As most of you guys know, Jeremy Paxton is doing a series on the Beeb called 'Empire', and the next episode in the series is apparently going to be about sport and the empire.

It's an episode I'm looking forward to, because the way the British created modern sport as we know it today has always been of interest to me. Yes, prehistorics used to kick around a ball centuries ago, but it took the British to create a set of rules for the game. Then, they went and invented cricket, rugby, etc, and produced a set of rules for boxing.

Sport is one of the few things that complained about with regards to the empire. Just look at how India, Pakistan and the West Indies have embraced cricket, and how popular rugby is in former British colonies in the Pacific....

Don't forget Tiddlywinks.

The game and its (very complex) rules were devised by students at the University of Cambridge in 1888 (eat your heart out, Catigern), although this is disputed.

There is an English Tiddlywinks Association, and our former colony, the USA, also has its own body - the North American Tiddlywinks Association.

The Scottish Tiddlywinks Association was disbanded recently - typical.

OK, so nobody wants to talk about tiddlywinks. See if I care.

Just like to add that Lt. The Hon. George Colthurst St. Barleigh - an Empire builder extraordinaire if ever there was one - was a Trinity Tiddler. Can't find a YouTube clip, but the lines I'm thinking of are:

"I joined up straight away, sir. August 14th 1914. Gah, what a day that was: myself and the rest of the fellows leapfrogging down to the Cambridge recruiting office and playing tiddlywinks in the queue. We had hammered Oxford's tiddlywinkers only the week before, and there we were off to hammer the Boche. Crashingly superb bunch of blokes. Fine, clean-limbed - even their acne had a striking nobility about it."

Seriously, shivfan, the game was enormously popular in Singapore and in Hong Kong - at least so my father always said. But he could well have been lying. (He was a Trinity man - honest.)

I really will shut up now.

I'd talk about tiddlywinks, if I knew what it was Temp. Honest! Had to look it up on Wiki

The Scots being a sensible race decided that tiddling while simultaneously winking led to a nasty splashy mess and the strong likelihood of a charge of Lewd and Libidinous behaviour. Consequently we decided that our traditional pastime of running around with a tree trunk held in a suggestive position was preferable.

I wonder why they are doing this, when Clare Balding is nearing the end of a 30-part series on Sport in Britain on R4 every weekday lunchtime, and has covered this topic in depth.

shivfan wrote:

Yes, prehistorics used to kick around a ball centuries ago, but it took the British to create a set of rules for the game. Then, they went and invented cricket, rugby, etc, and produced a set of rules for boxing....

Well various sports were organised and regulated activities in China and Egypt (for example) as far back as 2000BC, and as we all know, in Greece military activity and sport influenced each other with sport becoming so prominent that the 4 yearly games at Olympia came into being.

But it wasn't really until the industrial revolution that people had the leasure time to spare for (either for participation or as spectators) a great amount of sport. With the regulation and organisation of sports advancing alongside and according to the advancements of the industrialised society, until we have sport as we know it today.

Tiddlywinks....

I haven't played that since I was a kid. They don't do that any more. My kids don't even know what tiddlywinks is!

Gilgamesh, I suppose not many people listen to Radio 4. I do, but this TV series will probably reach more people.

I'd forgotten about the Olympics. That said, the Greek version died away, and it wasn't until 1896 that it was revived by Coubertin, I think it was....

That revival fitted in well with the "gentlemen2 who found work beneath their status, and needed sport to fill the gaps of time in their lives. Roll on the strange definition of the amateur....

Sport may have been, intentionally or incidentally, an agent of imperialist policy, but it was also often a weapon which could be directed against the imperialists. In Ireland the preferred method was simply to ignore or denegrate "English" sporting codes and encourage participation in home-grown varieties of track and field sports - the GAA, which is still a considerably popular and powerful body in Ireland even if it is less identified with nationalism in latter years as before. In India the approach was more subtle, though no less pointed. In the early half of the 20th century teams participating in Indian soccer leagues which had predominantly Indian members took to playing barefoot, and when they won against the more conventionally attired teams containing British members the victories were hailed as nationalist triumphs and considered a humiliation inflicted on the colonial "masters". A similar approach and attitude was utilised in Algeria against their French colonial masters.

Winning at any sport in the subcontinent against whomsoever is always celebrated as if a war triumph. India v Pakistan at hockey or cricket is a national nail-biter. beating England comes next and then Australia in the emotions of winning/losing and degree of post match ecstasy. Check what's on before going to the local dentist. His patient's chair faces a TV screen usually so that you can't see it so well but he can.

It is a two way trade. British took up polo from northern tribes and the moghuls - harem women played it then, also. There are several minature paintings of this. Who substituted balls for a goat's/human head and when, I am uncertain.

The best polo match ever was organised by Panam in India with men on elephants and veerrry long sticks to celebrate Jumbo jets. The elephants soon caught onto the idea and picked up the ball and ran with it. Sadly no one developed that into another sport.

This is probably the most important role that sport played during the time of the British Empire - that of a "safety valve" for otherwise pent up and unexpressed nationalist frustrations. Sporting occasions often provided a stage on which unbridled contempt for the colonial power could be expressed which, in any other circumstances, would have been deemed seditious. There are remarkably few examples, given the long history of such events and the fact that they frequently involved considerable attendances, in which this spilled over into actual insurrection however. I wonder what, if anything, can be made of that? Was it down to effective imperial management of such things or does it show an innate understanding on the part of everyone involved that such an aberration in the prevalent attitude towards what constituted potentially riotous assemblies was worth preserving? Or was it simply that sport was deemed by the majority as being more important than any aspiration for political independence?

shivfan wrote:

I'd forgotten about the Olympics. That said, the Greek version died away, and it wasn't until 1896 that it was revived by Coubertin, I think it was....

Oh the games did indeed eventually die out. Based on inscriptions, the accepted date for the inception of the Olympics is 777BC, the games continued reaching their height at around the 5th C BC and then began a gradual decline as the Romans gained influence in Greece. But there is no agreement on when the games at Olympia actually ended. The most common theory is 393AD when Theodosius banned all pagan practices and beliefs, 426AD is another date bandied about when Theodosius II ordered the destruction of all Greek temples.

Although, the revivals began well before Courbertin. The French did it first in 1796, which also introducted the metric system into sports. Then the Greeks became interested after the War of Independence in 1821, when a revival was first proposed in the poem Dialogue to the Dead published in 1833 by Soutsos. The interest was taken up by the wealthy Greek/Romanian Zappas who sponsored the first modern Olympics in Greece in 1859 and the restoration of the Ancient Panathenaic Staduim in Athens. Athens also hosted further Olympics in 1870 and 1875, but it wasn't until the games of 1890 that Courbertin was inspired to form the IOC and built on the previous work of Englishman Dr William Brookes and the philanthropist Zappas.

shivfan wrote:

Tiddlywinks....

I haven't played that since I was a kid. They don't do that any more. My kids don't even know what tiddlywinks is!

Gilgamesh, I suppose not many people listen to Radio 4. I do, but this TV series will probably reach more people.

I'd forgotten about the Olympics. That said, the Greek version died away, and it wasn't until 1896 that it was revived by Coubertin, I think it was....

That revival fitted in well with the "gentlemen2 who found work beneath their status, and needed sport to fill the gaps of time in their lives. Roll on the strange definition of the amateur....

The Olympics were revived before Coubertin got in on the act - in Much Wenlock in the 1850s. Still celebrated every year (hence "Wenlock" as one of the 2012 mascots)

And a far more deserving competition than the overblown, overhyped, over-commercial, over-nationalistic codology that is the "modern" Olympics for being televised, in my view!

Some of Much Wenlock's events in the past nearly merit pay-per-view on their own. I would dearly love to see, for example, our precious modern millionaire celebrity-cum-athletes competing in the Wheelbarrow Race, or indeed the "Old Woman Running After a Pound of Tea" event.

I was a bit disappointed in Paxman's programme....

It seemed much like lite history, without much analysis. He just skirted over a few issues with regards to sport as a tool of the British empire.

For example, he really could've looked deeper into the whole issue of race in West Indies cricket. I guess that's the problem with a one-hour programme - you can't really deal with it properly.

For several years we had a local 'Olympics" The flag had interlocking squares and the challenges interesting. Throwing the cowpat, was one, how many people cann be queezed into a local taxi, for istance were very popular. Obstcal courses were plain silly and I recall my delight when my young sec beat a USA marine when gettig under a very low flat pegged net. mIt was lowere especially for her.

At which point I had a power cut did not finish or edit post. I wanted to add thatthe games were closed because they mocked the international one. Ours were multinational and great fun.

As for sport in the subcontinent, it was not quite a tool - not at the higher levels. Maharajahs and Nawabbs were not as subserviant as it seems to be thought. The British Raj sought their attention in the great social jostle and invitations to their sports if they can be called that, shooting and hunting things were savoured. Since many of the the men of high status went to British public schools - as did their sons - cricket came back with them, as did golf and structed horse racing. Local sports continued which the British joined in when they could - tent peg sticking at the gallop comes to mind. Rugby on the arid hard land had less attraction, but I think every palace, club and in many a lowly a bazaar hall billiards and snooker games were enjoyed across the class spectrum. I have not seen the TV progs but assume it could in way expound on the subtle shades of the social divide in the subcontinent when applied to sport, or come to that, anything else.

I see sport in former colonies just residue of a regime, not a tool - as are also road systems, law, education. armed forces. Social divides and prejudice to manipulate were well established before colonisation added even uglier ones.

I have one final say on this subject. I think sport was/is a very useful tool to consolidate and keep the Commonwealth together. It is a flaky sort of notion otherwise otherwise

Perhaps worth emphasising one other function of sport in the Empire. It was considered de rigeur for officers to take part in sport with the men under their command (of course, the hossifer would always be team captain) as well as indulging in their own chosen individual sports.

I don't know if the officers were involved but I have a letter from my father during the war which says, Had my first game of football [ie rugby] today but I kept well out of the way of the ball. [My father wasn't interested in sport, either as a player or spectator.] I don’t like the idea of tackling too much, especially against all the big chaps.

I suppose it was assumed a team game would help weld the company and emphasize instant obedience to rules. I'm not sure, though, that these follow automatically from sports participation.

Priscilla wrote:

India v Pakistan at hockey or cricket is a national nail-biter.

India winning Gold at every Olympic Games between 1928 and 1956 still stands as a record and was/is undoubtedly a matter for national pride. India and Pakistan then alternately shared the top podium during the 1960s.

The bizarre decision in the 1970s to introduce astroturf as the default playing surface for Olympic matches began to change the dynamic of the game and ended the dominance of the Subcontinent. That said - when Germany won Gold at Munich in 1972 (becoming the first non-South Asian champion in over 50 years) the tournament was still played on grass. The decision to change the surface was all the more perplexing considering the official title of the sport's governing body which is the Fédération Internationale de Hockey sur Gazon.

Viz, I am not so sure that astro turf was the reason for a change in dominance. From what I have seen it is a fast surface for the speedy slick dribling game favoured by the Asian teams  It was the element of agressive play that brought changed - somewhat like elegant gazelle forwards up against charging rhino backs from what I saw. It never was a sport for the feint hearted - nor a tool of empire, I imagine.

nordmann wrote:

A similar approach and attitude was utilised in Algeria against their French colonial masters.

Algeria's progression to the Second Round of the current FIFA World Cup is historic in more ways than one. So far none of the television or radio commentators seems to have picked up on it. The elimination of Russia means that for the first time since the tournament began in 1930 there are no Balkan, Italian, Eastern European, Iberian, Scandinavian or British Isles teams in the Second Round of the World Cup.

Vizzer wrote:

nordmann wrote:

A similar approach and attitude was utilised in Algeria against their French colonial masters.

Algeria's progression to the Second Round of the current FIFA World Cup is historic in more ways than one. So far none of the television or radio commentators seems to have picked up on it. The elimination of Russia means that for the first time since the tournament began in 1930 there are no Balkan, Italian, Eastern European, Iberian, Scandinavian or British Isles teams in the Second Round of the World Cup.

Too advanced for TV commentators, Vizz.  btw Fabio Cappello seems to be as useless at managing Russia as he was England That won't go down well with Vlad, especially as the Russians are hosting in 2018.

Speaking of which, this team will qualify easily:

Alfredo di Stefano died two days ago. Here is di Stefano in action with Real Madrid in the final of the 1960 European Cup at Hampden Park against Eintracht Frankfurt ( this contains footage of a German team conceding seven goals which some younger viewers may find difficult to believe)

Priscilla wrote:

I think sport was/is a very useful tool to consolidate and keep the Commonwealth together.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Carlos Alberto, Pelé, Jairzinho and Rivelino et al lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy for Brazil at the world cup Mexico’70. This week also sees the 50th anniversary of Edward Heath becoming UK prime minister after the Conservatives won the 1970 general election. The previous weekend had seen holders England knocked out of the world cup in the quarterfinals and the 2 events (i.e. England’s fortunes in the Mexico’70 world cup and the 1970 general election result) may at first seem unrelated. Yet an alternative history published online in 2002 called What if Gordon Banks had Played sought to link them and this resulted in a remarkable account of a possible dystopian experience during the ensuing 1970s for all of the British Isles and what remained of the empire:

What if Gordon Banks had Played

A retrospective discussion of the story took place on the Sea Lion Press forum a couple of years ago including input from the author Anthony J Wells:

Sea Lion Press forums - What if Gordon Banks had Played

Food for thought.

Vizzer wrote:

Priscilla wrote:

I think sport was/is a very useful tool to consolidate and keep the Commonwealth together.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Carlos Alberto, Pelé, Jairzinho and Rivelino et al lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy for Brazil at the world cup Mexico’70. This week also sees the 50th anniversary of Edward Heath becoming UK prime minister after the Conservatives won the 1970 general election. The previous weekend had seen holders England knocked out of the world cup in the quarterfinals and the 2 events (i.e. England’s fortunes in the Mexico’70 world cup and the 1970 general election result) may at first seem unrelated. Yet an alternative history published online in 2002 called What if Gordon Banks had Played sought to link them and this resulted in a remarkable account of a possible dystopian experience during the ensuing 1970s for all of the British Isles and what remained of the empire:

What if Gordon Banks had Played

A retrospective discussion of the story took place on the Sea Lion Press forum a couple of years ago including input from the author Anthony J Wells:

Sea Lion Press forums - What if Gordon Banks had Played

Food for thought.

 
Vizzer, in my message about education that I just put on the "Daily Diaries" thread to LiR, I meant of course with the "men" in the "vlottende massa" (floating mass) as just interested in nothing but football and rugby, not the "thinking" members, certainly as you just linked football to the British Empire...

Kind regards from Paul.

Don't worry Paul - I understood your meaning.  

Besides, the title of the story is somewhat misleading as all talk of soccer ends immediately on Page 2. The rest is a roller-coaster ride of British party politics coupled with British, Irish, European, American and, indeed, global geopolitics. The author also makes use of very believable and realistic reference texts - all, however, fictional as alternative history.

tug-of-war
We have been hearing on our radio a story about what the man was describing as the first European sport played in NZ/Aotearoa - tug-of-war. He was setting up a museum on his farm for all his memorabilia about it. There are now only 2 clubs left in NZ down from hundreds.

Caro,

I had first some difficulties with: 
"He says New Zealand teams can generate more power lying down, especially with the cleated boards stopping their feet from slipping."

with:"cleated" is that "clinged", "stuck"? We have in Dutch the word "klitten" (stick, cling)
As I find no videos or images, I suppose that the men lying down with their feet against the cleated boards, are then when they lose, first pulled half right and then over the cleated board and depending from the rules, perhaps up to the next cleated board as in a normal "tug-of-war"? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_war

"A variant, originally brought to New Zealand by Boston whalers in the 1790s, is played with five-person teams lying down on cleated boards. The sport is played at two clubs in Te Awamutu and Hastings, supported by the New Zealand Tug of War Association.^[20]"

I found also this. It seems to be from Poland.



Does that exists also in New Zealand?

Kind regards, Paul.

Priscilla wrote:

I am not so sure that astro turf was the reason for a change in dominance. From what I have seen it is a fast surface for the speedy slick dribling game favoured by the Asian teams  It was the element of agressive play that brought changed - somewhat like elegant gazelle forwards up against charging rhino backs from what I saw. It never was a sport for the feint hearted - nor a tool of empire, I imagine.

Similar to hockey, another game which can be surprisingly fast is croquet. The trimmer the lawn the faster the ball. The Hurlingham Club in Fulham, for instance, is widely known for its field polo grounds but its croquet lawns are also second to none. Unlike Wimbledon which uses its croquet lawns as tennis practice courts during the championships in June and July, Hurlingham has no such impediment and has thus been able to develop lawns dedicated to croquet, with shorter grass and speedier playing surfaces.
 
Despite its francophonic spelling and pronunciation (cro-KEHY) which might lead one to imagine it having a mediaeval origin, croquet as a word only dates from the 19th century. Admittedly there have been similar-type games played for centuries but not under that name. That said, I have heard some people pronounce it as crocket (CROCK-et) which is only one vowel difference from cricket so maybe the francophonic pronunciation aids in differentiating.

Croquet was hugely popular in the 1860s when the All England Croquet & Lawn Tennis Club at Wimbledon and the Hurlingham Club in Fulham were both founded. Since then, the popularity of the game has ebbed and flowed with a seeming regularity every 20 years. It’s fashionable one decade then not the next, then fashionable again the decade after that, then not again the following decade and so on. It’s also a decidedly amateur pastime and, with several codes (association, golf, garden and American etc), it's likely to remain that way. Interestingly the top 10 countries where association croquet is played are all either in the Commonwealth of Nations or are English-speaking:  

America
Australia
Canada
England
Ireland
Jersey
New Zealand
Scotland
South Africa
Wales

Unlike with tennis where each year’s Wimbledon open champion will become a household name around the world, the Wimbledon croquet champion is a virtual unknown. It’s a closed tournament contested by club members only.

shivfan wrote:

Sport is one of the few things that complained about with regards to the empire.  Just look at how India, Pakistan and the West Indies have embraced cricket, and how popular rugby is in former British colonies in the Pacific....

If in the 1980s you had told someone that there would be a year in the future in which the West Indies would fail to qualify for the Cricket World Cup (while the likes of the Netherlands would qualify) or that Australia would make a first round exit from the Rugby World Cup, that person might have thought that you had been consuming a whacky substance. Yet 2023 is just such a year.

When the Rugby World Cup began to expand significantly around the turn of the Millennium, a senior official from soccer’s FIFA said, when asked about the growing popularity of (rugby) Union, that the Rugby World Cup wouldn’t genuinely become a world cup until the Final was contested by 2 non-English-speaking countries. Someone then suggested that that had already happened and indeed had happened immediately with the first Rugby World Cup in 1987 in which the Final had been between New Zealand and France and with the languages in question being Maori and French. But the point made by the FIFA official was well understood. The tournament has always been won by a team representing a Commonwealth of Nations country. Even if one were to include South Africa among the non-English-speaking countries (with Afrikaans being the primary language of South African rugby) then there has never been a South Africa v France final for instance while other bilingual contenders such as Wales and Ireland have never made the Final.

With the elimination of hosts France last nite, then the chance of a non-Commonwealth of Nations country wining the current tournament has all but evaporated. Admittedly Argentina is still in the running (as they were the last time France hosted the Rugby World Cup in 2007) but with France out then the possibility of them meeting in the Final is now gone. Many fans of the game had anticipated a France v Ireland final for this World Cup, but those 2 pre-tournament favourites have fallen in the Quarter-Finals, felled by South Africa and New Zealand respectively. It’s not for nothing that those 2 Southern Hemisphere teams are known as much by their nicknames (the Springboks and the All-Blacks) as by their countries’ own names. A France v Ireland final would also have seen 2 Northern Hemisphere teams contest the Final. This is something which has never happened before, whereas there have been all-Southern Hemisphere finals in the past. England is now the only Northern Hemisphere team left in the tournament. But maybe we’re in danger of getting too hung-up on the whole Northern Hemisphere v Southern Hemisphere thing. Perhaps it might be better to see the bigger picture. Looking at the 4 Semi-Finalists (Argentina, New Zealand, England and South Africa) then it’s worth noting that each represents a different continent (South America, Australasia, Europe and Africa). This is something which has never happened before in a Rugby World Cup. And here’s the thing – neither has it ever happened at a FIFA World Cup tournament. So much for that FIFA official dictating the characteristics of what makes a real world cup.

Thanks for that summary, Vizzer. I hadn't realised that the four semi-finalists represent four different continents. Being held in France it is not on television when we can watch it live, at least not unless we were prepared to get up in the middle of the night. My husband isn't that interested in rugby, much preferring soccer (football). I suppose because he is English-born, though has spent most of his life in NZ/Aotearoa. But he has been taping the rugby and watching it later. 
I would like to see NZ win if only because I really like Beauden Barrett, and want to see him go out on a winning note. He has come in for a lot of criticism lately.