The Social,Political and Economic Contexts to the Evolution of Spanish Physical Educationalists (1874–1992)

This article studies the history of physical education teacher training centres in Spain from the end of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It focuses on analysing the studies offered at these centres, which reflect how the training received by the teachers responsible for running physical education lessons in schools has evolved. The content of the different syllabuses has been influenced by the social, political and economic context of each historical era, and the courses have gradually raised their requirements, becoming equivalent to higher university studies.     

Trends in International Research Presented Through the Research Consortium of the American Alliance for Health,Physical Education,Recreation and Dance (1965–2008)

The extent of international research on the Research Consortium's program between 1965 and 2008 was documented. A total of 9,132 abstracts were reviewed, and 657 (7.19%) had an international component. Inclusion of international research ranged from a low of 1.97% in 1983 to a high of 14.24% in 2007. There was a decrease in the amount of international research presented between 1965 and 1983, after which there was an increase through 2008. Most growth was from increased contributions coming from researchers in Southeast Asia. In terms of general research topics, eight areas increased over the 44-year history reviewed, and five areas decreased. Seven recommendations are advanced for expanding the place and role of international research within the Research Consortium.     

New Worlds and Old Prejudices: Australia,Cricket and the Subcontinent: 1880–1960

Until recently, Australia's cricketing past has been coloured by an anglocentric bias. Australian cricket writers, players and administrators mainly have deemed Australian series with subcontinental countries of much lesser importance than Ashes contests. In surveying Australia's cricketing relations with the subcontinent from the 1880s until Australia's first fully fledged official tour of the region in 1959–1960, this paper seeks to redress this imbalance. The paper explores how initial cricketing relations were viewed within the prism of Australia's traditional cricketing ties with England. This did not alter with India's attaining official Test match status in the 1930s. Australian tours of India were confined to unofficial teams, and it was not until 1947–1948 that the first official exchange occurred. As this paper documents, the importance of subcontinental cricket tours increased after the war, as both Labor and Liberal Coalition governments encouraged the use of cricket to foster diplomatic ties at a time of increasing decolonisation and when Indian and Australian external relations were ideologically opposed. The governments' efforts were not fully supported by many Australian cricketers and administrators. While some, such as the Australian captain Ian Johnson, embraced cricketing diplomacy, many of his colleagues coloured these new cricketing worlds with old Australian prejudices.     

George Walker and the ghost: the chess-player in urban and literary culture, 1840–51

This article aims to contextualise the nineteenth-century chess-player and writer George Walker’s involvement within urban and literary culture. Continuing research published in two recent Sport in History articles concerning Walker’s essays on the chess-player in Victorian Paris, this article considers another side to the chess-player’s cultural image in a different urban setting within Walker’s historical-fiction ‘A Night in York – A Chess Adventure of 1842’, in which the author imagines a night-time meeting with a ghostly medieval chess-player. George Walker’s life was marked by an involvement within the sites of nineteenth-century literary and urban chess-play. One notable feature of Walker’s writing was his constant return to the history of the game and its influence on the present day. Indeed, the interplay between chess past and chess present has been seen as a problematic aspect of his literary output. This article considers this theme and contends that Walker’s regard for the past should be seen within the context of modernity and an attempt to recover and pay sufficient attention to the historic game before its traces and fragments disappeared forever, while acknowledging the futility of the effort.     

‘They Came to Sneer,and Remained to Cheer’: Interpreting the 1934–35 England Women’s Cricket Tour to Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

This paper focuses generally on the history of women’s cricket during the earlier twentieth century, primarily on the 1934–35 England women’s cricket tour of Australia and New Zealand, and more so on the New Zealand dimension. The tour occurred at a critical time for women’s team sport in both countries in that from the 1920s consistent local and then national competitions brought continuity to previously fragmented activities. Hence the tour provides a useful barometer for a wide range of attitudes to sporting participation by women and reveals contrasts between Britain and Australasia. At the same time, there are specific attitudes to the playing of cricket by women that need to be explored. Here there are some obvious differences between accounts in dedicated women’s cricket sources and the specialist women’s press, both of which sought to encourage the game on its own terms, and those in sources with a broader scope and male-dominated editorship which were more inclined to trivialize and disparage women’s cricket and to judge it against the men’s game.     

Sport,politics and the labour movement: the British workers' sports federation, 1923–1935

Reading articles about the Tarahumara Indians of Northern Mexico that have appeared in popular US magazines, I identify four interlocking themes that constitute the Tarahumaras as a ‘white man's Indian’: a) the Tarahumaras are primitive hunters; b) they eat a simple and healthy diet; c) they complete superhuman feats of endurance; and d) they lack the sense of time/work discipline that would make them successful athletes in Western-style endurance events. These themes constitute the Tarahumaras as noble savages whose supposedly primitive lifestyle offers US runners a solution for the diseases of overcivilization. They also serve the needs of a burgeoning sport/tourism industry that sells stereotypical images of ‘Indians’ to US runners and tourists.     

Rhodesia and the Olympic Games: representations of masculinity,war and Empire, 1965–1980

White-settler-ruled Rhodesia faced isolation from international sporting competition after its unilateral declaration of independence in 1965, including from the Olympic Games. Sport reflected the qualities of white Rhodesian society, including its gendered and racialized norms. Rhodesia inherited its sporting ethic from Great Britain, and the British influence on Rhodesian sport remained indelible even as anti-British sentiment flared in the white community as Britain worked to exclude Rhodesia from international sport. This work highlights the irony that Rhodesia adhered to Imperial British social norms on the playing field while trying to assert an independent and anti-British national identity.     

Military Sport in the Belgian Congo: From Physical Training and Leisure to Belgian-Congolese Records in Track and Field, 1945–1960

While the important role of several ‘muscular missionaries' in promoting sport has been thoroughly studied and discussed, less is known about the sports policy of the Force Publique (FP, Public Army) in the Belgian Congo. Therefore, for this article we have focused on military sources. Like the Catholic Church, the FP tried to establish a new order and, by doing so, shaped ‘new tribes' and new identities. In the military training camps – where the recruits lived together with their wives and children – they were physically drilled by means of Swedish gymnastics, fitness exercises and battle training. The choice of Swedish gymnastics was not a surprise, since Belgium was the Mecca of Swedish gymnastics until 1968. Additionally, the soldiers practised sports like football, volleyball, basketball, judo and track and field, as a kind of leisure. With regard to track and field, however, well-performing athletes were selected and displaced to the best training facilities. Some of these Congolese elite athletes, like Victor Mangwele, were able to break Belgian records during their participation in national and international competitions. It remains unclear, however, to what degree all these military athletes also became part of a ‘new elite'. In the eyes of the Congolese population, their performances could be seen in an ambivalent way: on the one hand they represented the disciplining policy of the colonial power, on the other hand they were idols showing the colonial power the prowess of the African population.