Sport and Civilisation: Violence Mastered. From the Lack of a Definition for Violence to the Illusory Pacifying Role of Modern Sports

Following the seminal works of Norbert Elias, with regard to the ‘civilising process’, modern sports are generally considered by the scientific community as being, on the one hand, a privileged means that has long facilitated and contributed to ‘the control and learning of the self-control of impulses’ and, on the other, as a political device, which has facilitated, by penetrating into the private sphere in a restrained and play-oriented fashion, the state's monopoly of violence. They are also considered to have facilitated the socio-genesis of modern states. But is this link so evident that this ‘new’ social configuration can be considered a new tool at the service of violence control? Acceptance is so strong that one can almost forget the contradictions, at least the questions, which can and should emerge from this proposition. It should in fact face up to criticism on a certain number of concrete points: definition of violence, rejection of the long-term view, sport be strictly considered in the light of the pacification of habits and social control, hooliganism, etc. This introductory article presents a series of reflections which aim to enrich Elias's theory by underlining both its accuracy and its weak points.     

‘This dark world’: the blindfold chess-player in Victorian literary and urban culture

George Walker's March 1840 article for Fraser's Magazine entitled ‘Chess Without the Chess-Board’ outlined the history and method of blindfold chess (or chess-play without sight of the board and pieces). Arriving as chess was becoming increasingly visible within nineteenth-century literary and urban culture, Walker's essay covered familiar issues on the topic concerning spectacle, utility, and bodily and mental damage, as well as furthering his own concerns with the history of the game and the possibility of expanding participation. This assessment of ‘Chess Without the Chess-Board’, part of wider research concerning chess in urban and literary modernity, complements research published in the author's monograph on the cultural chess-player and previously within Sport in History. Prominent themes of Walker's article include the multiple identities of the blindfold chess-player and the game’s ever-changing relationship to standards of respectability. ‘Chess Without the Chess-Board’, offering a lengthy ‘how-to-play’ to the beginning player and outlining the national prestige and celebrity of historical blindfold chess-players, also presents a potentially disreputable reading of practice and player, denying any wider social utility.     

Role Distance in Question: When it is No Longer Participating But Winning Which is Important

The purpose of this study, which follows on from previous work, is to show in what ways sport has surreptitiously changed and become more complex, to the extent that its functioning only imperfectly responds to one of the basics of sport as envisaged by Elias: role distance. That is the propensity of the participants to avoid being caught in the game, which is only a game, defining in this way the social distance which classes sports performers and the relationship of their practice to the contingencies and material necessities of life. The choice of this focal point is another attempt to understand what happens when sport, by transforming itself, becomes more than sport or even another type of sport. In other words, here we wish to discover what makes Elias' model incomplete. Although sport is supposed to contribute to the pacification of social relations, there are still a large number of elements, which in sporting practice, and in its most recent developments, cannot be explained by the theory of the ‘civilising process’.     

Football Hooliganism Revisited: A Belated Reply to Patrick Murphy,Eric Dunning and Joseph Maguire

In the light of the republication of my original article on ‘Football hooliganism in England before 1914’ in the volume Sports History: Critical Concepts, edited by Wray Vamplew and published by Routledge in 2014, I offer here a belated reply to the counter-critique of my arguments given by Patrick Murphy, Eric Dunning and Joseph Maguire in their article in the International Journal of the History of Sport in 1998. I regard this debate as still relevant to the academic discussion of the history of association football, particularly the concern about the social and historical origins of football hooliganism within an English context, despite the topic being rather less fashionable than it once was. I believe that my original article, and this reply to Murphy, Dunning and Maguire, make a contribution to the ongoing debate within sports history over the relevance of using particular forms of sociological theory (in this case, Norbert Elias' concept of a ‘civilising process’ operating in European history from the middle ages) to explain historical phenomenon. This paradigm, it is argued, distorts the historical interpretation of sport by the use of such a priori sociological arguments.     

‘You May Say What You Like to the Professional and Dismiss Them When You Want’: The Rise and Fall of Professional Chess Players in Victorian Britain

From the 1840s chess was a popular game among the middle classes in Britain, commanding great respect because it was regarded as being an ‘improving’ recreation. In 1851 London staged the world's first international chess tournament, and from then until the 1880s large numbers of players, both British and foreign, endeavoured to earn their living from the game. These ‘professionals’ were gradually undermined by two attacks on the game's respectability. Foreign players were attacked on simple xenophobic lines, but more broadly all professional chess players were also undermined by a disapproval of the financial element of the game. The paper pays particular attention to two professionals, Staunton and Steinitz, who embodied the transformation in attitudes towards professional chess.     

Playing on the Field of Social and Technical Innovation: The Impact of the Sale of Lawn Tennis Sets in the Netherlands, 1874–1887

In 1874, after tennis had been played indoors for centuries, British officer Walter Wingfield introduced an open-air version of the game, which he called sphairistike or lawn tennis. He developed a lawn-tennis box that was easy to carry and that contained all the necessary equipment for playing. Wingfield's concept was innovative, not only technologically in both game and design, but also socially. He made it clear, for instance, that lawn tennis was also intended for ladies and he fabricated lighter rackets for women. Little is known, however, about the introduction of lawn tennis in the Netherlands. Our study reveals that the strong sales and marketing concept of Wingfield – and his competitors – also facilitated a quick diffusion of the game in the Netherlands. The first places where lawn tennis was played were estates owned by nobility, seaside resorts such as Domburg and Noordwijk, attracting well-to-do ‘Brits’ for recreational purposes, and – interestingly – also farms. Soon, the first ‘one box clubs’ arose as precursors of the formally established clubs. For most upper-class players, tennis was a leisure-time activity, yet the organization of the first national tennis tournament in 1887 shows that some already had lucrative business models in mind.     

2013年澳网李娜在发球局中处理关键球技战术分析

运用文献资料法、数理统计法、录像观察法及专家访谈法,对李娜在2013年澳网比赛的发球局中面对关键分所使用的技战术情况进行分析,旨在为李娜在今后的训练和比赛中提供参考,同时也为指导中国女子网球技战术方面的训练、促进中国女子网球水平进一步提高提供依据。     

Climbing Beyond the Summits: Social and Global Aspects of Women's Expeditions in the Himalayas

This article investigates the conditions and circumstances that led to the emergence of Nepalese women's mountaineering. It draws a comparison and shows parallels with the development of Western female mountaineering. The special focus here is on so-called ‘women's expeditions’ in the Himalayas. In the last 20 years, these expeditions have played an important role for Nepalese women in gaining access to high-altitude climbing. An overview of the historical developments from the 1950s to the present illustrates the transnational and global involvement of high-altitude mountaineering in Nepal, as well as the impact of political and social programmes to foster gender equality and diversity.     

A Footnote to Sport History: Twenty Years of Cricket,Conflict and Contestation in Samoa, 1880–1900

Abstract

During the late-nineteenth century, imperial expansion increasingly produced what Louise Pratt terms ‘contact zones’ – ‘social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power’. Sport was one of the most visible spaces where this process took place. This paper uses the example of cricket in Samoa to demonstrate how different groups sought to control sport’s meaning amidst great uncertainty. Almost as soon as they began playing cricket, Samoans radically altered its method and meaning to create the distinctively Samoan game of kirikiti. This act established the cricket pitch as a ‘contested space’ between Samoans and foreigners, who were wary of kirikiti’s association with Samoan politics and customary exchange. As was the case in Samoa more generally, however, this struggle was not neatly divided between Samoans and foreigners. While missionaries and settlers portrayed the game as a threat, others – notably sailors and proponents of British influence – greeted it with relative enthusiasm. For their part, Samoans used the game to signal alignment with or against one or another Western power. Finally, Samoa’s growing ‘mixed-race’ community saw the game as a means of confirming their place in both the Samoan and European ‘worlds’.     

Missing in Action? New Perspectives on the Origins and Diffusion of Women's Football in Australia during the Great War

Previous work on female participation in Australian Rules football has highlighted the seemingly discontinuous character of the women's game as it spread from Western Australia to Victoria during the period of the Great War. In this paper, an overview of the current literature on the topic is provided, and there is a focus on hitherto ‘missing links’ in the existing sequence of events – the knowledge of which has the potential to create a more integrated narrative of the code. In particular, the photographic, filmic and textual evidence for matches of women's football played in South Australia during the Great War is discussed. These games, with proceeds directed to such charities as the ‘Workers' Memorial Fund’ as well as ‘comforts for the Anzacs’, attracted sizeable crowds and were sometimes played under the patronage of the governor of the state, the mayor of Adelaide and senior military officers. The paper concludes with a reflection on how the availability (or unavailability) of particular digitised sources, and the serendipitous nature of research itself, can have a problematic influence on investigations associated with marginalised sports such as women's football.     

Voluntary sports clubs as ‘schools of democracy’? Critique of German sports science

ABSTRACT

In Western societies, modern sports have always been subjected to diverse expectations of social benefits. One especially bold and frequently repeated claim is that voluntary sports clubs serve as ‘schools of democracy’. Based on a pragmatist framework of critique, the present study provides the first comprehensive map of evidence on this subject from German sports science, revealing limitations in the content, research methodologies, and democratic theories of past studies. Based on the shortcomings identified in the established concept of democracy underlying past research, an alternative theory is proposed, rooted in John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy of democracy. The final outcome is essentially alternative ‘schools of democracy’, basically prepared to be tested in further empirical studies.     

Sport and Civilisation: Violence Mastered? From Civilising Functions to Pacifying Functions

Explaining that it is not possible to divide human activity (political, economic, social, sport, etc.) into different sectors, as they all originate from the same actors, Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning thus came to formulate the central hypothesis of a network which linked the process of pacification of customs, the development of a parliamentary system for society, the state monopoly of violence, the euphemisation of violence in the aristocracy, the genesis of sport and, by recursion, the roles and functions of modern sports in the state control of violence and the learning of self-control. Elias and Dunning contrast modern sports with the ancient games, euphemisation and the persistence of violence, ‘sport’ leisure characteristic of ‘modern’ societies and traditional games in the ‘ancient’ societies, which accompanied the religious calendars and rites of passage. But do they really question society? This paper shows how the problems posed by Elias' theory are, essentially, of three types: first, those linked to the methodology used; second, those related to the limits imposed by the notion of self-constraint; and, finally, those concerning the pacifying function attributed to sport.     

Factors influencing pre-service teachers' perception of teaching games for understanding: a constructivist perspective

This study aims to examine the factors influencing pre-service Physical Education (PE) teachers’ perception of a specific constructivist approach — Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) in Hong Kong. By adopting a qualitative approach, 20 pre-service PE teachers were recruited for individual semi-structured interviews. Deductive data analysis was utilised to identify unique themes with broad aspects of influencing factors. Using Piaget's cognitive constructivism and Vygotsky's social constructivism as the theoretical frameworks, individual factors such as game knowledge, teacher beliefs, learning and teaching experience and social factors including government policy, teacher support and professional culture were identified as key influences in pre-service teachers’ perception of TGfU. Furthermore, individual and social factors interplay with each other. In conclusion, cognitive and social constructivism was identified as a useful theoretical framework for illustrating and analysing the factors influencing pre-service teachers’ perception of TGfU.     

Activity theory,complexity and sports coaching: an epistemology for a discipline

The aim of this article is twofold. First, it is to advance the case for activity theory (AT) as a credible and alternative lens to view and research sports coaching. Second, it is to position this assertion within the wider debate about the epistemology of coaching. Following a framing introduction, a more comprehensive review of the development and current conceptualisation of AT is given. Here, AT's evolution through three distinct phases and related theorists, namely Vygotsky, Leont'ev and Engeström, is initially traced. This gives way to a more detailed explanation of AT's principal conceptual components, including ‘object’, ‘subject’, ‘tools’ (mediating artefacts), ‘rules’, a ‘community’ and a ‘division of labour’. An example is then presented from empirical work illustrating how AT can be used as a means to research sports coaching. The penultimate section locates such thinking within coaching's current ‘epistemological debate, arguing that the coaching ‘self’ is not an autonomous individual, but a relative part of social and cultural arrangements. Finally, a conclusion summarises the main points made, particularly in terms in presenting the grounding constructivist epistemology of AT as a potential way forward for sports coaching.     

The Origins of Football Debate: The Continuing Demise of the Dominant Paradigm, 1852–1856

This article presents original and compelling new material in ‘the origins of football debate’, this time from the period 1852–1856, using the British Library's digitisation project of nineteenth-century newspapers. In so doing, it addresses the alleged disappearance of football in the wider community in mid-century, a problem that has troubled a number of scholars, not least because of the rapid expansion in the game amongst the working and lower middle classes from the 1870s onwards. In addressing this allegation it outlines a much broader and more stable footballing culture across the country than hitherto thought, based on games played at church, work and school outings, rural fetes and galas, alongside those played at celebrations and as street football or casual games in meadows, fields or greens, arguing that those historians who have simply looked for formal games were looking for the wrong forms of football in the wrong places, based on twentieth-century notions of what constitutes a ‘game’ of football. Overall, the article has added yet more evidence of the cultural continuity of football across the mid-century and contributed to the continuing demise of the so-called ‘dominant paradigm’ in the ‘origins of football’ debate.     

The Origins of Football Debate: The Evidence Mounts, 1841–1851

In response to recent articles by Eric Dunning and Graham Curry, this article presents a wide range of new material from the period 1841 to 1851 in the ‘Origins of Football Debate’, using evidence gleaned from the British Library's digitisation of nineteenth-century newspapers. It responds to the charge that the works of ‘revisionist historians’, John Goulstone, Adrian Harvey and Peter Swain, are misleading and have led to hasty conclusions, and rejects their analysis that argues they are part of an academic community seemingly frantic for working-class influence to the detriment of public schoolboys. The article adds extensive evidence that records a much broader footballing culture across the country in mid-century than previously thought. In so doing, it addresses concerns, which have troubled many scholars, of the alleged disappearance of football in the wider community in the mid-nineteenth century, not least because of the sport's rapid expansion amongst the working and middle classes in the 1870s. The evidence presented does suggest that many forms of football other than folk football or games under the influence of public schools or public schoolboys were played, challenging ‘orthodox’ historian's views surrounding the influence of public schools and public schoolboys on the development of the game.     

Mixed Doubles: Political Hegemony,Urban Entrepreneurialism and the Australian Open Tennis Championships

The National Tennis Centre in Melbourne, Australia, occupies a symbolic role in the repositioning of a once ‘rust-belt’ city as a place for ‘footloose’ capital and tourism. This paper explores the decisions that have been made by successive Victorian state governments between 1984 and 1998 to construct and upgrade the National Tennis Centre. Thematic content analysis of three daily newspapers, and one monthly tennis magazine, was undertaken to map political decisions and accompanying public discussion surrounding the foundation and upgrades of the National Tennis Centre. Successive state governments, representing both the left and right side of politics, have adopted an urban entrepreneurial approach to development and economic regeneration of Melbourne since the early 1980s. Targeting sport as a competitive advantage, significant public investments have been made to ‘sell’ this product to consumers identified as citizens and tourists. Worthy of note, and of particular concern, is the limited consultation with important interest groups, particularly environmentalists and the citizenry, when creating an elite sporting entertainment centre.     

Civilising recalcitrant boys' bodies: pursuing social fitness through the anti-obesity offensive

Obesity discourse provides a commonly recycled rationale for multiple, ostensibly well-intended, interventions. Formal educational settings sometimes operate as sites for these biopedagogies which putatively promote ‘good health’ among young people as they transition to ‘responsible’ adulthood. Yet, regulation and control, or the pursuit of social fitness, may be more pressing concerns. Drawing from an ethnography of a ‘Health and Youth’ college initiative in Northeast England, directed at recalcitrant boys who risked school exclusion, this article considers how the war on obesity provided a rationale for middle-class efforts to instil civility. Despite educators' best intentions, the initiative also provided a stage and props for cruder forms of bullying among the boys. This article critiques (un)civilised fat oppression in this setting as part of a larger interrogation of the state sponsored anti-obesity offensive. Connections are made with literature on the civilising process, obesity discourse, boys' bodies, health and education.     

Advantage Receiver: Australia and Japan's Return to the Davis Cup after World War II

This article investigates Japan's readmission into the International Lawn Tennis Federation after World War II and its return to the Davis Cup in 1951. In seeking readmission, the Japanese Tennis Association sought support from Australia, where the animosity resulting from recent wartime conflict was particularly strong. The article examines particularly the ways in which the Council of the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia dealt with the proposal for Japan's readmission, and indicates how its strong opposition was initially respected by other national tennis bodies but ultimately mediated by their desire to readmit former enemy countries. The article suggests that tennis relations between Australia and Japan in the early post-war period provided a useful means for the respective governments to promote goodwill between the two countries once the diplomatic relationship was resumed and were an important facet of the history of Australia–Japan relations after World War II.     

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.