CHAPTER 1
England and Wales
Marc Keech
The recent historiography of sport in England and Wales has been concerned with two important issues. The first area of study has focused on the emergence of sport into recognisable modern forms, linked as it was to the social, economic, political and cultural structures of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century society. The second, and more recent, focus has examined more contemporary aspects of the development of sport since the end of the Second World War. Here, increasing levels of state intervention have been juxtaposed against three prevailing ideologies which have shaped sport in England and Wales, amateurism, welfarism and commercialism. The chapter examines these themes through four key periods. The first, 1870-1914, examines the influence of the processes of urbanisation and industrialisation on the creation of what have become 'modern' sports. The second, 1914-1945, explores the impact of inter-war poverty and the growth of sport as a spectacle. From 1945 to 1970 the continuity of sporting practices is contrasted with the growing recognition of the professional and commercial value of sport. Since 1970, the development of sport in England and Wales has been characterised by the debates concerning whether sport is 'for all', or for 'a few'. Throughout, it is acknowledged that sport has been a predominantly male preserve, only recently reflecting upon how women can be empowered through sport.
A great deal of historical writing has concentrated on the history of sport in Britain (see Mason, 1989; Birley, 1993; 1995, Holt, 1989) and these works often incorporated some mention of sport in Scotland and also Northern Ireland. The unique constitution of the United Kingdom has been historically dominated by the English, with a larger population and significantly more resources. Until 1922 it governed the whole of Ireland as well as Scotland and Wales, hence the interchangeable and sometimes indiscriminate use of 'English' to mean 'British' which has reflected the distribution of power within the state. Only recently has devolution led to the creation of a Welsh assembly that has the power to allocate resources. Thus, it is important to acknowledge that political, economic and socio-cultural change in England was often replicated in Wales and many sporting trends followed a similar path.
1870-1914: From the old to the new
Popular recreations, medieval activities and folk games had many of their origins in the Roman occupations of Britain. Through time, activities became moulded by and rooted in the elite, agrarian or parochial identities of localised communities. Many activities were based on wagering; for example on animal baiting or cock fighting, whilst the upper classes would pursue field sports such as hunting and shooting. By the 1870s Britain was the most industrialised nation in the world; its manufacturing base was firmly located in towns and cities and it had established a reliable network of transport and communications. Prior to this period sport was not a mass participation pastime and the origins of modern sport in England and Wales were rooted in the elite educational system of the nineteenth century.
Many characteristics of modern sport in England and Wales were shaped by the extensive development of physical education and activity in public schools. Mangan (1981) provides the most comprehensive account of this period. During the latter half of the nineteenth century public schools institutionalised what were seen as two important principles. First, there was a move to competitive team games, based on the premise that these activities had an ethical basis and would teach participants to play for others and not just oneself. Second, it was believed that the moral values of physical education could be transferred beyond the playing field. Such ideologies reflected the thoughts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher and in part, emerged from the innovative developments that took place through gymnastics in France and elsewhere in Europe. As Jennifer Hargreaves (1994) notes, similar values were ascribed to the development of pioneering physical education colleges for young women. By 1905 Dartford College offered the first full-time course in the theory and practice of physical education (Hargreaves, 1994: p.78). During this period middle- and some working-class girls gained their experience of physical activity through their schooling. Ideas and meanings attached to gymnastics, games, athletics, swimming and dance have had a lasting effect upon how women think about their bodies and the development of female sports became inextricably and fundamentally linked to the development of the women's physical education profession (Hargreaves, 1994: pp.86-7).
The ability of physical education to transmit moral values such as fairness, decency and, through adherence to the rules of the game, has often been questioned but the conformity of the upper classes to these values, embedded at the public schools, has had a strong legacy throughout the twentieth century. By 1906 physical education and some sporting activities were beginning to be incorporated into the state school curricula, but in public schools the amount of, and importance attached to, physical education and sport were exemplified by the number of competitions. As Holt (1981) writes, 'the full importance of games and their distinctive social function cannot be grasped without some understanding of the changing relationship within and between the middle and upper classes in nineteenth-century Britain as a whole' (p.95). By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain possessed a remarkably homogenous and cohesive elite, sharing to a high degree a common education and a common outlook and set of values (Briggs, 1965: pp.152-3, cited in Holt, 1989: p.95).
Towns and cities were rapidly growing, boosted by the manufacturing industries and whose landscapes in the latter half of the nineteenth century were dominated by large factories and crowded streets. Large swathes of the population migrated from rural communities, which had been devastated by the collapse of the common field system of farming. The provision of rational recreation activities, governed by the view and use of sport as a form of moral education which was often held by humanitarian and educational organisations, promoted a vision of society in which collective goals of improved industrial productivity and social cohesion could emerge. As Horne et al. note (1999: p.2) many activities were appropriated by the working class as their own and 'the changing society was governed by contractual relations in spheres of life such as work and the family ... it was biased toward individualism ... and rooted in factory-labour discipline rather than the social or inherited relations of the community'. John Hargreaves (1986) concluded that the rational recreation movement, which aimed to improve, educate and refine popular culture of the masses, did not engender cultural change amongst the majority of the population as cultural change takes longer to manifest itself than population migration. Throughout much of the nineteenth century the public house became a focus for a number of leisure activities including sport. For Holt (1989: p. 148) the public house and the local streets became the locations for those who learned their sports 'in the shadow of the factory'. Holt also notes that this era marks the origins of the much stronger association between sport and alcohol in England and Wales, with many participants often following their sport with a visit to their 'local', whilst 'boxers and footballers looked to the alcohol trade as a way of living after retirement'.
Modern sports in England and Wales emerged as the cultural products of a rapidly industrialising society, undergoing unprecedented levels of change. That the changing nature of society would produce markedly different sporting practices was not always evident and the time taken for that change to occur varied from sport to sport. Whilst one should not claim that sports, or sport per se, simply reflected the characteristics of society it is prudent to claim that they were products of the social relationships that formed within the context of societal change. However, the major issue in the development of sport during this period was the conflict between athleticism and rational recreation with the emergent forms of professional sport. The dynamics of this conflict were central to the growth of many modern sports and are critical to understanding their emergence.
The emergence of sport in the city is closely connected by population expansion in urban areas. In 1881, three quarters of the British population lived in and around towns and cities and the proportion increased as the total grew to 41 million by 1901, 33 million of whom lived in England and Wales. The introduction of the shorter working week, with cotton mills being forced to close by 2.00 p.m. on Saturdays, combined with legislation such as the Bank Holidays Act which led to the first public holiday in 1871, ensured that by the 1880s working class people in England and Wales enjoyed more leisure time than those elsewhere in Europe (Birley, 1995: p.265). Games of short duration significantly benefited from the Saturday half-day holiday particularly in heavily industrialised areas such as the Midlands and north-west of England. For example, in Birmingham the number of football clubs rose from one in 1874, to 20 in 1876 to 155 by 1880 (Birley, 1995: p. 265). To visitors from Europe the number and variety of sporting activities were surprising. The more codified versions of existing sports were suited to the limited spaces of the industrialised areas and the use of communication and transport links enabled organisations to regulate sporting forms in such ways as leagues, cup competitions and regular meetings. Two contrasting examples of this process follow.
The Rugby Football Union (RFU) was formed at a meeting in London in 1871 out of 'an urgent desire to rescue the game of rugby from the confusions of unregulated modes of play into which it was slipping'. Williams (1989: p. 309) asserts that the need for a unified code of rules was extremely pressing as the game was diffusing from its origins within the public schools and universities into wider public society. Through the latter quarter of the nineteenth century the game went through a series of rule changes to emerge in a recognisable precursor of the modern game. As with association football, clubs were often built on pre-existing formations, such as schools (in Yorkshire and Lancashire for example), or places of work (around the mines of Cornwall or the foundries of Pontypridd). In Wales, the church also had a strong influence in areas such as Llanelli, whilst the Redruth club in Cornwall, formed in 1895 from 'the usual assortment of petty bourgeoisie, managed to secure support, and a ground, from the Redruth Brewery Company' (Williams, 1989: p.311), thereby starting a pattern of patronage by local employers.
In the North of England, rugby emerged as a mass spectator sport drawing attendances in excess of 25,000. Suggestions that receipts might be spent on improving facilities for spectators or recompensing players for missing work were viewed with barely concealed suspicion by the southern-based RFU. In 1895, 22 clubs formed the Northern Union and by 1898 their number had risen to 98. The RFU's stoicism preserved the middle-class status of the sport but in doing so it led to a markedly reduced number of clubs and a loss of many of England's best players. By 1913 the Northern Union had adopted a league style structure and was benefiting from the commercial nature of the game, which was to emerge as what is now known as Rugby League. In Wales, the spread of the game relied on two factors. First, the ability of upper-middle class young men who would organise and control the sport, and second, the concomitant injection of industrialism into the southern half of Wales, which required a sizeable workforce. By 1911, the population of Wales had risen by over a million from 1871 and one in three was a miner (Williams, 1989: p.314). Rugby predated football by over 20 years and became an embodiment of the collective identity of a physically vigorous society. The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) was formed in 1881 and retained a middle class control of the sport, but the sport remained amateur, despite the precedent set by the Northern Union.
Ex-public school and university players living and working in London formed the English Football Association (FA) in 1863. By 1880 the game had one set of rules recognised by all players and administrators. From the late nineteenth century football became the game of working-class men. Grounds were built in urban areas and the gate money charged was the catalyst for ground improvements at clubs such as Blackburn Rovers and Preston North End in the north-west. The trend was replicated most notably at cricket and horse racing venues. An important factor reflecting the growth and scope of the game was the FA knockout cup competition first competed for by 14 teams in 1871-72. The competition was replicated in Wales in the 1877-78 season. By 1885 the English FA legalised professionalism which provoked long-term contestation between the professional and amateur ethos of the game. By the 1908-09 season football had become a ritual component of many working men's lives with attendances for the English first division reaching a total of over 6 million. The number of professional football clubs in Wales quadrupled between 1906 and 1910 but the game had permeated areas in the North, closer to the English conurbations of Liverpool and Manchester, more strongly than it had in the South where rugby remained the most popular sport.
The first decade of the twentieth century set the patterns which were to become more commonplace, particularly after the Second World War. By 1901 railway lines criss-crossed the countries and the railways had become the envy of many European nations. Travelling to sport had now become habitual for some spectators and watching sport had begun to be budgeted into everyday lives as working men saved for weekly trips to popular team sports such as football. Professional sport at the beginning of the twentieth century was still in its infancy, with many sports continuing to re-evaluate their practices. Rule changes occurred almost annually; for example, until 1902 the penalty area in football was still kidney shaped when the area was redesigned into the modern size and shape. In 1908 the Olympic Games were held in London, with 2035 participants from 22 nations and were widely credited as the first Games to be well organised. In 1900 Wales began an unsurpassed run of eleven consecutive five nations rugby championships cementing rugby's place at the forefront of Welsh sporting culture. Transfer fees in football have been a source of great debate and controversy ever since Alf Common became the first £1000 player when he moved from Sunderland to Middlesborough in 1905. Furthermore, the first football disaster occurred in 1902 when 25 people died and more than 500 were injured when a wooden stand collapsed at Ibrox during the annual match between England and Scotland.
Sport in this period had undergone radical change. Upper and middle classes were in dominant positions to shape the development of amateur and professional sport and it was they, not the working classes who reconfigured sporting practices into a recognisable form, and who dominated the emergent governing bodies of sport. Sport remained governed by men with women participating for social rather than competitive reasons. Within this strongly patriarchal arena, the notion of the amateur remained strong but the professional represented the artisan, doggedly completing successive tasks and it was with the professional that the working classes identified.
