The Origins of Football Debate: Football and Cultural Continuity, 1857–1859

This article seeks to add to the growing volume of evidence of a broad, tenacious and visible footballing culture throughout nineteenth-century Britain. It is argued that football persisted among the general population in a variety of forms, none of which required the assistance or involvement of the public schools or public schoolboys to ensure its survival as some historians had previously believed. Indeed, the sheer number of games, evidenced in a variety of forms and a variety of settings, suggests beyond reasonable doubt that most forms of football being played across the country were not formal matches but small-sided games played on church, works' or schools' outings, at rural fetes, galas and celebrations, or as street or casual football, the latter taking place on meadows, fields and greens. Contrary to orthodox historians, these games did survive through mid-century. Importantly, these were predominantly small-sided games and are the ones which are closest to Association football as it was codified in 1863 and hence of most interest to the debate on origins. Common sense then dictates that football can be seen as a cultural continuity, especially as far as the traditions of male youth are concerned, across the nineteenth century.     

The Structural Adjustment of Football in Zambia: Politics,Decline and Dispersal, 1991–1994

Abstract

This paper explores multiple and complex relationships between football (soccer), politics, and the economy in postcolonial Zambia. Based on archival and oral sources collected in Zambia, the paper argues that President Frederick Chiluba’s government failed to support football development when it came into power in 1991 because it was elected on a platform of liberalizing the collapsing national economy. Chiluba privatized state-owned companies that were sponsoring the game resulting in the plummeting of the local standards and migration of talented footballers abroad in search of better livelihoods. Furthermore, the paper argues that while the exodus of talented footballers led to the deterioration of the standards of the local league, their transnational experience boosted the performance of the Zambia national football team. This led to the emergence of one of the best national teams the country has ever had. Unfortunately, this particular team perished in the Gabon air disaster in 1993 following the government’s disinvestment in the game. However, a few months after the disaster, the country managed to rebuild a national football team, which emerged as runners up to Nigeria in the 1994 African Cup of Nations final as a result of a large pool of local and foreign-based football players.     

Sport and Politics: The Cultural Revolution in the Chinese Sports Ministry, 1966–1976

Abstract

The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was one of the most violent political movements to have taken place in modern Chinese history. Sport was not immune from this political storm. In the first phase of the revolution (1966–1972), the country’s sport system was brought down by the Red Guards and revolutionary rebels. Athletes, coaches and officials who dared to challenge the Maoists were arrested and tortured, and suffered greatly as a result of their ‘counter-revolutionary’ status. In the second phase of the revolution (1972–1976), the Sports Ministry became a battlefront in the power struggle within the PRC leadership. This paper studies the relationships between sport, politics and power struggle during the Cultural Revolution. It points out that what happened in the Sports Ministry demonstrates how China’s sport system was linked to and affected by top-level power struggles and ideological conflicts. It also reflected how ordinary people’s lives were affected by the revolution.     

The HMS Malaya Cup Football League, 1921–1941: Towards the Institutionalization of Football in British Malaya

Abstract

This research is part of a larger phenomenon about the diffusion and transmission of football in various British colonies, particularly in Asia. After the British occupied the Straits Settlements of Penang, Malacca, and Singapore and enforced indirect rule in the Federated Malay States of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang and Unfederated Malay States of Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan, and Trengganu and Johore, they established sports clubs and played football. They also introduced the game to the Malay, Chinese, Eurasian, Indian, and Sikh communities. In 1921, the British donated the HMS Malaya Cup for football. The inaugural football league consisted of seven colony or state teams and players from the European and local communities. During the first decade (1921–1930), two outstanding European and six local players were highlighted. By the end of next 11 years (1931–1941), 10 teams took part in the competition. During this period, 10 outstanding players emerged from the local communities. Singapore appeared in all 21?Cup finals winning 12 times and drew twice. Selangor was 14 times finalists winning four times and drew twice. Perak won twice out of three final appearances. Kedah and Penang were losing finalists 1940 and 1941, respectively.     

Football Hooliganism as Collective Violence: Explaining Variance in Britain Through Interpersonal Boundaries, 1863–1989

Football hooliganism is a subculture in which ‘us-them’ boundaries are constructed, sharpened and contested both within and between participating groups. Applying Charles Tilly's concept of collective violence, I argue that a historical analysis of violence surrounding football in Britain between 1863 and 1989 indicates that football hooliganism is best viewed as a violent ritual triggered by similar processes to the coordinated destruction of international conflict. I then pose two questions that often plague students of collective violence: what causes variations in the level and form of violence over time, and how and why do participants vacillate between peaceful and violent social interactions? Adopting a relational approach, I argue that a small number of causal mechanisms such as nationalism have served to activate us-them boundaries which create, escalate and sustain variations in violence. By refocusing on the social interactions of hooligans rather than their identity, this paper seeks to renew opportunities for inter-disciplinary research into the social significance of violence at football matches.     

Professional Football in Apartheid South Africa: Leisure,Consumption and Identity in the National Football League, 1959–1977

A growing body of academic and popular literature considers the history of South African football. These and existing publications pay little or no attention to the emergence of white professional football in apartheid South Africa. The National Football League (NFL) challenged the amateur game and introduced professional football to the country. During its 17-year existence, the NFL grew each season with large attendances until its demise in 1977. In addition, the NFL imported a range of international players, invited foreign teams and actively engaged in the political debates in South African sport at the time. The NFL was instrumental in popularising the game across the country for all South Africans. The NFL became the most popular sports entertainment of choice for South Africans during this period. Finally, the NFL actively engaged in a campaign of destroying rival non-racial anti-apartheid leagues while simultaneously co-opting less progressive organisations.     

British Cultural Influence and Japan: Elizabeth Phillips Hughes's Visit for Educational Research in 1901–1902

The ideal of Japanese womanhood was created according to an educational ideology suited to a modern nation state. One regularly used concept was ‘ryōsaikenbo’, a mixed ideology, drawing together idealised images of the British lady and traditional Japanese women. Another imitated concept was Japanese athleticism called new Bushidō influenced by British boys' public school morality during the era of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. However, there was a strong sense of Japanese cultural nationalism that grew in reaction to the threat of foreign enemies and the hardship of two wars, the Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895, and the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905. This created a potential problem. Despite an occidental veneer, those new values were combined with traditional Japanese religion. Elizabeth Phillips Hughes' articles published in Japan during 1901 and 1902 reflect this process of inventing a tradition of both Japanese women's and men's ideal that was originally influenced by the values of the British middle class and the fact that early feminism was trapped within imperialistic ideology. Eventually, girls' physical exercises were recommended as long as they did not damage femininity. Less feminine sports took popular underground paths. Girls' physical exercises flourished after the First World War in Britain and the Second World War in Japan.     

Bribing Referees: The History of Unspoken Rules in Chinese Professional Football Leagues, 1998–2009

The topic of corruption in football has recently shifted from the periphery to the centre of social scientific attention. Although it is a topic of growing interest, research into corruption in football has been empirically limited and not adequately developed in theory. In this paper, the author studies referee bribery in Chinese professional football leagues, which would be helpful to compensate for the relative absence of experience and theories. By qualitatively analyzing primary and secondary sources, the author, using unspoken rules as a theoretical perspective, reviews referee bribery related to corruption in Chinese football. According to this study, bribing referees in Chinese professional football leagues between 1998 and 2009 was a common practice and deemed to be an unspoken rule by all football clubs. This paper identifies three forms of bribing referees to manipulate matches: paying off referees, manipulation of referees by CFA officials, and investing in emotional bonds. By describing bribe giving as an unspoken rule, the author looks at the widespread referee bribing and its tacit acknowledgement by clubs. This study focuses on examples related to Chinese football leagues; however, it also provides a framework under which corruption in international football can be understood and analyzed.     

‘The Best Football Team,The Best Platoon’: The Role of Football in the Proletarianization of the British Expeditionary Force, 1914–1918

This article examines the role of football, alongside other working-class pastimes, in engendering the proletarianization of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the Great War. The article details how the nature and longevity of the Great War, allied to the associated need to raise a predominantly working-class ‘civilian army’, stimulated new approaches to sustaining morale which embraced working-class-derived values and customs. The raison d’être of the BEF's combat motivation (why a soldier should fight) increasingly depended upon workplace-centred notions of solidarity and mutuality. In military terms, these proletarian set of motivational influences became known as ‘loyalty to the primary group’, and the proletarian sport of football became one of the major vehicles for their diffusion. Concurrently, troop entertainments and recreations became dominated by some of the temporary escapes of proletarian culture – most notably organized football tournaments, but also music hall, cinema, fairs and trips to the seaside. By 1918 the BEF was decidedly proletarian, not just in its composition but also in its values and customs.     

Cavaliers Made Us ‘United’: Local Football,Identity Politics and Second-generation African-Caribbean Youth in the East Midlands c.1970–9

The concept of a unified African-Caribbean community or identity is a modern construction in that it emerged in its present guise during the second half of the twentieth century. Prior to this, the identity politics of the ‘black’ people from this region were largely polarized. They were frequently divided along lines of island identities (Jamaica, Barbados, St Kitts etc.). They were also subdivided along lines of complexion and class. There is a general recognition that blanket social, structural and institutional racisms experienced by most black-Caribbean workers in Britain helped to forge a more unified Caribbean identity. Focusing on the period between 1970 and 1979, this article sketches out the ways in which the black experience within local-level football also contributed to this identity change among a particular group of young sportsmen in Leicester.     

Football in Australia before Codification, 1820–1860

Though the focus of this article is Australia, it is intended as a contribution to the debate about what was happening in the UK and elsewhere before football was codified by the Football Association in 1863. There is mounting evidence that a football culture existed far beyond the public schools and universities and that small-sided predominantly kicking games, often for monetary or other rewards, were being played by migrants to Australia who drew on their British heritage. Not only that but the game was being presented and encouraged by public authorities who would not have countenanced doing so had there been a risk of a breakdown in public order or violence accompanying the games. The article provides support for the arguments developed by Adrian Harvey in the UK.     

Tennent's Lager,National Identity and Football in Scotland, 1960s–90s

Consumption of Tennent's lager, brewed in Glasgow, served as an important means of expressing Scottish national identity from the 1960s. The role it came to play in the Scottish psyche ensured that this was no ordinary alcoholic beverage. It soon commanded more than half the lager market in Scotland, a dominance unrivalled among English breweries of lager south of the border. Given this ascendancy in Scotland, Tennent's, consumed in pubs with males as patrons, became linked closely with masculinity. Cans of Tennent's lager began featuring Scottish women in provocative poses from the late 1960s, much to the delight of male drinkers. In the marketing of this beverage, the brewery broadened the basis of Scottish national identity, which now became intertwined with Tennent's lager, masculinity and, soon, football. Sponsorship of Scotland's World Cup Football teams in the 1970s and later the Scottish Cup placed the brewer of Tennent's lager in the forefront of how Scotsmen saw themselves and defined their Scottishness.     

The Governance of Sport in Australia: Centralization,Politics and Public Diplomacy, 1860–2000

For Australia and most of its people, international sporting contests have long been a marker of the nation’s identity, psyche and international standing. Now in the era of global mediasport, the geopolitical role and the economic impact of elite sport has assumed far wider implications. As a consequence, the need for strong, effective and appropriate governance of all sport, particularly at the elite level has become of critical importance. This paper presents an overview and an analysis of the policy shifts that impacted the development of the Australian Sport Commission, its structure and administration from its colonial roots up to the period leading to the Sydney Olympics in 2000. This discussion will look at the development of the centralized governance of elite and community sport in Australia and will be reflected upon through a consideration of the sportization–globalization processes, with sport in the first instance being established as an element of the cultural diffusion of British imperialism to its significant geopolitical role in late twentieth-century Australia.     

Football,Place, and Community in a New Zealand Mining Town, 1877–1939

Abstract

Resource towns (such as lumber camps, power plants, and mining towns) are by their very nature peripheral. They frequently exist in a space of isolation, not only geographically but also culturally as well. The South Island mining town of Kaitangata is a classic example of this process – an industrial, working class, and heavily migrant community positioned within an otherwise agricultural, conservation, and homogenous tract of rural New Zealand. Kaitangata, in the words of one writer, ‘possessed a unique character and pattern of social interaction’ that marked it out from its immediate environment. One way in which these differences manifested themselves was in the sporting activities of the town. In a part of the world where rugby union held absolute hegemony, the town broke the mould by also fielding teams in association football, rugby league, and even Australian Rules football (distinguishing itself as the only town outside of the provincial capital of Dunedin where these three sports obtained a foothold). This paper analyses how these sporting activities contributed to a unique sense of space, addressing themes including class, ethnicity, masculinity, and identity.