This work uses original material from clubs and sporting organizations to illuminate the evolution of sporting activity nation-wide. It relates these documents to themes such as commercialism and club fortunes. It concludes by discussing the outlook for English sport.

This book seeks to redress the balance of reporting in the sport's literature which has always favoured the activities of aquatic gentlemen at the public schools, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Henley Regatta and on the River Thames. This study focuses on the many who helped instigate and nurture the sport but who have been forgotten due to their not being associated with the elite of the sport.

This book gives a fascinating history of the English experience of sport, following its development through the centuries from its earliest beginnings in social play and pastimes, via its adoption as an alternative to the clock-watching routine of urban life, to its modern incarnation as a global business.

Key themes and issues in the evolution of sport are examined, including:

• social structures, such as the division between amateurs and professionals
• the growth of the popular press and the influence of television
• the post-war emergence of sports a ~welfarisma (TM) and a ~sport for alla (TM)
• globalization and commercialization.

Looking ahead to the future, the author asks whether our sports experience is turning full circle, and if in the twenty-first century we are returning to a forgotten view of sport as a pastime and recreation.

This book gives a fascinating history of the English experience of sport, following its development through the centuries from its earliest beginnings in social play and pastimes, via its adoption as an alternative to the clock-watching routine of urban life, to its modern incarnation as a global business.

Key themes and issues in the evolution of sport are examined, including:

• social structures, such as the division between amateurs and professionals
• the growth of the popular press and the influence of television
• the post-war emergence of sports a ~welfarisma (TM) and a ~sport for alla (TM)
• globalization and commercialization.

Looking ahead to the future, the author asks whether our sports experience is turning full circle, and if in the twenty-first century we are returning to a forgotten view of sport as a pastime and recreation.

Until recently sporting history was written by middle-class amateurs, many of whom were Oxbridge graduates. Much of the resulting history of English sport therefore suffers from a narrowness of cultural perspective. The growth of many and varied sporting clubs and the development of sport throughout the country are vast topics which have largely escaped the attention of those historians who have tended to concentrate on the activities of a metropolitan elite. The Evolution of English Sport uses original material from clubs and sporting organisations to illuminate the evolution of sporting activity nationwide. It draws, for example, upon minutes from over one hundred sports clubs, accounts, annual reports, correspondence, and press reports. It relates these documents to themes such as commercialism, professionalism, amateurism, recreationalism, and club fortunes and concludes with a discussion of the outlook for English sport in the next decade. This radical and unique approach to the development of sport in England provides a wider perspective than any other work, representing the views of ordinary participants and setting the various sporting activities in the context of their geographical, economic and social environments.

This book seeks to redress the balance of reporting in the sport's literature which has always favoured the activities of aquatic gentlemen at the public schools, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Henley Regatta and on the River Thames. This study focuses on the many who helped instigate and nurture the sport but who have been forgotten due to their not being associated with the elite of the sport.