Book Reviews 1992: One Man's Gleanings

Abstract

1992: One Man's Gleanings; A Round Up of Books on Cricket, Rugby League and Soccer

John Williams and Stephen Wagg (eds): British Football and Social Change; Getting into Europe. Leicester: The University Press, 1991: 258 pages.

Allen Guttman, Women's Sport: A History, New York, Columbia University Press, 1991, pp. x, 339

Harte, Chris. SACA: The History of the South Australian Cricket Association. Adelaide, Sports Marketing (Australia), 1990, 440pp.

Macrory, Jenny. Running with the Ball, the Birth of Rugby Football, London, Collins Willow, viii, 216pp.     

‘An Outrage,Not Athletics’: Apartheid and South African–United States Rugby Relations, 1976–1990

Abstract

In the period from1976 to1990 during the international campaign against apartheid, some affiliate members of the USA Rugby Football Union, went out of their way to establish and maintain a strong relationship with the South African Rugby Football Board and its successor, the South African Rugby Board. Over the course of six reciprocal tours, they ignored the campaigns of the worldwide anti-apartheid movement and the British Commonwealth. In their dogged pursuit of a sporting relationship with a key South African cultural institution that buttressed apartheid in a sport that, at best, enjoyed minority status in the United States, they defied both their own national federation and the American Olympic Committee. By 1990 as the international campaign against apartheid became a truly worldwide affair, US–South Africa rugby relations were suspended in line with larger political developments both within and outside of the country. This essay, beyond mapping the trials and tribulations of that relationship, also foregrounds a largely hidden history in order to fill the existing gap in the official sporting histories of both the United States and South Africa.     

‘It just makes you feel invincible’: a Foucauldian analysis of children's experiences of organised team sports

The childhood years are highlighted as a crucial time when ongoing participation in physical activity can be nurtured and maintained. The nurturing of a child's proclivity to participate in organised sport normally falls into the domain of adults. While both parents and coaches have been identified as key influences on children's enjoyment of sport, some negative perceptions exist about their roles. Although children's perspectives are increasingly being acknowledged as valuable, it would appear that young children are still marginalised as active participants in areas of health-related research. The primary objective of this study was to give space to children's views of organised sport and to examine how adult behaviours affected these children's enjoyment of sport. This qualitative study utilised eight focus group interviews with a total of 30 children (aged 6–11 years) in the Greater Auckland area of New Zealand. This paper presents a Foucauldian discourse analysis of children's views relating to their sporting experiences. Children articulated three discursive constructions of sport: sport as competition, sport as fun and sport as fair play. The dominance of sport as competition would appear to serve the needs of coaches and parents more than those of children. Coaches who appear to be firmly positioned within a competitive discourse of sport use their power to support coaching practices that clash with the guidelines provided for them by their sporting bodies. Our analysis shows that many children may be exposed to discursive practices that are not conducive to a child-centred sporting environment. Through the exercise of disciplinary measures, there is pressure on children to conform to the normative behaviours associated with a dominant competitive sport discourse.     

Sport and national identity: a geographical view

In considering the ways in which New Zealand's mediocre performance on the international cricket stage was interpreted, this article provides a significant critique of the emphasis on a nexus between rugby and emergent nationalism that has dominated New Zealand historiography. After consideration of New Zealand's enduring ties to Britain and cleavage in formal relations with Australia, cricketing and otherwise, during the inter-war period, this article examines expectations for and reactions to New Zealand's cricketing contacts with England during the period of its first five tours ‘home' 1927–58. Here the supposedly pervasive rhetoric in which sporting success is equated to national success is countered by one emphasising deferential loyalty to the British Empire and amateur sporting idealism. At the same time, the sometimes patronising response from English critics made much of the significant differences between humble New Zealand cricketers and their more aggressive Australian counterparts.     

‘See These Brilliant Exponents of the Game’: The England Women’s Hockey Team Tour of Australia and New Zealand, 1914

Abstract

This paper argues that the 1914 England Women’s hockey tour of Australia and New Zealand has an ambiguous place within wider progress narratives of women’s sport. It created some important sporting precedents, being the first time Australian and New Zealand women’s teams had taken the field. The media reception of the tour was mixed. While the social pages and some of match commentary focused on the appearance of the players, the majority presented the tour as a worthy sporting spectacle. Indeed in the final match the New Zealand team was billed as the ‘All Blacks’, the name normally associated with national men’s teams. Moreover, the symbolic importance of the tour was enhanced by the fact that the tourists were accorded the same rites and rituals accorded men’s touring teams to New Zealand: parliamentary and civic receptions; playing in the leading sporting venues and being linked to imperial bonding.     

‘Muscles for Motherhood’: A Genealogical Analysis of Medicalized Ways of Knowing Female Footballers in New Zealand, 1921 and 1973–1975

ABSTRACT

Michel Foucault argued that females gradually became integrated into the sphere of medical practices through a process which he termed as a ‘hysterization of women’s bodies’ (Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume One: An Introduction, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978, 104). In this article, we draw on Foucault to examine how women’s bodies, exercise and motherhood impacted on the historical development of female football in New Zealand within two time periods (1921 and 1973–1975). Employing his genealogical framework, we analyze newspaper reports, historical documents and conducted in-depth interviews to demonstrate how medical/scientific discourses both constrained and enabled the participation of women in football. We conclude that while medical knowledge was used to publicly disqualify the legitimacy of the female footballer in 1921, and hence her abrupt disappearance from the sporting realm, the absence of such medical knowledge in the early 1970s, combined with societal changes associated with second wave feminism, paved the way for the eventual ‘normalization’ of female football in New Zealand.     

Rhetoric and realities of London 2012 Olympic education and participation ‘legacies’: voices from the core and periphery

A legacy emphasis was one of the fundamental pillars of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The notion of an Olympic legacy was predicated on assumptions that the event's value would not purely derive from the sporting spectacle, but rather from the ‘success’ of enduring effects met out in London and across the country. For physical education students and practitioners, Olympic legacy agendas translated into persistent pressure to increase inspiration, engagement, participation and performance in the subject, sport and physical activity. Responding to this context, and cognizant of significant disciplinary scholarship, this paper reports initial data from the first phase of a longitudinal study involving Key Stage Three (students aged 11–13) cohorts in two comparable United Kingdom schools: the first an inner-city (core) London school adjacent to the Olympic Park in Stratford, East London (n = 150); the second a (peripheral) school in the Midlands (n = 198). The research involved the use of themed questionnaires focusing on self-reported attitudes towards the Olympic Games and experiences of physical education, sport and physical activity. Students from both schools demonstrated a wide variety of attitudes towards physical education and sport; yet, minor variances emerged regarding extreme enthusiasm levels. Both cohorts also expressed considerably mixed feelings towards the impending Olympic Games. Strong and variable responses were also reported regarding inspiration levels, ticketing acquisition and engagement levels. Consequently, this investigation can be read within the broader context of legacy debates and aligns well with physical educationalists' ongoing discomfort regarding legacy imperatives being enforced upon the discipline and its practitioners. Our work reiterates a shared disciplinary scepticism that while an Olympic Games may temporarily affect young peoples' affectations for sport (and maybe physical education and physical activity), it may not provide the best, or most appropriate, mechanism for sustained attitudinal and/or social changes en masse.     

Guangzhou 2010: Singapore at a Global Crossroads

This essay is an analysis of the reality of Singapore's Asian Games' aspirations and achievements and the responses to the challenges it faced in Guangzhou in 2010. How did ‘Team Singapore’ respond to the challenges that they met at what represented a crossroad in their sporting history at which they met the vehicle carrying China's sporting and soft power products. How did they react and were the effort, industry, hyperbole and not insignificant government financial outlay and policy initiatives worth it? The analysis constitutes a critique of articles relating to the Guangzhou Asian Games of 2010 that appeared in the three major English language newspapers in Singapore, The Straits Times, The Sunday Times and The New Paper before, during and after the Games. From the analysis, major themes emerged which characterised the environment of elite sport in Singapore and revealed that it is very much part of the nation's inimitable social, political and diplomatic schema; sport, as with all other socio-cultural institutions in Singapore, has not and does not evolve accidentally.     

HPE in Aotearoa New Zealand: the reconfiguration of policy and pedagogic relations and privatisation of curriculum and pedagogy

This paper centres on research that investigated the contemporary policy, curriculum and pedagogical landscape of Health and Physical Education (HPE) in Aotearoa New Zealand, in the light of increasing impressions that provision was moving to an ‘open market’ situation. Publicly available information sourced via the Internet was used to examine the public and privately funded initiatives, programmes and resources targeted towards the provision of HPE across all phases of education. The data arising revealed an array of government and non-governmental agencies and organisations acting as producers of resources and deliverers of HPE-related programmes in schools. It also clearly pointed to structural convergence between government and non-government sectors. This paper locates the findings from the research amidst developments in policy relations and networks spanning education, health and sport, and presents a theoretically oriented critical re-examination of the structural reconfiguration of contemporary HPE in Aotearoa New Zealand. Analysis brings together insights from Ball and Junemann's work on policy networks and Bernstein's theorising of the social construction of discourse to explore linkages between policy and pedagogic relations, and the discourses and practices in HPE. Attention is directed to the significance of changes in the nature of both the Official Recontextualizing Field and Pedagogic Recontextualizing field, and the connections between the two fields. Changes in the recontextualizing fields are discussed in relation to official pedagogic discourse of HPE and the pedagogic discourse of reproduction. This analysis brings to the fore prospective curriculum and pedagogic implications of new policy networks and new networks of providers associated with provision of HPE in schools. Discussion acknowledges potentially varied readings of contemporary developments and addresses the opportunities and challenges for teachers and teacher educators in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.     

London 2012: A Chinese Charm Offensive – A Reputation Rebuilt and An Impression Changed?

Displaying amiability (qinheli) was one of the duties of the Chinese athletes involved in the London 2012 Olympics. Why did the Chinese government ask them to behave in this way? How did the athletes carry out the mandate? Was their amiable performance intended to arouse nationalist sentiment among the Chinese? In response to these questions, two key political preoccupations of the Chinese authorities in the post-London Olympics era are identified: remedying foreigners' negative impressions of China, and gaining a greater input into the decision-making of the International Olympic Committee and its affiliated international sports federations. These objectives are shown to illustrate China's intention to rebuild its international reputation and challenge the status quo of the international sporting community.     

National Sporting Pastimes,Spectacles of Sporting Otherness and American Imaginings, 1880–1920

This discussion focuses on how the rise of America's national sporting pastimes, during the period 1880–1920, was inextricably tied to the ambitions and outpourings of American print capitalism and a concomitant congealing of a sense of modern American nationhood. In examining this thematic, we explicate the manner in which American national sporting audiences during the period 1880–1920 were variously constituted through discourses of national and ethnic sporting difference or Otherness. Hence, we examine the popular representation of turn of the century rodeo practices (as narrated through the spectacle of the western showman William Frederick ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody's Wild West show productions), the position of early-twentieth-century American baseball in relation to other sporting cultures (graphically depicted by Albert Goodwill, or A.G., Spalding's promotional publications, specifically the 1911 America's National Game) and the national and ethnic differences discerned within the global sporting landscape more generally (explicated within the 1919 National Geographic article ‘The Geography of Games’). These performances and representations of ethnic and national sporting Otherness played an important role in re-inscribing and legitimating the (White European American) normative core of American sport culture (as manifest within and through the dominant practices of playing and/or spectating of football, baseball and basketball).     

A Chronology of Tony Mason's Scholarly Contribution to Sports History

Abstract

Lincoln Allison, Amateurism in Sport: An Analysis and a Defence, London and Portland, Or: Frank Cass, 2001 Pp. XIII + 206, Hb £42.50 Pb £18.50. ISBN 0-7146-4969-4 (HBK) 0-7146-8030-3 (PBK).

Robert Gate, The Great Bev, London: London League Publications Ltd. 2002, PP. 292. PB £14.95. ISBN: 0-903659-06-X

Martin Johnes, Soccer and Society: South Wales, 1900-39, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2002, PP. 238, cloth £25. ISBN 0-7083-1741-3.

David Hinchliffe MP (ED.), A Westminster XIII: Parliamentarlians and Rugby League, London: London League Publications Ltd, 2002 PP. 116. £9.95 (PB). ISBN 1 903659 09 4.

Claire E. Nolte, The Sokol in the Czech Llxds to 1914. Training for the Nation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, PP. X + 256. ISBN 0-333-68298-X.

Donald G. Kyle Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome, London: Routledue, 2001, PP. 288 £14.99. ISBN 041524842.

Charles P. Korr, The End of Basebali. AS WE Knew It: The Piayers Union 1960-81, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002 PP. XVIII + 336. S34.95 (H/B). ISBN 0 252 02752 3

Geoff Lee, One Spring: Romance, Rock ‘N’ Roll and Rugby League in the Seventies, Manchester: The Parrs Wood Press, 2002, PP. 214. £8.95. ISBN 1903158 28 1.

J.A. Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: the Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology, London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2000 PP. LVI + 346, paperback £22.50. ISBN 0-7146-8043-5.

Daniel A. Nathan, Sayzng IT's So: A Cultural History of the Black Son Scandal, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003, PP. VHI-289, CLOTH £32. ISBN 0-252-02765-5.

John O'Hara, Big River Racing: a History of the Clarence River Jockey Club 1861–2001, Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2002 pp. xiii + 288, photographs, footnotes, index. hardback a$ 49.95.ISBN 0868406376

Adrian Smith &; Dilwyn Porter (EDS.), Amateurs and Professionals in Post-War British Sport, London and Portland OR: Frank Cass, 2000, PAPER, £17.50, PP. Xvi + 197, ISBN 0-7146-8127-X

John Sugden and Alan Bairner (EDS.), Sport in Divided Societies, Aachen: Meyer and Meyer, 1999, PP. 234. £12.95 (PBK) ISBN 3-89124-445-2.

Maarten Van Bottenburg, Global Games, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002, PP. 360, cloth £22. ISBN: 0252026543.

Gavin Willacy, Rugby League Bravehearts, London: London League Publications. 2002. PP. 206. £9.95. ISBN 1-903659-05-1.

Tara Magdalinski and Timothy J.L. Chandler, With God on their Side: Sport in the Service of Religion, London: Routledge, 2002, PP. 203, ISBN 0-415-25960-6.

Richard William Cox British Sport: A Bibliography TO 2000 (Vol. 1 Nationwide Histories Vol. 2; Local. Histories, Vol. 3, Biographical Studies of British Sportsmen, Sportswomen and Animals) London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003. Vol. 1, PP.XXXIII + 164, author index, £30, ISBN 0-7146-5250-4. Vol. 2, PP XXVIII + 283, author index, £45. ISBN 0-7146-5251-2. Vol. 3, PP XXXIII + 141, author index, £30 ISBN 0-7146-5252-0.

M. Ann Hall (2002) The Girl and the Game. A History of Women's Sport in Canada Peterborough, ON, Canada: Broadview Press Ltd, 2002. Paper, £14.99. ISBN 1-55111-268-X. PP. 284     

The neutrality myth: why international sporting associations and politics cannot be separated

International sporting associations (ISAs) like the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) have throughout the twentieth century promoted political neutrality as a source of autonomy. With FIFA and the IOC’s official adherence to the United Nations’ human rights conventions in 2017, FIA remains one of the few large ISAs where neutrality is not underpinned by a corrective on human rights. However, this position is in conflict with the ethical obligations FIA contracted when it was given full recognition by the IOC in 2013. To discuss this problematic, this paper draws upon J.S. Mill’s On Liberty and the concept of ‘inaction’ as a source for ways in which the FIA might reconsider its current stance.

Abbreviations: IOC (International Olympic Committee); FIA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile); FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations); ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross); ISA (International Sporting Associations); UEFA (Union of European Football Associations)     

Many roads lead to Rome – Developmental paths to Olympic gold in men's field hockey

Abstract

This study examined the developmental sporting activities of the Olympic Champions 2012 in men's field hockey. The volume of organised practice/training and non-organised sporting leisure play in both field hockey and other sports through childhood, adolescence and adulthood was examined and compared between the Olympic Champions and (1) current national class players and (2) international medallists of one decade earlier. Analyses revealed that the Olympic Champions performed moderate volumes of organised field hockey practice/training throughout their career and attained their first international senior medal after accumulating 4393 ± 1389 practice/training hours, but they engaged in extensive other sporting activities during childhood and youth. It took them 18 ± 3 years of involvement to attain an international medal and they had engaged for 22 ± 3 years when winning the Olympic gold medal. The Olympic Champions did not differ from national class players in the amount of hockey-specific practice/training, but in greater amounts of organised involvement in other sports and later specialisation. They differed from the international medallists of one decade earlier in less increase of organised hockey-specific practice/training during adulthood and a longer period of involvement until attaining their first international medal. The sporting activities were characterised by sizeable interindividual variation within each subsample. The findings are reflected against the deliberate practice and Developmental Model of Sports Participation (DMSP) frameworks and are discussed with reference to the concept of long-term sustainability.     

When art was an Olympic discipline: the Fine Art Salon as a possible model for the concept of the Olympic Art Competitions from an art history perspective

ABSTRACT

In 1948, the seventh Olympic Art Competitions took place in London. The fact that such artistic competitions were conceptualized by Pierre de Coubertin and formed part in the Olympic program in the first half of the twentieth century is not commonly known. And although international sport historians researched different aspects of the Olympic Art Competitions since the 1980s, they have not sufficiently addressed possible artistic influences for such a concept and therefore treat them as a matter of fact. Particularly the fact that Pierre's father, Charles Louis Frédy de Coubertin (1822–1908), had been a famous painter at his time is overlooked up to now. This article traces the artistic background of the father and illustrates how his profession as Fine Art Salon painter influenced Pierre de Coubertin's concept of the Olympic Art Competitions. Subsequently, the paper compares organizational elements of the Fine Art Salons with those of the Olympic Art Competitions and unveils interesting parallels. Concerning the sources used, this article draws on art history sources as well as on unpublished material which was discovered in the archives of the descendants of the Coubertin family.     

Flights to Empire: Australia's imperial engagement with the Olympic Games, 1900–1938

Imperialism was a key concern for Australia during its early engagement with the Olympic Movement. This engagement was marked by a tension between traditional British approaches to sport and more modern approaches that could stem the tide of American superiority that had been expressed at the Olympic Games since 1896. Australia used the Olympic Games to assert its centrality within the British Empire in a sporting context. These themes are observable in three sets of circumstances: the selection of Australian teams between 1900 and 1932, Australia's engagement with the British Empire Games and Australia's response to the development of state amateurism within the Olympic Movement.     

Circumventing Apartheid: Racial Politics and the Issue of South Africa's Olympic Participation at the 1984 Los Angeles Games

Behind the shadows of an Olympiad replete with tales of Cold War acrimony and lavish commercial excess, emerges South Africa's bureaucratic attempt to achieve readmission to the Olympic Movement prior to the 1984 Los Angeles Games. In the backdrop of the Reagan administration's conciliatory policy of ‘constructive engagement’ towards Pretoria, the all-white South African National Olympic Committee aspired to cease its two-decade-long sporting isolation in the southern California metropolis. Drawing upon archival materials from the International Olympic Studies Center and public debates in the leading national and sporting newspapers and periodicals of the time, this paper will detail and analyse how International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch was forced to navigate a tight political tightrope over the South African issue. Any concession towards Pretoria would have likely agitated the African-bloc nations – a powerful constituency on the IOC with a proclivity for boycotting Olympic Games – as well as the global-nexus of anti-apartheid groups that vehemently opposed South Africa's participation in Los Angeles.     

Japan and the 2012 London Olympics: Ambitions and Anxieties of a Nation Aspiring to Reprise Olympic Glory

This essay draws the contours of the Japanese response to the 2012 London Olympics and the Games' perceived relevance to Japan's sports administration in the coming decades. The analysis is based on Japanese mass media reports and press commentaries that appeared in Japan's four leading national dailies (Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri and Sankei) and the Nippon Keizai Shinbun (Nikkei; the Japanese equivalent of the Wall Street Journal) before, during and in the aftermath of the London Olympic Games.