
European historians have long been diffident in writing about sporting heroes; not so Americans. You can hardly attend a single sports conference in North America without encountering papers on American heroes converted into myth. And through the power of the media, such heroes become even better known in Europe than the home-grown stars: Joe Louis and Jack Dempsey, Babe Ruth and Jesse Owens. Another odd quirk about Europeans, most of their stars don't travel. Who outside Britain has heard of Jack Hobbs or W.G.Grace? Who inside Britain knows of Bartali or Coppi?
To the editors of this new book, Europe needs such `unifying heroes and it is perhaps preferable that they come from future games-fields than past battlefields' (inside cover). The ten chapters, therefore, deal with heroes who are bywords in their own land: three chapters each on England and France, two on Germany, one each on Italy and Austria. Not exactly a representative sample, since it ignores central and eastern Europe, not to mention such important sporting enclaves as Scandinavia, Iberia, Benelux and the Celtic lands.
All the same, the book contains some beautifully written vignettes on sporting heroes, particularly those of Richard Holt on English cricketing heroes (from Grace to BBC pundits like Arlott and `Johnners'), Tony Mason on the Edwardian footballers Steve Bloomer and Harold Fleming, Siegfried Gehrmann on Max Schmeling, Stefano Pivato on the Italian cyclists, the Catholic Gino Bartali and the communist Fausto Coppi, and Lanfranchi and Wahl on the French immigrant soccer stars Kopa and Mekloufi. Other heroes to come under the microscope are the tennis player Jean Borotra, the gymnastics `father' Jahn, the boxer Georges Carpentier, and the Austrian footballers Uridil and Sindelar.
It is a fascinating read with many surprising twists as the historians demystify the myths and provide a modern objective analysis. Did you know that Max Schmeling had a Jewish trainer whom he told Hitler he would not sack? Or that Jean Borotra was put in a Nazi concentration camp, and played for France at the age of 57 (and won)? That amateur cricketers had separate dressing rooms from professionals until 1963?
The chapters are meticulously edited and translated, so that they all read fluently. The same cannot be said, however, about the prologue and epilogue, which bear little relation to the book's contents. Rather like a Big Mac wrapped in cardboard, the inside is extremely satisfying and tasty, while the top and bottom are stodgy and indigestible. While the purpose of the editors is no doubt to set the diverse texts in a theoretical framework - a laudable enough goal - they end up confusing the reader in arcane jargon supplemented with endless quotations - 39 in the eleven-page introduction, and 23 in the five-page conclusion.
That apart, this book provides insightful material on a range of European sporting heroes and an analytical examination of their lives and social contexts written from the vantage point of the l990s. Hopefully, it will inspire more such books that go beyond the five nations chosen here.
Jim Riordan
University of Surrey
Grant Jarvie and Graham Walker (eds.): Scottish Sport in the Making of the Nation: Ninety Minute Patriots? (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1994), pp.viii + 200, £35.00, ISBN 0 7185 1454
In a dust jacket promotional testimonial, the University of Warwick's Tony Mason describes Ninety Minute Patriots as, "the best collection of essays on sport yet to appear in Britain". He may be right. I certainly found this to be the most interesting book on British sport history that I have read in the last two years. This volume and recent essays by Richard Holt, J.A. Mangan and Tony Mason (see "European Heroes", International Journal of the History of Sport, March 1996), testify to the current sustained excellence of scholarship set by some, British-based, sport historians.
The book's sub-title "Ninety Minute Patriots" came from a comment made by Jim Sillars shortly after the 1992 General Election results. The Scottish National Party members' full quote was: "The great problem is that Scotland has too many ninety minute patriots whose nationalist outpourings are expressed only at major sporting events." It reflects a view that sport has functioned as a substitute for political nationalism in modern Scotland. A major thesis of the book is to analyze the importance of Scottish sport through the interpenetration of sports and popular culture.
The volume contains thirteen chapters. A listing of the chapter headings helps to flesh out the rich cultural mosaic of this collection of essays. The chapters are, "Scottish Sport in the Making of the Nation"; "Football and the Idea of Scotland"; "Women and Sport in Nineteenth Century Scotland"; "Sport and the Scottish State"; "King Across the Border: Dennis Law and Scottish Football"; "Golf and the Making of Myths"; "Faith, Hope and Bigotry: Case Studies of Anti-Catholic Prejudice in Scottish Soccer and Society"; "Play, Customs and Popular Culture of West Coast Communities, 1840-l900"; "Battling Along the Boundaries: The Marking of Scottish Identity in Sports Journalism"; "Nancy Riach and the Motherwell Swimming Phenomenon"; "Royal Games, Sport and the Politics of Environment"; and, "From Zines Like These? Fanzines, Tradition and Identity in Scottish Football".
The book succeeds wonderfully well on a variety of fronts. The essays range far afield yet explore the intricate weave of socio-cultural sport. There is both a historical, as well as a contemporary, emphasis. Significant contrasting themes such as male and female roles, the aristocratic royal and the plebian commoner, the middle and the working class, and the place of the churches and the mass media, are all brought together to shed light on the creation of national sporting myths.
Grant Jarvie, an editor of the book and a prolific author on Scottish Highland Games, demonstrates his ability to energetically rework material and explore new territory in his chapter "Royal Games, Sport and the Environment". For example, in the "British Cultural Studies and Sport" issue of the Sociology of Sport Journal Vol. 9, No. 2, 1996. Jarvie wrote a- piece entitled "Highland Gatherings, Balmorality, and the Glamour of Backwardness". In "Ninety Minute Patriots" he emerges with a totally new approach and yet his focus remains solidly on sport in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. He has a fine eye for detail. At the Aboyne Highland Gathering (1986) he examined the sequencing of the flag raising:
"Subsequent banners raised on either side of these two flags tend to provide not just a galaxy of different colors but also an insight into the upper circles of power and social structure within both the region, the Highlands and Scotland".
This book is a key source about soccer and there are insightful sections on social class, fanzines, sports journalism (it is noteworthy that the distinguished Scottish soccer writer Bob Crampsey is named in the book's acknowledgements), regionalism, sectarianism, and, the sub-culture of football supporters. However, there is a lot less on rugby and yet rugby seems to offer so much. In the opening chapter Grant Jarvie and Graham Walker quote from a 1991 Guardian piece that described the scene at Murrayfield. "It [the message] seemed etched in emotion on the faces of the players as they sang Flower of Scotland. Murrayfield was a message of Scottish identity and nationhood". So, for this reviewer, the role of rugby was insufficiently developed.
Nancy Riach and the Motherwell swimming community is a fascinating story and, in the telling of it, Graham Walker shows himself to be a distinguished raconteur. It would be intriguing to see similar analyses on other legendary regional Scottish swimmers such as McGregor (Glasgow) and Black (Aberdeen).
Neil Blain and Raymond Boyle's assessment of Scottish sports journalism is a theoretical gem with some excellent cultural asides, and yet it suffers from an uneven treatment. Boxing is underexplored yet the track and field portion on female runners Liz McColgan and Yvonne Murray is both revealing and well written. Nevertheless, the use of academic mumbo-jumbo is unsettling. What is one to make of a paragraph that opens thus - "Infrastructural incapacity is usually combined in the account of the Scottish athlete with moral excellence, a Scottish reformation of a widespread discourse of Olympianism. . ."? Or, the chapter's final paragraph which talks about, "a large breach in the symbolic language of inherent incapacity".
The Leicester University Press are to be congratulated for a most attractively packaged and printed book that proudly carries on the high standards set by the Sports, Politics and Culture series. Three minor and personal cavils: The cover illustration (the Motherwell swimming and water polo team) is excellent. It would have been a bonus to have a collection of in-book photographs. Richard Holt's piece on Dennis Law is very good but would have been better if, as he points out himself, he had been able to secure an interview with the former Manchester United and Scotland soccer star. Finally, I have just finished reading Derek Birley's Playing the Game. Sport and British Society 1910-1945. He does some traditional, and yet worthwhile writing about Eric Liddell. I would like to have seen the Chariots of Fire hero come under the scrutiny of Jarvie, Walker et al. For example, what were Scottish newspapers saying about the rugby and track runner from 1922-1925?
One final point. Hugh Dan MacLennan's 1993 book Shinty ("celebrating Scotland's game") serves as a reminder to us that any country, not just Scotland, possesses a diverse sports network. It is rewarding to see that in "Ninety Minute Patriots" the index gives us ten references on shinty.
Scott A.G.M. Crawford
Eastern Illinois University
Christopher Lee, (ed.): Through The Covers: An Anthology of Cricket Writing, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp.xiv+526, £17.99, ISBN 0 19 212303 3
One's first reaction to such a compilation is the rather ungracious "do we really need yet another anthology"? Padwick's Bibliography of Cricket, vol. II (1991) records nearly twenty published since 1980 alone, and there have been some notably successful ones within the last twenty years: Kenneth Gregory's In Celebration of Cricket (1978, reprinted 1987), Benny Green's The Cricket Addict's Archive (1977, reprinted 1987) and John Bright-Holmes' The Joy of Cricket (1984) come to mind. True such works go out of print, but might not a publisher think of bringing some back into print, perhaps in new editions rather than starting afresh? Another way forward is to consider themed anthologies: cricket in certain parts of the world, or played during certain periods rather than trying to cover everything from Hambledon to helmets.
Lee himself, as well as writing the Official History of Sussex County Cricket Club (1989) has produced a previous smaller anthology, Nicely Nurdled Sir (1986; rev. ed. 1988). In the work under review, he has decided to go for the whole wide range of writings: all periods, all forms including fiction, poetry and extracts from books, journals, and newspapers and although the writers are overwhelmingly from the UK there is a handful of representatives from Australia, the West Indies and South Africa (sadly none from India). Given this catholicity of intent, and the fact that the work is to stand alone, not complement earlier anthologies, the problem is of course how traditional or conversely original to be in choice: whether to allow "classic" pieces from Nyren, Cardus, de Selincourt, Wodehouse and Sassoon to dominate, or to go for the less well known. On the whole Lee ploughs a conventional furrow - all the above are represented together with Blunden, Conan Doyle, Macdonell, Wodehouse. On reading through, the predecessor that came most readily to mind was Alan Ross's The Cricketer's Companion (London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960). This was a work that the publishers did in fact ask Ross to revise, and it was re-issued, with 31 post 1960 contributions by the same publisher in 1979 and reprinted as The Penguin Cricketer's Companion by Penguin Books in 1981. I have always regarded Ross as one of the most successful and well rounded of the anthologies and it seemed useful therefore to make a comparison between it and the present work. The statistics are remarkably similar: Ross (1979) has 137 contributions from 89 authors, Lee (1996) 124 contributions from 88. Indeed closer inspection shows at least one reason why Ross came to mind: 37 of Lee's passages are identical or nearly so (two quotes are shorter by a couple of paragraphs). This is particular noticeable in the poems: 29 out of 81 in Ross are also in Lee. Does this suggest a more limited palette to choose from than in the prose items?
In poetry, Lee does eschew the obvious Francis Thompson (in Ross) but prints William Goldwyn's "In certamen pilae" Latin and translation which Ross omits. In prose perhaps his most interesting and ultimately rewarding policy is the reprinting of passages from straight historical narratives: so we have not just Altham & Swanton, but also Buckley, Waghorn, S.M. Toyne from History Today and David Frith on Edwardian cricket. Quoting three items from a single issue of The Cricket Annual for 1892 is perhaps excessive however. Interestingly, there are only 11 items from the 17 years since Ross's anthology: is this now an age of more mere journalism, less memorable writing? It is here that it would have been nice to see some Indian authors included: perhaps Ashis Nandy (The Tao of Cricket) or Ramachandra Guha (Wickets in the East, Spin and Other Turns). In general terms I would also have liked more Ray Robinson (only one item) and some Arthur Mailey and Fingleton (neither represented) to increase the overseas representation: but this, of course, is one of the pleasures of reading an anthology - picking all the pieces and authors that are left out. As far as arrangement is concerned, the categorisation of Ross (all poetry in separate sections, biographical pieces together and so on) is replaced in Lee by an appealingly random order which is quite beguiling in its opportunities for serendipity.
Unusually for an anthology, the publishers have provided a general index in addition to the expected index of authors. They could, however, have saved themselves 6 pages of text since it is unhelpful and incompetent, and the author has obviously not been involved. The compiler has not even bothered to look up the initials of players referred to in the extracts so that we have the bald "Adcock" (i.e. N.A.T.), Durston" (i.e. F.J.), "Huish" (i.e. F.H.) and "McGahey" (i.e. C.P.), the unrecognisable "Turner, Charlie" (i.e. C.T.B.), and "Clayton, `Chimp'" (i.e. G.) and the unhelpful "Barlow, Dick" (i.e. R.G.) and "Dollery, Tom" (i.e. H.E.). William Lillywhite is in twice as "W." and as "William"; Hayward is in as "T.W." and as "Tom". Turner appears again under the alias "Trott, C.T.B." (here the text reads "with C.T.B. and G.H.S. Trott" the author assuming, obviously wrongly in 1995, that everyone would be familiar with Turner simply by his initials). Bradman and Sobers have their knighthoods, Warner and Worrell do not. We have the "Mary-le-Bone CC" and "Marylebone Cricket Club"; "Military College" (i.e. Royal Military College, Sandhurst); "Kent", "Kent CC" and "Kent Eleven" (in each case it is the county side referred to). We have "Mosley Hurst" (the text correctly has Moulsey). The text refers to the "Red Rose team" so that is what goes into the index with no reference under Lancashire, and we have an index entry for "Gunners" when what the author meant was of course the Royal Artillery. A single entry, "Barber, Bob" has two references: the first is in fact to William Barber who played his last match for Hambledon in 1777, the second to R.W. Barber the Lancashire, Warwickshire and England player of the 1950s and 1960s.
It is a pity that the publishers have served Lee so ill with the index, for the final overall impression is of a worthy and readable compilation. Ross, in the introduction to the 1979 edition of his work spoke of a new edition "say in another fifteen years or so" and failing the appearance of this, Through the Covers will serve quite well in its stead.
John McIlwaine
University College London
Louise Merriam and James Oberly: United States History, A Bibliography of the New Writings on American History, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), pp.xi+ 227, £45.00, ISBN 07190 3688 7
Reviewing a work of bibliography is never a task with an obvious method for carrying it out, particularly if the bibliography is a "select" one aiming at a broad coverage and the review is aimed at a specialist readership. Given that this work put together by Merriam and Oberly is intended as a guide to "new" writings on American (i.e. U.S. History), references to works on sports history are inevitably modest in number compared to other fields of specialism. Of course, it can be added, less modest than would be the case if this was a bibliography of "new" writing on British history.
The target audience for this book are undergraduate history students, graduate students, librarians and bibliographers looking for the "best" work in a particular field and the general reader. This last creature, one suspects, is as an unlikely an animal as is usually the case on such occasions, but the other examples cited are certain to find this work useful to them. Predominantly, what is listed are books, monographs, bibliographies and like material. Articles are listed, but they tend to be review articles or articles which are likely to become part of large book length work (a rather odd criteria it seems to this reviewer) and essays which by their nature do not lend themselves to book length treatment. On the whole Merriam and Oberly are rather dismissive of articles, contrasting their unimportance as a mode of expression for historians, as against say, chemists and physicists. As far as "newness" is concerned, their guideline is work published, in English, from the early eighties to the early nineties. Rather disarmingly they admit that some work from the seventies has "crept in" (their own choice of words) because nothing has superseded them or because they are particularly good.
The final word of the previous paragraph reminds us of the obvious when it comes to compilers of select bibliographies. They do stick their necks out. In some areas of U.S. History, far distant from Sports History, this reviewer finds what they omit and what they put in perverse, but then everyone is involved in making controversial value judgements. As far as their coverage of books on Sports History is concerned, it seems to me there is less need to challenge their judgement. Part of this absence of controversy reflects the fact that even now, despite the striking growth in scholarship on the topic, Sports History remains a small field compared to many others in American History. The sheer number of books and articles published recently on say, the American Revolutionary period or the American Civil War is enormous, and so are the problems of selection enormous. Such is not the case with sports history.
The organisation of this Select Bibliography is essentially chronological and by topic. Understandably enough Sport is tied in with Recreation and Entertainment by way of a heading. George Kirsch's work on early baseball and cricket is given the honour of a first mention. Through the later nineteenth and then twentieth centuries, the number of works listed increases, and all the likely and properly predictable names are there. Among them are Goldstein, Levine, Smith (R.A.), Guttmann and Riess. The very predictability of the list is an obvious reminder of the relative newness of the field for professional scholars, but also of the high quality of these efforts. It is a pity not to find any reference to Riess's successful effort to summarise the state of relevant scholarship some years ago in a review article, but that is one of the few reservations one can seriously entertain. What is rather easier to be critical of is why some books listed, whatever their topic, receive a short summary attached to the basic bibliographic material, and others do not. It can only be assumed that this reflects another component of the value judgements being made. As far as the basic bibliographic material is concerned the compilers give place and date of publication, but not the publishing house. While the need for brevity is obvious, this is at the least a challengeable decision.
There is a commendable effort made to offer effective indices. An index of authors, editors and compilers is offered, as well as an index of subjects. Not surprisingly, it is the latter which is least satisfactory. There are obviously, books on baseball in this bibliography, but baseball does not appear in the subject index. However, Merriam and Oberly explain that the index is intended as a supplement to the topic and chronological arrangement of the work as a whole. Further, the subject index covers those categories "by which Americans classify themselves". These include ethnicity, religion, job, place, name and institution. Apparently Americans do not classify themselves as baseball enthusiasts. This reservation about the usefulness of the subject index is compounded by the predictable difficulties of classification in the main body of the bibliography. To take a relevant example Riess's Touching Base is placed under the heading of Recreation, Entertainment and Sport. His City Games is found, perfectly understandably, under the heading, Urban America. Of course his first work, given its subject matter and thesis, could have been placed under the heading Progressivism.
Who would be a bibliographer? If you endeavour to produce an exhaustive bibliography you are destined to have to produce at least one supplement, and if you produce a selective bibliography, people line up to insist an explanation for why some favourite work or works are missing from the list. It seems fair to emphasise that this is a thoroughly helpful piece of work. It provides an excellent starting point for further reading, not least because fuller bibliographies are listed. The industry of the compilers is considerable, and many a student and scholar will have reason to be grateful to them.
Steve Ickringill
University of Ulster
Roger Munting: An Economic and Social History of Gambling in Britain and the USA, (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. xi + 252, £40.00, ISBN 0 7190 4449 9
Following a first chapter which offers a survey of gambling before 1914 including the debates between its supporters and opponents and the consequent legislation, the book concentrates on a socio-economic analysis of gaming and betting in Britain and the United States, though Britain receives by far the greater attention.
Wearing his economic history hat, Munting outlines the difficulties in attempting to measure the volume of gambling in an economy, not least the definition of what constitutes gambling. He notes that when premium bonds were introduced in 1956 the government of Anthony Eden argued that as any initial capital outlay was not at risk purchasers were not involved in gambling. Munting himself elects to omit stock exchange speculation on the grounds that the amount of trading can influence the result whereas' no amount of money will make a horse run more or less slowly'. Then there is the volume of unrecorded betting, much of it stemming from the historically illegal nature of off-course betting, the numbers game, and casino activities as well as the informal nature of many interpersonal bets.
Government acceptance of gambling for taxation purposes, and the subsequent requirement for figures have eased but not solved the quantification problem. For not only does taxation breed tax avoidance and hence an understating of gambling turnover, the tax itself has not always been levied on the volume of gambling but, as in the case of gaming machines, on the number licensed to operate whatever their throughput. There is also the distinction between gross and net gambling expenditure to be considered: Munting points out that aggregate figures often include rebet winnings, hedged bets, and other forms of double-counting so that the net loss attributed to gamblers is in fact exaggerated.
Despite the inadequacies of the statistics, it is clear that the activities of gamblers have spawned a large industry. Munting analyses the structure of this business and shows how it has become oligopolistic as large firms with economic interests across several forms of gambling have emerged from the myriad of small operators who took up bookmaking and other forms of gambling entrepreneurship. These interests have established a powerful political lobby which has been able to influence government policy and legislation on gambling, though they have been signally unsuccessful in preventing an overall expansion of taxation on betting. Here, as an economic historian, possibly Munting could have pursued further the issues of the price and income elasticities of the demand for gambling and explored how this may have influenced particular taxation policies.
Governments in Britain have been reluctant to actually condone gambling by actively promoting it. Indeed Britain was the last of the European Union countries to adopt a state lottery; and even this has been run by private enterprise. However they have been more willing to enter the gambling markets as taxing authorities for taxes on gambling are a soft alternative to more conventional taxes. In fact Munting argues that many gamblers, particularly those who bet on football coupons or the lottery, are unaware that they are paying tax as it is deducted from the aggregate betting pool not from the individual winning bet. Munting makes the telling point that when the Labour government in 1947 introduced taxation on football pools and greyhound racing it brought in both a regressive and socially disciminatory tax. Though, of course, gambling taxes, like most ones on consumption, are voluntary in the sense that only people who choose to bet need pay them.
Munting's social analysis takes in the class and, to a lesser extent, the gender aspects of gambling, but focuses, both in a specific chapter and throughout the book, on the alleged social problems of addiction, criminal behaviour and corruption emanating from gambling. Munting makes it clear that those who object to the diversion of resources to `unproductive' gambling need to consider both the employment created by this spending and also the investment which it stimulates in the gambling sector. That said, the same argument can be applied to prostitution and drug-dealing and, like gambling, objections to these activities must remain a matter of personal moral philosophy . Of particular interest to the sports historian is the varying attitude of different sports, or more precisely their ruling bodies, towards gambling. Whereas horse-racing and greyhound enthusiasts saw it as their raison d'être, the football authorities, with their strong antipathy towards betting by players, strove to withhold their fixture lists from the pools companies.
This is a solid piece of scholarship, perhaps needing some micro-level anecdotes to enliven the long haul of a macro-oriented text, but showing comprehensively and conclusively how gambling has become `a regular and well publicised recreation, provided by big business organisations [and] taxed by governments'. A glossary of terms, appendix of statistical tables, and a bibliography add to the reader's education.
Wray Vamplew
International Centre for Sports History and Culture
De Montfort University
R. C. Richardson and W. H. Chaloner: British Economic and Social History: A Bibliographical Guide (Third Edition), Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, pp. 500, £50, ISBN 0 7190 3600 3
This is the third edition of Richardson and Chaloner's bibliography of British Economic and Social History. Altogether it contains 5,000 references divided first into country - England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, then into three main time periods, 1066-1300, 1300-1500 and 1700-1980. Within each time frame are a number of sub-headings including General, Economics, Population, Agriculture, Industry, Overseas Trade, Transport, Home Market, Business History, Urban History, Classes and Social Groups, Standard of Living, Law and Order, Health, Leisure, The Press, Religion, Education and Women. At the foot of each section are bibliographies and guides to further information where they (were known to) exist. The design is the same as for the several other bibliographies compiled by Richardson and Chaloner and published by Manchester University Press. A double columned numerical listing with an author index at the back.
My first consideration in reviewing this publication was whether there was a need for it. Given the many other bibliographies on British history and various current awareness services in hard copy, CD-ROM, and on-line, what was unique about this particular publication? What would make it a good buy for the many university libraries facing severe financial restraints?
According to the authors it has no competitor. This I am not convinced about. The bibliography covers books, periodical articles but so too do the annual bibliographies of historical publications in Economic History Review, Labour History, etc. It includes annotations for some of the publications but so too does John Roache's Bibliography of British Social History and Historical Abstracts.
As a sports historian and writing for a specialist readership I was obviously most interested in the sporting content of the bibliography. For the period covering 1700-1980, only one page (or 35 references to be precise) are cited, seven of which include annotations. [This compares to 12,000 references covering this period in my own database, a good proportion of which are social and/or economic histories of sport.] The selection is patchy to say the least.
The compilers might wish to believe that they are only citing works of a scholarly nature. If so, how come Brian Butler's popular history of The Football League is included but not Stephen Tischler's, Richard Holt's and Wray Vamplew's seminal works on the cultural and economic history of British Sport are included but not Sir Derek Birley, Bruce Haley, John Lowerson or Richard Mandell's to name but a few other important works. Similarly, there is no place for Dennis Brailsford's many works other than his Sport, Time and Society.
A short article by Peter Treadwell on the cult of athleticism which appeared in the rather obscure History of Education Society Bulletin is included but none of Tony Mangan's many ground-breaking studies of the same subject (in sport, education or even more specifically the public schools sections).
The only publication included with which I was not familiar was Kathleen McCrone's Class, Gender and English Women's Sport, c1890-1914 said to have been published in 1992. No publisher or place of publication is cited and so it is not very helpful in assisting me track down this particular publication. In the end I wrote to the author only to find that no such book existed.
There are also some rather strange anomalies and inconsistencies. For some strange reason, Wray Vamplew's book The Turf: A Social and Economic History is included under Entertainment, not Sport along with his Pay Up and Play the Game, which devotes considerable attention to horseracing. I was perplexed as to David Itzkowitz (misspelt as Itykowitz) article in Victorian Studies is included but not his seminal work published in book form. Richard Cashman and Michael McKernan's Sport: Money, Morality and the Media (Proceedings of an Australian conference) are included indicating that it contains a chapter on the earnings of professional sportsmen in England, 1870-1914 but one is not told who the author of the article is (Vamplew) or the page numbers on which it appears. Not much help if you wanted to order a copy of that particular chapter on inter-library loan. Tony Mason's Sport in Britain: A Social History is included but again no details about the publisher, place or publication or any indication of what it contains (it is a collection of essays on individual sports). Surely if social history is the raison d'être of this particular bibliography then this is one that should be annotated at length.
Cross referencing is bizarre. In relation to sport, following Eric Halliday's book on Rowing in England A Social History one is referred to Neil Wigglesworth's A Social History of English Rowing and vice versa. On the other hand, the connections between the less obvious titles (eg Vamplew's book Pay Up and Play the Game cited above) are ignored.
Given my findings on the only subject area I know in depth I am dubious, fairly or unfairly, about the quality and readability of the rest.
The criteria of scholarship in bibliography are well documented (see for example D. W. Kummel Bibliographies: Their Aims and Methods 1984, A. M. L. Robinson Systematic Bibliography 1979, R. Stokes The Function of Bibliography 1969) but ignored in this publication by and large. It is fundamental to point out to the user of any bibliography information about how it was compiled, the criteria for what was and was not included. Otherwise how is one to know how extensive the compiler's research has been. What other sources need to be explored if they have been ignored or overlooked in the bibliography under review. We are told that some references included in one or more of the previous editions have been eliminated in this edition but we are not told what these were or why.
Unfortunately I have to conclude that it is of exceptionally little value to the sports historian, directly or indirectly.
Richard William Cox
UMIST
Michael Rundell: The Dictionary of Cricket, (2nd ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), (paperback reprint, 1996), pp.vi+218. illus., £6.99, ISBN 0-19-280044-2
It is a pleasure to welcome a new edition of Michael Rundell's dictionary, originally published by Allen & Unwin in 1985. Two immediately obvious improvements on the earlier version are the omission of the photographs, which, totally uncaptioned, added nothing to the definitions and were merely a distraction; and a far clearer type-setting without the great areas of distracting white space of the first edition. Reading the text, it quickly becomes obvious that this is a genuine new edition with much new material, and revisions of the older text. In entries beginning with A and B alone we have seventeen new terms and examples of additional meanings or expansions of existing discussion for a further eight. One of the work's strengths is the provision of extensive quotations to show the words and phrases defined being used in actual published texts, and here again there are half a dozen new titles added to the `Principal sources" cited - not all newly published since one is Fred Lillywhite's The English Cricketers' Trip to Canada and the United States in 1859. Plenty of post 1985 examples also appear in quotations from newspapers and cricket journals.
Use is easy. Entries are in bold type, additional meanings are indicated by numbers in bold, cross-references are frequent and clear. Different uses of a single term in various phrases are helpfully brought together: under `play' for example there are fourteen different usages recorded including `in play', `play and miss' and `play oneself in' with cross references to `play across', `play back', `play forward', `play inside' and `play outside' which are entered under `across', `back' and so forth. `Wicket' is sufficiently complex to require three separate main entries, each with its own variant meanings. Diagrams are used sparingly but effectively: those illuminating `fielding positions' were an absolute model of clarity when they appeared in the first edition and have rightly been retained. The diagram of umpire's signals now includes `call for TV umpire'. Two newly added line drawings however are not successful: for `run out' the bails are off but the batsman's bat is grounded beyond the bowling crease let alone the popping crease, and for `stumped' no crease is visible at all.
Two problems that arise with any work of this sort are firstly, the actual choice of terms for inclusion, and secondly how far discussion of any one term should move beyond definition into the realms of what one might call comment. As regards the first point Rundell's introduction discusses how the language of cricket has evolved but says nothing about his policy on selection or rejection of terms. There are plenty of older terms included, usually indicated as either `obsolete' or `old', though curiously enough the `draw stroke' is apparently neither. Equally there are numerous now out-dated terms that are excluded. The impression given is that while nineteenth century and earlier terms are generously covered with mid-century works like Charles Box's, The Cricketer's Manual. 5th ed. (1851) and his Theory and Practice of Cricket (1868) together with writings by Willam Clarke,and Felix, and later titles like the Badminton Book of Cricket (1888) and Ranjitsinhji's Jubilee Book of Cricket (1897) being pressed into service to authenticate them, there is comparatively much less attention to coinings of the first half of the twentieth century. Of the 31 publications cited as principal sources, only three were published between 1914 and 1955. Looking at Christopher Sly's How to Bowl Them Out an instructional book published in 1948, turns up a whole range of terms or usages that are not in Rundell : `under spin', `palm grip', `jam grip', `suicide squad', `matting wicket'. Obviously not everything can be included, but it does show that there is still a place for a successor to W.J. Lewis's Language of Cricket (1934) to which Rundell indeed pays generous tribute, which would cover more terms, but with less detailed comment than the present work. John Ferguson's `Some additions to Lewis, The Language of Cricket', Cricket Quarterly, 5, 1966-67, 12-14 for example, includes some 25 terms, most fairly obscure, which are not in Rundell.
When it comes to modern coinings of the last thirty years, Rundell is in his element. New entries since the 1985 edition include `pyjama game', `day-night match', `circle', `third umpire', `independent umpire', `neutral umpire', `referee' all reflecting changes in the organisation of games and the laws and `reverse swing' a newly discovered (or perhaps merely newly discussed) bowling technique. Lots of new slang terms make their first appearance: `buzzer' (overthrow); `chin music' (intimidatory bowling) `drink's waiter' (twelfth man), `jaffa' (unplayable ball), `periscope' (bat held upright), `zooter' (apparently a new type of delivery developed by Shane Warne for the 1994-95 series). This last term shows the dangers of accepting very new and unestablished coinings into a work like Randell's (as opposed a work like Lewis's where the fact that a term has appeared in print at all entitles it to inclusion). Will `zooter' even become as famous as that earlier delivery, which indeed has much the same sound, Tom Emmet's `sosteneuter' (not included by Randell)?
The other problem identified above - how much actually to say about each term beyond merely defining it - is addressed by Rundell in his introduction. `The dictionary aims ... to supply additional information - whether technical, legal, historical or etymological - that will contribute to a fuller understanding of each item'. This policy certainly makes the work very readable. However in some cases, for example in the entry new for this edition on `ball-tampering' where we get over a page basically on the events of the 1992 Pakistan tour to England, and the comments and actions of Imran Khan and Michael Atherton in 1994, there is a danger of the `additional information' getting out of hand, and of course easily out-dated, as the 1996 legal cases show.
In general this is a wide-ranging, very readable and reliable source. There are no competitors, and should any compiler ever choose to revise Lewis that would be a companion piece, not a substitute.
John McIlwaine
University College London
Keith A.P. Sandiford: Cricket and the Victorians, (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1994), pp.207, £35, ISBN 1-85928-089-7
Cricket achieved its zenith in Victorian England when it was regarded as fashionable and the most English of English games. Cricket was viewed in this period as more than a game, it was a civilising agency, `a school of the greatest social importance' as Lord Harris put it. It was also touted as the purest and least tarnished sport which could not only promote `purity of life as well as health of body' which could also break down class barriers. To some it represented `the most splendid features of Anglo-Saxonism'. Grander claims were made about cricket than any other sport of this era or for that matter of any other. There were, however, many paradoxes about Victorian cricket. It is puzzling why any sport was viewed in such moral terms and developed such strong links with the church. However, while cricket became the game of empire and was equated with Christianity, the less exalted game of soccer became the most popular game in England by the 1890s. Soccer, rather than cricket, became the people's game.
This authoritative, impressive and broad-ranging study is particularly welcome because it tackles these and other issues- some big issues of sports history. It also draws together in one convenient place a number of scholarly articles published by Keith Sandiford in a variety of journals during the 1980s. Since Sandiford's various themes are interlocking, the production of the book enables the reader to look at the Sandiford perspective as a whole.
Sandiford reminds us that cricket was the anointed game of Victorian England, supported by royalty and the nobility, the church, universities and élite schools. The Eton versus Harrow and Cambridge versus Oxford matches became classic and gala events, fashion shows and occasions for social display. The price of tickets was deliberately kept high to enhance the exclusive character of these games.
There is some fascinating discussion why and how the relationship between `cricket and religion was thus very close and direct' and why the sport was given `unqualified blessing' by the Victorian clergy. Sandiford suggests that the notion of the Christian cricketer emerged from that of the chivalrous knight with batsmen were seen as more godly than bowlers. There are some tantalisingly brief comparisons between cricket and soccer in this regard: while phlegmatic godly batsmen had to cope with the wiles of ungodly bowlers, there was a popular view `that soccer led to too many emotional excesses' (p. 36). While Sandiford has placed the issue of cricket (and sport) and religion more firmly on the sports history agenda, there are many more questions to be explored.
The issue of women playing cricket was another issue which came to the fore in the late Victorian era. The majority of male cricketers, including Grace, were unsympathetic to women playing cricket because `effeminacy ... was one of the major targets against which muscular Christianity was directed' (p. 46).
Sandiford includes an interesting chapter on technique and technology, themes which are often neglected in sports history monograph. He suggests that technology had far less influence on cricket than on some other sports. He also raises the pertinent question as to why Grace was so popular given that his batting and bowling were less innovative (in terms of technique) than some other players. Grace, he concludes, was the colossus of Victorian cricket, because of his stamina and his voracious appetite for runs.
One of the central motifs of the book, which is covered in the chapter on crowds but surfaces at other points, is the Victorian love of cricket - which took on craze-like proportions - and its impressive growth in the Victorian era. There is also the paradox that while cricket was the most popular sport until the 1880s, it was surpassed by soccer in the 1890s so that while an FA Cup Final could draw 112,000 in 1901 the largest cricket crowds of this time were 35,000 to 40,000. Sandiford effectively demonstrates that the main reason for this development was the `deliberate refusal of administrators to modernise cricket' which remained a `somewhat quaint and rustic anomaly in a highly urbanized age' (p. 121). While there was some working-class support for cricket in the north, county cricket crowds in the south were largely middle and upper class.
The chapter on `Cricket and Empire' raises some important issues but is less effective than other chapters simply because it covers such broad territory and occasionally glosses over complex issues. While cricket was part of the `civilising mission' of the British, it was more so in the later Victorian era than earlier, at least in the `brown' and `black' parts of empire. Until the 1880s and 1890s the British demonstrated little interest in encouraging Indians to play cricket for instance. The subject, cricket and empire, is deserving of a book in its own right. Fortunately Sandiford, along with Brian Stoddart, will shortly publish a monograph on this subject.
It is tempting to trace back a seeming decline in English cricket - though it is unclear whether this is a temporary trough or longer-term malaise - to the Victorian era when cricket administrators failed to market the game. By contrast, cricket developed a more working-class following in other parts of the British Empire, particularly in Australia, India, and the West Indies.
This study on Victorian cricket then will provide both an agenda for future studies on English cricket but will also inform research in other imperial societies. Why was this imperial, fashionable game able to appeal to wider audiences in other societies? Indian cricket, for instance, until 1947 was an equally fashionable game to English cricket, yet became the mass game of the subcontinent in recent decades.
Cricket and the Victorians is a definitive and well referenced study which is an admirable and thorough work of scholarship. It raises some very fundamental questions for any cricket and sports historian. Why, after all, do administrators make such extravagant moral, ethical and religious claims for a mere sport?
Richard Cashman
School of History
University of New South Wales
Steven Wagg: Giving the Game Away: Football, Politics and Culture on Five Continents (London:Leicester University Press, 1995), pp.210, £12.99
This ambitious project aims to provide a particular view of footballing nations and culture across the globe. It asserts that there is a political, historical and sociological account of football on every continent. Six of the chapters involve the editor while the remaining four chapters are provided by notable football scholars such as Bill Murray, Vic Duke, and Pierre Lanfranchi. In the sense that the book attempts to locate football in its wider context then the book has a degree of unity and like many edited collections a sense of unevenness. In some cases a lack of historical imagination is evident. If, for instance, one compares this particular collection of essays with single authored texts such as Tony Mason's on Football in South America or even Bill Murray's original book on Old Firm rivalry and sectarianism in Scottish Football the lack of substantive evidence, in-depth analysis and even the passion aroused by football is in this case in question somewhat disappointing.
The collection of essays covers (i) Football in the societies of Britain and Ireland; (ii) Football in African Society; (iii) Football in the Societies of Latin America; (iv) Football in both the United States and Canadian Societies; (v) Football in the Societies of Eastern Europe; (vi) Football in the Societies of North West Europe; (vii) Football in Southern European Society; (viii) Football in Societies of Asia and Pacific; (ix) Football in the Societies of the Middle East and (x) Reflections on the 1994 World Cup in the United States of America.The essays collectively tackles a number of questions such as: How has the game itself developed? what is the game's relationship to social class and ethnic and political groupings and what kind of national/nationalist role has football played both in and between cultures. An ambitious terrain is covered, and yet, as mentioned above, the passion of the subject is somewhat lost both in and between chapters, a problem which could have perhaps been overcome if the editor had been patient enough to produce this as a single authored book (which he surely could have done). This would have produced both continuity and an even substantive treatment of football, politics and culture on five continents. A concluding statement might also have added to the overall coherence to the book.
The cult of football has been the subject of much scholarly attention of late and in this sense this collection adds to a growing sociology of football studies. Perhaps we should question the axiomatic identification with football as a national symbol. In Britain, for example, more people visit country houses each year than attend football matches. Perhaps research in the future should consider those who detest the game and question the problematic nature of the relationship between football and nationhood.
Numerous symbols contribute to the mystique of imagined communities and yet in many cases only football with its assumed demotic, often mythical, working class status is celebrated and often exploited by the politicians and the chattering classes.Yet the passion aroused by football across the globe is real and the games deserves passionate scribes and researchers. Only glimpses of passion and missed opportunities give the game away in this instance.
Grant Jarvie
Heriot-Watt University
Graham Williams: The Code War, (Harefield: Yore Publications, 1994), pp.192, £10.95, ISBN 1 874427 65 8
Historians of football in Britain have had a tendency to telescope back into the past the current balance of power between the football codes: soccer as the dominating code and rugby league and rugby union, with certain regional variations, a considerable way back in the distance. The rise of soccer is seen an inexorable advance from the foundation of the Football Association (FA) in 1863, with the two rugby codes playing marginal roles. At its worst, this perception extends back into modern football's pre-history, with folk football being portrayed as merely a rougher and unorganised version of the modern association code.
As Graham Williams' fascinating The Code War makes clear, this "Whig interpretation" of football history simply doesn't hold water. The aim of the book is, as the author states in his introduction, `to describe how association football won its battle with Rugby football and became in the process England's national winter game'. And it was a battle. Who could now imagine Liverpool and Manchester as strongholds of the rugby game, as they were up until the early 1890s? Or that the North East of England was ambiguous in its allegiances throughout the 1870s an 1880s? Or that the industrial heartland of West Yorkshire did not have a professional soccer club until fully forty years after the foundation of the FA?
Beginning with the formation of the first football clubs in the 1850s and 1860s, the book charts the conflicts and struggles which led to soccer's dominance. Most of these early clubs played hybrid games, neither soccer nor rugby but utilising aspects of play which were common to both. Even up to the late 1870s, well after the formation of the respective codes' governing bodies, many football clubs played both soccer and rugby and many variations in between. Hence the ease with which rugby clubs such as Preston North End and Burnley could switch to soccer in the early 1880s. Nevertheless, it appears that by 1880 it was rugby rather than soccer which was the leading football code in England.
The key factor in tilting the scales to soccer in the 1880s was the FA's embrace of competition football, and the success of the FA Cup in particular. In contrast, the Rugby Football Union (RFU), seeking to preserve middle-class control of its sport, had set its face firmly against competition football. The mushrooming of cups and leagues, highlighted by the phenomenal growth of the Football League, created an interest in the sport with which rugby had little to compare. This explosion of support laid the basis for further expansion of the game as a commercial, and quite often speculative, undertaking. One by one, Graham Williams describes how many former rugby strongholds, such as Barnsley, Sunderland and Stockport, fell under soccer's sway.
One of the book's strengths is the importance it attaches to the impact of soccer's expansion on the early development, and subsequent weaknesses, of rugby league. The tidal wave of soccer which swept through traditional rugby areas in the decade following the 1895 split from the RFU threatened to swamp the fledgling Northern Union (NU) - Manningham, Bradford and Holbeck being three leading rugby league sides which simply switched to soccer between 1903 and 1907. As Williams stresses, one of the motivations behind the 1895 split was a realisation that the rugby was losing out to soccer because of the rugby union leadership's amateurism and hostility to league and cup competitions - but once free of the shackles of amateurism, the NU found itself hemmed in by the intransigence of the RFU and the sheer weight of soccer's popularity, not to mention being outflanked by the entrepreneurial energy of the Football League.
The book is published by Yore Publications, one of the UK's leading non-mainstream football publishers. Yore have an excellent record of publishing books on soccer history, including a series on defunct Football League clubs, a comprehensive statistical study of League attendances and a reprint of a, so far, definitive 1928 history of professional soccer in Lancashire. While lacking many of the accoutrements of academic works, the most obvious being the absence of footnotes, their publications are thoroughly researched and of great value to both the academic and the general reader. The Code War is probably their most outstanding publication to date.
Its weakness is in its lack of analysis. Williams has done an admirable job in sifting through a wide range of sources, many of them club and league histories, and his command of detail is almost unimpeachable. Although the material is presented in its historical context, there is little indication of the social forces at work in the football codes - for example, what were the backgrounds of the people who controlled or played the various games? It would also have be interesting to consider why soccer rather than rugby was more amenable to the rampant commercialism of the `Football Madness' of the last decade of the Victorian age. To be fair, the relationship between nationalism and football is looked at in the context of the outbreak of World War One but there are a number of points in the text where one wishes the author had gone deeper into the broader aspects of his subject.
Nevertheless, this is an important work which all historians of football, and Victorian and Edwardian sport in general, should look at. It is unique in considering the development of soccer, rugby league and rugby union as an interconnected process and in demonstrating that much of the codes' respective fortunes were dependent on the actions of their rivals. Despite the importance of Tony Mason's work on the origins of soccer, there still remains much work to be done on the history of football of all codes in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - and The Code War is essential reading for anyone working in this field.
Tony Collins