This lively and deeply researched history - the first of its kind - goes beyond the great names and moments to explain how British sport has changed since 1800, and what it has meant to ordinary people. It shows how the way we play reflects not just our lives as citizens of a predominantly urban and industrial world, but what is especially distinctive about British sport. Innovators in abandoning traditional, often brutal sports, and in establishing a code of `fair play', the British were also pioneers in popular sports and in the promotion of organized spectator events.
Modern media coverage of sport, gambling, violence and attitudes towards it, nationalism, and the role of sport in sustaining male identity are also explored, and the book is rich in illuminating and entertaining anecdotes, which it combines with a serious historical understanding of a fascinating subject.
List of Plates; Abbreviations; Introduction; I. OLD WAYS OF PLAYING; 1. Before the Victorians; 2. Cruelty and Sloth: The Abolitionists; 3. Field Sports and the Decline of Paternalism; 4. Survival and Adaptation; II. AMATEURISM AND THE VICTORIANS; 1. Public Schools; 2. The Body in Victorian Culture; 3. The Age of the `Gentleman Amateur'; 4. Female Sport and Suburbia; III. LIVING IN THE CITY: WORKING-CLASS COMMUNITIES; 1. Rational Recreation; 2. The Life of the Street; 3. Spectating and Civic Pride; 4. Gambling, Animals, and Pub Sports; 5. Flight from the City; IV. EMPIRE AND NATIONS; 1. Colonial Elites; 2. The Imperial Idea and `Native' Sport; 3. Dominian Culture and the `Mother Country'; 4. Celtic Nationalism: Ireland, Wales, and Scotland; 5. Enlishness and Britishness; V. COMMERCIALISM AND VIOLENCE; 1. Shareholders and Professionals; 2. Press, Television, and Profit; 3. Hooligans; VI. CONCLUSION; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.
