Using football cultures as a vehicle to improve mental health in men: the case of the Redcar and cleveland boot room

This paper sets out to appraise (from the perspective of members) the impact of a localized, football-based mental health intervention. Commissioned in late 2015, the ‘Redcar and Cleveland Boot Room (BR)’ was implemented in response to mass redundancy in the local area, coupled with regional suicide rates in men that exceed the national average. Interactive discussions with BR members revealed that: (a) the language of football and shared identity were important for initiating and sustaining engagement in the BR; (b) peer-support and mentoring combined with member-led activities were active ingredients of the BR and (c) that the BR was an effective vehicle for building mental health resilience. This evaluation adds to the evidence base on the value of football as a context to engage adult males in community-based interventions targeting mental health resilience.     

The Rise and Fall of a Mechanical Rhetoric,or, What Grain Elevators Teach us About Postmodernism

I use the one-hundred-year, transatlantic circulation of Le Corbusier's grain elevator photographs to tell the story of the short but vibrant life of a mechanized rhetoric. From 1913 to 1969, these photographs were understood in the context of a mechanized rhetoric, and they starred in the iconography of modernity. From 1971 to 2010, the same photographs were contextualized by a symbolic vision of rhetoric. So contextualized, the photographs lost their prestige and became conduits through which postmodernism was introduced into architectural theory—and from there into the American academy. As a case study of rhetoric's becoming-symbolic, then, this essay foregrounds the opportunity costs of symbolic definitions of rhetoric. It suggests that the twinned introduction of symbolism and postmodernism involved a misreading of rhetorical history.     

The biomechanics of situational baseball: execution and perception of left-handed pitchers' simulated pick-off moves to first base

The aim of this study was to provide an in-depth analysis of the pick-off play in baseball. Ten collegiate left-handed pitchers and nine base-runners participated in this study. The pitchers were videotaped with four cameras to derive three-dimensional data while performing deliveries in the directions of first base and home plate in a laboratory setting. Deliveries were performed from flat ground. Differences between these deliveries were measured through ten selected joint and segment angles. The base-runners completed two distinct procedures in which they viewed video footage of left-handed pitchers and estimated the intended delivery direction. Base-runners were subsequently interviewed to determine the reasoning behind their decisions. The pitchers' data revealed differences between delivery types in nearly all of the selected angles (P < 0.01). The base-runners' data demonstrated that their ability to discriminate delivery types improved when allowed more viewing time per trial (P < 0.01). Additionally, commonalities exist among the base-runners' focal points on the pitcher while making decisions regarding delivery direction and the kinematic differences between deliveries in left-handed pitchers. The practical significance of these results, however, may be more difficult to interpret.     

A meta-analysis of maturation-related variation in adolescent boy athletes’ adaptations to short-term resistance training

This meta-analysis investigated the maturation-related pattern of adaptations to resistance training in boy athletes. We included studies examining the effects of 4–16-week resistance training programmes in healthy boy athletes aged 10–18 years. Pooled estimates of effect size for change in strength across all studies (n = 19) were calculated using the inverse–variance random effects model for meta-analyses. Estimates were also calculated for groups based on likely biological maturity status (“before”, “during” and “after” peak height velocity). Using the standardised mean difference, resistance training increased strength across all groups (effect size = 0.98, [CI: 0.70–1.27]). Strength gains were larger during (1.11 [0.67–1.54]) and after (1.01 [0.56–1.46]) peak height velocity than before (0.5 [?0.06–1.07]). Adaptations to resistance training are greater in adolescent boys during or after peak height velocity. These findings should help coaches to optimise the timing of training programmes that are designed to improve strength in boy athletes.     

The industrial middle class and the development of sport and in a railway town

ABSTRACT

Increased industrial activity during the Victorian period led to the creation of industrial townships such as Crewe, whose growth was stimulated and sustained by the involvement of the London and North Western Railway Company. As in other townships, the paternalism of employers was reflected in company involvement in all aspects of the social, political and economic life of Crewe and the influence that was exerted on the population through the company’s middle-class managers. Men such as manager Francis Webb and company clerk Thomas Abraham had a significant impact on the sporting life of the town, and this paper explores their life courses to chronicle their involvement. These men were not public-school- or university-educated but they shared similar attitudes to sport with their middle-class counterparts in the South, and this paper uses their biographies to suggest that individuals concerned with the organisation of amateur sport across the country adhered to the basics tenets of the amateur ethos. The authors also reinforce the notion that, while the creation of governing bodies was certainly important in structuring late-nineteenth-century sport, the commitment and motivation of the individual was always critical in ensuring that local sport was played ‘in the right way’.     

The Support Code: An Inclusive Partnership in Safety

The Family Service Units is a national charity working in some of the most deprived areas of the country. This paper is concerned with one part of its work, The Connections Project. This project aims to develop non-punitive anti-bullying partnerships between young people, schools, adults in the community and other agencies. This article focuses on a particular aspect of this project, the Support Code, which seeks to promote an ethos of proactive mutual support. The development is described and the teachers' reactions are explored. Though this work is currently being undertaken in primary schools, much is applicable to the early years of secondary education too.     

The value of music in London

London is one of the world's foremost music cities. Using a statistical approach developed in earlier studies of music in the United Kingdom (NMC, 1996; NMC, 1999), this chapter presents the results of a survey commissioned by London Arts from researchers at the University of Westminster. The chapter draws together available data oh the commercial and public sectors of the industry, on live performances and their audiences, on education and training and on exports. This data has been supplemented by new research, notably in the area of live performance and in identifying geographical ‘clusters’ of music business firms in certain areas of inner London.

Among the key findings of the research are that consumer spending represents some 90 per cent of the £1.1 billion total spending on music in London; consumers spent more on concert tickets and entrance charges for music of all types than on CDs and other soundcarriers; music provides the equivalent of 34,000 full‐time jobs in London and creates added value of over £1 billion and the London music business has net foreign earnings of over £400 million per annum.

The chapter concludes with some reflections on the implications of this research for music policy at both the national and city level. The statistical evidence demonstrates that classical music, a genre with only 10 per cent of the audience, continues to attract over 90 per cent of public subsidy. A similar imbalance in training of education of musicians means that the development of many young and talented non‐classical musicians is left to the vagaries of the market.