Amateurism,Imperialism, Internationalism and the First British Empire Games

The intersections between sport and empire, and between sport and the emergence of internationalism in the early twentieth century, have attracted much recent attention from historians. Less attention has been paid to how these relationships became intertwined. This article suggests that the interrelationship between imperialism and internationalism had a profound impact on sport in the interwar years, challenging Victorian and Edwardian ideals of amateurism. This argument is tested through a study of a signature imperial event founded in 1930, the British Empire Games. The first British Empire Games, held in Hamilton, Ontario, are often portrayed as a display of popular imperialism. This article suggests that while imperialism was certainly one aspect of the event, it was not the only one. The article examines the various meanings which organizers, participants and supporters attached to the Games. Local and national organizers in Canada used the Games to convey civic and national identities to the rest of the Empire. The athletes themselves were ambivalent about imperialism, placing the Games instead within the emerging international sporting community.     

Cold hard cash: commercialization,politics, and amateurism in United States track and field

This article explores the decline of amateurism in the sport of track-and-field between the years 1968 and 1982. In doing so, it pays particular attention to Cold War politics as well as the role played by shoe companies such as Nike, in facilitating that transformation.     

Media,Culture, and the Meanings of Hockey

This essay describes a plan for investigating the cultural meanings of hockey in Canada by examining media narratives of high-level amateur and professional hockey during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, this project analyzes English Canadian newspaper coverage of Stanley Cup games between 1894 and 1907, as well as the telegraph reconstructions that enabled fans to share a simultaneous experience of distant games. Media coverage of hockey brought Canadians into local and national communities of interest, while constructing narratives of manhood, regional rivalry, and civic pride. Hockey played a significant role in the construction of gender and class identities, and in debates about amateurism, professionalism, and community representation in sport. By exploring key issues related to media, gender, and community identities in early hockey, this research addresses important gaps in the study of sport history and the analysis of sport and Canadian popular culture.     

Gold Medals and White Economy: Winter Olympic Games and the Making of the French Elite (1959–2013)

In 1959, a new organization was created in France under the name of ‘the Pool of the Providers of the French Ski Team’. Its aim was to support the national team with money, human resources, and specific equipment. It included some of the major national ski and footwear industries for which international competitions were seen as both a place to improve their products and a way to promote their image. The Pool helped both the national team and the French ski industry to become world leaders within 10 years. This success, however, was fragile. On one hand, the constitution of the Pool resulted in a system that was a cartel, a monopoly, and a tool for economic patriotism. On the other hand, it surfed at the border of amateurism at a time when skiing was still an amateur sport at the Olympic Games. Soon after the Games of Grenoble these two limits led to a deterioration of the relationships between the Pool and the ski federation, which incidentally resulted in a major crisis for French skiing in 1973. The Pool then opened its doors to foreign companies in the late 1970s, replacing sport patriotism with economic nationalism.     

The reinvention of the British Lions: amateurs,professionals and contested identities

ABSTRACT

When rugby union became an openly professional sport in the mid-1990s it appeared that one of the institutions most under threat was the British Lions. Now more usually referred to as the British and Irish Lions, this touring team comes together every four years to take on one of the three leading southern hemisphere rugby nations in a three-match Test series. The first tour of the openly professional era in 1997 was celebrated for the ways in which important professional concepts were introduced, yet the touring party retained valued elements of the amateur ethos. The next two tours were not as successful, and led to questions about the very role of the Lions in the professional game. The 2009 tour saw a return to some of the values shaped during the age of amateurism and four years later the Lions achieved their first Test series win since 1997. Drawing upon the written (auto)biographies of those involved in elite-level rugby, this offers us an interesting case to unpack aspects of the fuzzy frontiers between amateurism and professionalism and some of the wider issues relating to sporting identities with specific reference to the topic of working-class amateurs.     

探讨我国少儿体育培训体系的现状与发展

少儿体育培训体系包括业余体校和体育传统项目学校,其中,体校是主体。本文分析了他们的生存现状、改革成果、现存问题,得出结论:体校生存面临重大挑战,传统校发展欣欣向荣。指出在总体上加大资金投入、改善场地条件、提高教练员水平,结合各自具体改进措施,可以改变体校举步维艰的现状,为传统校注入更强大的活力,从而使少儿体育培训体系的发展重获生机。     

Developing ‘good buggers’: global implications of the influence of culture on New Zealand club rugby coaches’ beliefs and practice

Abstract

Despite recognition of how experience shapes sport coaches’ beliefs and practice empirical investigation into how this occurs is limited. This article redresses this gap in the literature by presenting the findings of a study that inquired into the influence of culture on three New Zealand rugby coaches’ beliefs and practice to identify the powerful influence of interaction between a ‘local’ traditional culture of club rugby in New Zealand shaped by the resilient ‘amateur ideal’, intensified by the perceived threat of professional rugby and the global culture of the sport industry to club rugby.     

Entrepreneurship in an Amateur World: The Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland

Abstract

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is unusual in the world of contemporary sport. While at the organizational level it is wholly corporate and follows standard global models of maximizing revenue from media deals and sponsorship, the players remain entirely amateur. As a result, rather than profits being removed from the organization in terms of dividends, the income is recycled through the grassroots of the organization so that local communities benefit. This is at odds with the two other major sports in Ireland, soccer and rugby, which both spend a large percentage of their revenue on player contracts and therefore only recycle comparatively small amounts of money to their grass roots. Historically, the GAA did not embrace entrepreneurship due to the nature of the general national economy, a lack of modernization and the drain of emigration from the island. It was only until the economic boom of the 1990s that the GAA began to innovate entrepreneurially, and the success of this strategy is evidenced by a healthy profit that is underpinned by a commitment to amateurism.     

整合创新上海市青少年业余训练体育科技服务资源的探索

通过查阅文献资料、实地调查、专家访谈等方法,了解上海市、区两级青少年业余训练体育科技服务的组织资源、人力资源、技术资源、信息资源、财力资源的现状,分析目前业余训练体育科技服务体系中各类资源存在的主要问题,并结合问题提出整合创新发展对策建议,为全面提升上海市青少年业余训练水平和完善业余训练体育科技服务体系提供参考借鉴。     

From a pub game to a sporting spectacle: the professionalisation of British Darts, 1970–1997

ABSTRACT

Various sport scholars have noted the transition of sports from amateur leisure pastimes to professionalised and globalised media sporting spectacles. Recent developments in darts offer an excellent example of these changes, yet the sport is rarely discussed in contemporary sports studies. The only sustained theoretical research on darts focuses primarily on the origins of the sport in its nostalgic form as a working-class, pub taproom pastime in England. This article critically examines the transformation of darts from a leisurely game to a professional sport between the 1970s and the 1990s. The change was enabled by the creation of the British Darts Organisation (BDO) and the introduction of television broadcasting, which together fed a continual process of professionalisation. Initially, this article discusses both the concept of professionalisation and similar developmental changes in a selection of English sports. Following this, via selected interviews, documentary analysis and archival information, the reasons behind the split in darts are explicated, shedding light on how the BDO did not successfully manage the transformation and the sport split into two governing bodies, from which the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), the sport’s most successful organisation in the present day, has emerged to dominate the world of televised darts.     

Never the gentleman: caste,class and the amateur myth in English first-class cricket, 1920s to the 1960s

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the near-impossibility, for the duration of the amateur-professional divide, of cricketers born into working-class families being admitted to amateur status and, thus, to county captaincy, in the English first-class game. Its principal argument is that the hegemony achieved in the latter half of the nineteenth century by the English upper class (the aristocracy, major landowners and leaders of financial capital and their families) had one of its most visible manifestations in the culture of first-class cricket. The hegemony of this group (represented by the Marylebone Cricket Club) was sustained by a specific myth of amateurism that was rooted in caste-like social relations. By the late 1930s these relations had become unsustainable and hegemony was maintained by a subtle and unacknowledged switch to relations of class. The article charts this process, using four case studies of working-class professional cricketers, each of which brought the ideological reality of the amateur myth into sharp relief.     

Sport and re/creation: what skateboarders can teach us about learning

This paper explores the role of digital media and creativity in the processes of learning that occur in groups of urban skateboarders. In particular, it examines how the production and consumption of amateur videos contribute to both skaters’ mastery of the techniques of the sport and their integration into the culture of the sport. The data come from an ethnographic study of skateboarders in Hong Kong, which included in-depth interviews, participant observation and the collection of texts and artifacts like magazines, blog entries and amateur skating videos. Skateboarders use video in a number of ways that significantly impact their learning and integration into their communities. They use it to analyze tricks and techniques, to document the stages of their learning and socialization into the group, to set community standards, to build a sense of belonging with their ‘crews’ and to imagine ‘idealized futures’ for themselves and their communities. Understanding the value and function of such ‘semiotic mediation’ in learning and socialization into sport cultures, I suggest, can contribute to helping physical educators design tasks that integrate training in physical skills with opportunities for students to make meaning around their experiences of sport and physical education.     

‘That Excellent Sample of a Professional’: Dan Maskell and the Contradictions of British Amateurism in Twentieth-century Lawn Tennis

This article critically examines the life and career of Daniel ‘Dan’ Maskell OBE CBE (1908–1992), the much-loved British professional coach and BBC commentator for Wimbledon. It positions his social ascendancy during the inter-war and post-war periods within the contexts of shifting class relations in British society, and the professionalisation of tennis and growing performance orientation of amateur tennis authorities in Britain. Given his working-class origins, Maskell's gradual acceptance into the British lawn tennis fraternity and rise to become ‘the voice of Wimbledon’ and, for some, the personification of traditional British sporting amateur values, was something of an enigma, and reflected key contradictions in what amateurism constituted in the twentieth century. Despite enduring systematic discrimination in clubs and exclusion from amateur competitions, as a consequence of him being a ‘professional’, he remained a chief proponent of the amateur ideology throughout his lifetime and exhibited numerous personal qualities that endeared him to the upper-middle-class establishment: modesty, loyalty, integrity, conservative views on player behaviour, deference to authority, strong work-ethic, and a good-humoured nature. Once tennis went ‘open’ in 1968, and throughout a period when professionalism and commercialism threatened to undermine the sport's core ideals, Maskell continued to represent and promote amateur ideals through his broadcasting ethics and values.     

The ‘ghosts’ of lawn tennis past: exploring the forgotten lives of early working-class coaching-professionals

This article examines the lives of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century lawn tennis coaching-professionals, notably Tom Burke, Harry Cowdrey, Charles Haggett and George Kerr. These men, considered equally if not more gifted than the first-ranked amateur players of the period, have received scant attention or recognition, either as ‘expert’ players or for their role as coaches/instructors within the ‘amateur’ game. Ostensibly, these working-class boys/men sought employment in clubs, as ball-boys, groundskeepers, stringers and instructors, but, being immediately classified as ‘professionals’, were subsequently marginalised within clubs and barred from amateur competitions. Few outside of the club environs encountered them, few observed or learned of their skills, and fewer still reported their exploits. While many of the top amateur players of the period recognised the need for coaching-professionals, the British Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) was intransigent. They staunchly refused to sanction professional competitions in Britain, fearing they would provide a pathway away from amateurism, and propel the amateur to seek remuneration from their tennis. Coaching-professionals had little choice but to remain as ‘servants’ within their clubs, confined by the rigid class system and unyielding amateur ethos. Hitherto largely ignored within lawn tennis historiography, these men are the ‘ghosts’ of lawn tennis past.     

Sport Versus Bullfighting: The New Civilizing Sensitivity of Regenerationism and its Effect on the Leisure Pursuits of the Spanish at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article analyzes the influence of the new civilizing sensitivity of the Spanish regenerationists in the introduction of sport, in place of bullfighting, during the first third of the twentieth century. Following the colonial collapse of the late nineteenth century and the subsequent demoralization of the country, the regenerationists saw in physical education and sport a way to reform the broken Spanish population. Sport had arrived in Spain in the mid-nineteenth century by way of the aristocracy and would then spread to the urban middle classes, imbued with the reformist sense of the regenerationists. It came in the form of amateur sport, with values of modernity and a civilizing sensitivity which were diametrically opposed to activities such as bullfighting that had such great support from the Spanish public. Amongst the urban middle classes, sport developed as a kind of amateur practice, used for the formation of a more civilized character and the expression of individuality; on the contrary, amongst the working classes, sport spread primarily in its professional form, by way of mass spectator sports (football and boxing), representing a civilizing spurt in severing the link between entertainment and death which was central to bullfighting.     

The Amplification and De-Amplification of Amateurism and Professionalism in the Gaelic Athletic Association

In this paper we explain how and why a specific ethos of amateurism was portrayed and embodied by various groups comprising the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland throughout its history. Interestingly, the discourse pertaining to amateurism has at times been de-amplified, instead being superseded by the vilification of professionalism. Since the 1970s, both amateurism and professionalism have been imbued with new meanings and interpretations by different social groups comprising the organisation. In tandem with this, both the discourses of professionalism and amateurism have been increasingly amplified. We explain how the structure of competitive and cooperative interdependencies, the we-identifications, tensions and insecurities generated by these, between groups at different levels of integration – social class, national, inter-organisational and intra-organisational – underpin these social developments.     

常熟市业余羽毛球运动现状及分析

羽毛球运动是我国的优势项目,特别最近几届奥运会上,我国的羽毛球健儿捷报频传,这大大激励了我国的业余羽毛球事业的发展。文章从常熟市业余羽毛球运动现状的研究入手,分析业余羽毛球运动发展的趋势和存在的问题,提出相应的对策和建议,为业余羽毛球运动更好地开展提供理论依据。     

Ashbrooke Whit Sports,Sunderland and Its Records: A Case Study of Amateurism in Late Victorian and Edwardian Athletic and Cycling Competition

Ordinary sports clubs and their annual sports have been largely ignored by historians of sport, whose focus has been largely on more mega-events and on larger clubs, and on the twentieth century rather than earlier periods. This paper provides a rare case study of a local athletic sports meeting, in late Victorian and early Edwardian north-east England, using club records, newspaper, census and other record-linkage material, and setting it in its local and national context. By doing so it shows how it is possible to shed light on its organisation and club membership; the age, status and home locations of competitors, and the linkages with other athletic and cycling clubs in the area. More importantly it also explores the vexed question of the ways in which amateurism functioned in areas less influenced by the middle classes of the metropolis and elite clubs, which have hitherto dominated discussion.     

Transnational connectivity,cultural interaction and selective adaptation: English Corinthians and amateur football in the Netherlands,c.1906–39

ABSTRACT

The Corinthians were synonymous with gentlemanly amateurism in English association football. They visited the Netherlands in 1906, 1922, 1923, 1924 and 1933, bringing not just a particular way of playing the game but their own socially-exclusive version of amateurism. This had significant appeal in the Netherlands, where soccer had been taken up in the late nineteenth century by middle-class young men for whom English sport signified modernity. In 1906 the Corinthians supplied a convenient model for those seeking to raise standards and improve the quality of the national team. Later, in the 1920s, as soccer became more popular and its social base widened, the tourists were welcomed by socially conservative elements associated with pre-1900 clubs who were anxious to maintain their status and influence despite being outnumbered by the newer volksclubs. Corinthian-style amateurism had many adherents in the Netherlands and the tours prompted the formation of the Swallows (1907) and the Netherlands Corinthians (1922). These clubs, however, were not simply imitators but adapted the original English model for their own purposes.     

顾拜旦体育思想研究系列之二--顾拜旦体育思想的形成和发展

顾拜旦体育思想是继承前人的哲学思想和社会实践而形成的对体育、文化与教育相结合的奥林匹克运动的总结。它的来源有 :希腊哲学与古代奥运 ;文艺复兴与人文主义 ;人类和平与理想主义。顾拜旦体育思想也是适应世界潮流而不断发展的 ,有的是在他去世后 ,继承者在业余主义、妇女参加和政治干预等问题上有所发展。