The conventional history of sport, as conveyed by television and the sports press, has thrown up a great many apparent turning points, but knowledge of these apparently defining moments is often slight. This book offers readable, in-depth studies of a series of these watersheds in sport history and of the circumstances in which they came about.

A Cultural History of Sport in the Age of Industry covers the period 1800 to 1920. Over this period, sport become increasingly global, some sports were radically altered, sports clubs proliferated, and new team games - such as baseball, basketball and the various forms of football - were created, codified, commercialized, and professionalized. Yet this was also an age of cultural and political tensions, when issues around the role of women, social class, ethnicity and race, imperial relationships, nation-building, and amateur and professional approaches were all shaping sport. At the same time, increasing urbanization, population, real wages and leisure time drove demand for sport ever higher, and the institutionalization and regulation of sport accelerated. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Sport presents the first comprehensive history from classical antiquity to today, covering all forms and aspects of sport and its ever-changing social, cultural, political, and economic context and impact. The themes covered in each volume are the purpose of sport; sporting time and sporting space; products, training and technology; rules and order; conflict and accommodation; inclusion, exclusion and segregation; minds, bodies and identities; representation. Mike Huggins is Emeritus Professor at the University of Cumbria, UK. Volume 5 in the Cultural History of Sport set General Editors: Wray Vamplew, Mark Dyreson, and John McClelland

This ambitious and fascinating history considers why, in the space of sixty years between 1850 and 1910, football grew from a marginal and unorganised activity to become the dominant winter entertainment for millions of people around the world. The book explores how the world’s football codes - soccer, rugby league, rugby union, American, Australian, Canadian and Gaelic - developed as part of the commercialised leisure industry in the nineteenth century. Football, however and wherever it was played, was a product of the second industrial revolution, the rise of the mass media, and the spirit of the age of the masses. Important reading for students of sports studies, history, sociology, development and management, this book is also a valuable resource for scholars and academics involved in the study of football in all its forms, as well as an engrossing read for anyone interested in the early history of football.

Emerging from the ‘history from below’ movement, sport history was marginalised for decades by those working within more traditional historical fields (and institutions). Although a degree of ignorance still exists, sport history has now acquired a level of credibility through the dedicated work of professional historians. And yet, as this authority has been established, changes to UK higher education funding (the removal of direct state funding, the Research Excellence Framework, and tuition fees) and academic publishing (open access) have the potential to damage, or even end, sports research. This book examines sport history from a variety of perspectives. Do mainstream historians need to engage, or ‘play’, with sports historians? Has the postmodernist ‘cultural turn’ in sports history been helpful to the sub-discipline? How can the teaching of sports studies be more innovative and inspiring? How can oral history and sport history be utilised in the study of other branches of historical interest. Although changes are required in dealing with the current political reality of UK higher education, sport history still has a great deal to offer students, future employers and the public alike. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014 Spectator sport is living, breathing, non-stop theatre for all. Focusing on spectator sports and their accompanying issues, tracing their origins, evolution and impact, inside the lines and beyond the boundary, this book offers a thematic history of professional sport and the ingredients that magnetise millions around the globe. It tells the stories that matter: from the gladiators of Rome to the runners of Rift Valley via the innovator-missionaries of Rugby School; from multi-faceted British exports to the Americanisation of professionalism and the Indianisation of cricket. Rob Steen traces the development of these sports which captivate the turnstile millions and the mouse-clicking masses, addressing their key themes and commonalities, from creation myths to match fixing via race, politics, sexuality and internationalism. Insightful and revelatory, this is an entertaining exploration of spectator sports' intrinsic place in culture and how sport imitates life – and life imitates sport.

Following the recent doping scandals that have brought the highest echelons of international sport into disrepute, this book examines the elitism at the core of the World Anti-Doping Agency and considers how the current World Anti-Doping Code might be restructured. Analyzing the correlation between the commodification of sports and doping, and the role WADA plays in this context, it takes into consideration the perspectives of non-elite athletes as well as athletes from developing countries which have previously been excluded from the anti-doping discourse. It offers recommendations for improving the coordination and implementation of the World Anti-Doping Code and argues for the creation of a more inclusive anti-doping regime. This is an important resource for students of sports law, sports management and sports ethics, as well as vital reading for sports administrators, sports sociologists, sports policy makers, sports lawyers and arbitrators, as well as athletes themselves.

This study of Manchester football, by leading football historian Gary James, considers the sport’s emergence, development and establishment through to its position as the city’s leading team sport. The period from 1840 to 1919 saw football in Manchester develop from an inconsequential, occasionally outlawed activity, into a major business with a variety of popular football clubs and supporting industry. This book makes a distinct and original contribution to the historiography of sport. It is the first academic study into the development of association football in Manchester, and is directly linked to the current state of knowledge and debates within sports history on football’s origins. It adds regional focus to inform the wider debate, contextualising the growth of the sport in the city and identifies communities who propagated and developed football. Robust research should ensure that this becomes the benchmark study of regional football.

Soft Power Politics- Past and Present: Football and Baseball on the Western Pacific Rim illustrates the momentous expanse and moment of sport in the Asia Pacific region and through these essays dealing with two of the most prodigious global team sports confronts various cultural clashes that Samuel Huntington would ensure the end of civilisation. They also demonstrate the power sport has to change the world and to inspire and unite people globally. All who sail under the flag ofSport as ingenuous as it may seem to the host of cynics that abounds, believe that dialogues that emerge from arguments included in this text represent communication of the highest order and have the potential to produce the cohesion that can close some of those cracks that Huntington said would open up along, what he called the fault lines between civilisations.This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

Despite campaigns to educate and increase awareness, discrimination continues to be a deep-rooted problem in sport. This book provides an international, interdisciplinary and critical discussion of various forms of discrimination in sport today, with contributions from world-leading academics and high-profile campaigners. Divided into five sections, the book explores racism, sexism, homophobia, disability, and the role of media in both perpetuating and tackling discrimination across a variety of sports and sporting events around the world. Drawing on examples from football, rugby, cricket, tennis, climbing, the Olympics and the Paralympics, it offers a critical review of current debates and discusses the latest empirical research on the changing nature of discrimination in sport. Taking into account the experiences of athletes and coaches across all performance levels, it presents recommendations for further action and directions for future research. A timely and challenging study, Sport and Discrimination is essential reading for all students and scholars of sports studies with an interest in the sociology of sport and the relationship between sport, society and the media.

A comprehensive, state-of-the-art reference collection, bringing together an authoritative and international line-up of scholars to examine key social and political issues related to the Olympics. An essential, 'one-stop' volume for a wide range of academics, students and researchers.