English Football And Society 1910 1950

This reference work aims to provide sports enthusiasts, journalists, librarians, students and scholars with an authorative source of information on a comprehensive range of subjects covering the history and organization of football in Britain. Over 250 entries focus on key organisations or individuals, famous clubs, major competitions, events, venues and incidents, institutions and organisations as well as key issues such as gender, racism, commercialization, professionalism and drugs, alcohol and football.

The story of British football's journey from public school diversion to mass media entertainment is a remarkable one. The Association Game traces British football from the establishment of the earliest clubs in the nineteenth century to its place as one of the prominent and commercialised leisure industries at the beginning of the twenty first century. It covers supporters and fandom, status and culture, big business, the press and electronic media and development in playing styles, tactics and rules. This is the only up to date book on the history of British football, covering the twentieth century shift from amateur to professional and whole of the British Isles, not just England.

As modern football grapples with the implications of a global crisis, this book looks at first in the game’s history: The First World War. The game’s structure and fabric faced existential challenges as fundamental questions were asked about its place and value in English society. This study explores how conflict reshaped the People’s Game on the English Home Front. The wartime seasons saw football's entire commercial model challenged and questioned. In 1915, the FA banned the payment of players, reopening a decades-old dispute between the game's early amateur values and its modern links to the world of capital and lucrative entertainment. Wartime football forced supporters to consider whether the game should continue, and if so, in what form? Using an array of previously unused sources and images, this book explores how players, administrators and fans grappled with these questions as daily life was continually reshaped by the demands of total war. From grassroots to elite football, players to spectators, gambling to charity work, this study examines the social, economic and cultural impact of what became Football's Great War.

The English Premier League (EPL) is one of the world’s most valuable and high-profile sports leagues, with millions of fans around the globe. The 2016/17 season marked the 25th anniversary of the EPL, providing a unique opportunity to reflect on how it has contributed, both positively and negatively, to key developments in football – and in sport and culture more broadly – at local, national and global levels. Drawing on central themes in the social scientific study of sport, such as globalisation, celebrity, fandom, commercialisation, gender, sexuality and race, this book is the first to assess the historical development and current significance of the EPL. With original contributions from several of the world’s leading football scholars, it provides in-depth case studies of the multifaceted role of the EPL in the contemporary world of sport, as well as offering thought-provoking predications for the future challenges that it will face. The English Premier League: A Socio-Cultural Analysis is a fascinating read for any sport studies student or scholar with a particular interest in football and the sociology of sport.

This edited collection is positioned at the nexus of sports, society and creative writing. In its explorations of the intersections of sports writing, analysis of literary contributions and examinations of craft, it offers rare consideration of a rich diversity of form in narratives that occur in, and as creative practice. Included in the collection are dynamic academic investigations into football writing and poetry focused on community sporting activities in Afghanistan, to those addressing the intersections of writing and boxing in the reflexive reclamation of the post-trauma self, the absence of women in the rodeo and who and what is represented in our sports shelves. This book breaks new ground in approaches to sport’s role in creative writing and what creative writing can provide in furthering our understanding of sport in society. The works in this edited book draw on a diverse range of methods to interrogate the processes, concepts and liminal spaces through an intersectional array of voices, offering analysis and insight into the application of creative writing knowledge and practice in relation to sport and its impact on wider discipline discussion and research. It is relevant to students and scholars studying and researching creative writing, sports writing, sports studies, cultural studies and sports media studies.

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 predominantlyurban 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 fascinatingsubject.

This book examines the largely unexplored social and cultural history of Middlesbrough and the leisure habits and opportunities of its people. It adds to existing studies of urban Britain and provides a specific study on the relationship between leisure and urbanization and industrialization. The book furthers understanding of urban sport and urban history by demonstrating how sport can be shaped by urban growth, whether directly or indirectly, and equally, how sport can also affect the way in which a town develops. This book shows how the study of sport in a particular setting provides another means of examining relationships between different social groups and within a large urban landscape. This book views the town’s sporting history alongside the development of Middlesbrough itself and within the context of the growth of sport in Britain more widely. Furthermore, as a study in urban history, this book addresses existing gaps in our knowledge of the development of towns and cities by examining the town’s sport. Through a detailed examination of local newspapers and archival sources, this book reveals the depth and diversity of the town’s sporting culture. In particular, it illustrates the role of the middle classes in the development of clubs, and the importance of class and social relations in determining an individual’s access to sport. As a consequence, the study also relates how the town’s working class populace was often excluded from the sporting culture, and shows the lack of sporting opportunities available to women. Amateurism is explored through the initial rejection of professional football, but the book also demonstrates the increased popularity of the professional game during this period. In addition, in view of Middlesbrough’s migrant population, the extent of football’s role in forming and reinforcing local and regional identities will be examined.