In 2007 Lord Coe was appointedcourse patron to the FIFA InternationalMA students of the seventh edition. Aspart of his duties he was guest ofhonour at the course graduationceremony in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

Following the presentation of thecourse graduation certificates to theindividual students, Lord Coe said,“Every year, approximately thirtypostgraduates from 15 to 20 differentnationalities take part in this full-timecourse, which covers all the majorissues that sports organisations facetoday, from social and ethical issues tothe more traditional legal and businessmatters. This new and highly qualifiedgroup will be looking to take up postsin sports administration. They will bemuch better equipped than thegeneration before to deal with thegrowing global complexity of sport”.

Following the official degree ceremony,the students and their families had theopportunity to talk to Lord Coe and thecourse Scientific Directors about theirexperiences during the year-longprogramme and their plans for thefuture. 2007 graduate Brooke Adriancesaid, “The FIFA Master was a greatexperience, not only academically butalso personally. The chance to live inthree different countries with a verydiverse group of people while receivinga top level education in sportsmanagement is truly a once in a lifetime

experience”. The staff of the ICSHCwish all of the seventh edition studentsevery success in their future careers insport.

Prof Pierre Lanfranchi, Prof RichardHolt and Mr James Panter representedthe Centre at the graduation ceremony,along with Prof David Wilson, Dean ofBusiness and Law.

modernhumanities

ICSHCNewsletterInternational Centre for Sport History and Culture Newsletter Spring 2008

Lord Coe awards seventh edition FIFAMaster Graduation Certificates

| | |01

Lord Coe during the seventh edition FIFA Master graduation ceremony in Switzerland.

‘Allez Les Bleus’: The Centre and theRugby World Cup

Dr Claude Boli, a PhD graduatefrom the ICSHC, returned in 2007as a guest speaker on the FIFAInternational MA course. Dr Boliwas recently appointed asScientific Director of the MuséeNational du Sport in Paris. AsScientific Director he is responsiblefor all museum exhibitions,publications and research.

He spoke to the FIFA postgraduatestudents about his current work. Thisincludes a special exhibition on thehistory of sport in France since theMiddle Ages, to be located at the

French Ministry of Sport. Exhibitions willalso be created on ‘Women and Sportin Paris’ and ‘Handball’, to celebrate thesuccess of women at the World Cup inFrance in December 2007. Dr Boli isalso actively involved in French Ministryof Sport projects designed to promotesport in schools and within universitiesacross France.

As part of the ICSHC programme ofdeveloping international contacts andpartners, the ICSHC will forge closerlinks with the Musée National du Sportin 2008.

PhD Graduate appointed Musée National duSport Scientific Director in Paris

| | |02

Dr Phil Dine of the NUI Galway gavean overview of the character anddevelopment of French rugby whichwas followed by prominent Frenchspecialists including Thierry Terret, whospoke on the culture of rugby in thesouth-west of France, and Olivier Nieron the current transformation of Frenchrugby. Other topics included Vichy andRugby league whilst Eddie Butler(former Welsh international and now

BBC commentator) and GregorTownsend (former Scottishinternational) spoke about playing andwatching rugby in France.

The conference theme then movedappropriately to France where PaulDietschy and Patrick Clastresorganised a conference on 12-13October with simultaneous translationat the Institut de Sciences Politiques

(‘Sciences Po’) in Paris where ProfHolt and Prof. Lanfranchi from theICSHC both chaired sessions mixingtogether British and French specialistsfrom anthropology, sociology, sportsscience and history. The unexpectedEngland-France semi-final added acertain piquancy to the event –especially in light of the result whichwas duly celebrated by the Anglophonecontingent late into the night.

Prof Richard Holt joined with Jed Smith, curator of the National Rugby Museum, Huw Richards, rugby writer forThe Financial Times, and rugby scholars Prof. Tony Collins and Dr. Adrian Smith, to host a conference atTwickenham in September 2007 to mark the centenary of the first international match between England andFrance.

Gregor Townsend MBE during the conference

The BBC’s Eddie Butler

Dr Claude Boli during a visit to the Centre in December.

03 | | |

ICSHCNewsletter

Marie CurieCentre Fellowwins new EUresearch award

German Olympic Museumcontributes to AHRCresearch seminars

French sport historian, Dr DaphnéBolz, who joined the Centre in theautumn of 2006, has beenawarded a second prestigiousEuropean Commission, MarieCurie, Intra-European Fellowshipgrant. The award will allow DrBolz to continue her research intothe diplomatic, political andeconomic dimensions of the 1948Olympic Games, which were heldin London in the aftermath of theSecond World War.

The extensive research project wasproposed for funding to the EuropeanCommission in August 2007 andassessed by independent experts inOctober. In December 2007 theEuropean Commission officiallyannounced that the project wasranked “A” (funding available). Thesecond fellowship will run until April2010 and Dr Bolz will be based withinthe Centre for the duration of theFellowship. Prof Richard Holt, Directorof the Centre, said, “The Centre isdelighted that Dr Daphné Bolz hasbeen successful in her bid for afurther two year Fellowship from theEuropean Commission. This willgreatly strengthen our expertise in thearea of Olympic history and morespecifically London Olympic history”.

His paper considered the role ofOlympic museums across the worldand more specifically on the challengesfacing national sports museums in theheritage sector. A large audience ofacademics and representatives fromthe United Kingdom museum andheritage sector then had theopportunity to ask Dr Wacker a rangeof questions on sport heritage and hisexperiences as a Sport MuseumDirector. The seminar concluded with avisit to the Lord’s museum.The network has held four seminars todate, covering five different topics. Theproject is made up of three Directors,

Prof Jeff Hill, Kevin Moore (NationalFootball Museum) and Jason Wood(Heritage Consultant). They will shortlybe submitting a proposal for a book onthe subject of sport, history and heritage.

The next seminar will be held inFebruary 2008 at the All England LawnTennis Club, Wimbledon. For furtherinformation or to register to attendplease contact Prof Hill atjhill@dmu.ac.uk

Prof Jeff Hill’s AHRC funded Sport, History and Heritage researchnetwork seminars continued in 2007. Events were held at the NationalFootball Museum in Preston and in November Dr Christian Wackerpresented a paper at Lord’s cricket ground in London. Dr Wacker is theDirector of the German Sport and Olympic Museum in Köln, Germany.

Grace Gates at Lord’s – venue for the November AHRC seminar.

French Sport Historian Dr Daphne Bolz

Centre staff newsProfessor Richard Holt(rholt@dmu.ac.uk)Prof Holt spent much of 2007 writingcollaborative research bids. With DrChris Young (Cambridge) and Prof AlanTomlinson (Brighton), he wrote anAHRC network bid on how to developa new history of European Sport. Hehas also worked extensively with RayPhysick and Matthew Taylor on a majorbid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for ahistory of the London Ex-BoxersAssociation. Both of these projectshave been submitted and are currentlyunder consideration. With JohnWilliams (Sociology Department,University of Leicester), he wassuccessful in winning a fully-fundedPhD studentship to study sport andethnicity as part of the widerprogramme of sports researchsupported by the East MidlandsUniversities Association (EMUA). Thestudentship was generously funded inthis case by De Montfort University. Itfits into a wider and continuingprogramme of research into sport andethnicity in Leicester with JohnWilliams. Indeed, it will be submitted asa major research project to the ESRCin early 2008.

Richard completed an article on thehistory of the aesthetic in sport as partof an interdisciplinary response to HansUlrich Gumbrecht’s In Praise of AthleticBeauty (Harvard 2006). This will bepublished in a special edition of Sportin History in spring 2008. In addition,he organised the seventh Historians onSport which attracted a full house andhe spoke at conferences in Paris andLondon. He continued as co-scientificDirector of the FIFA Humanities ofSport module and as supervisor toseveral PhD students in the Centre.

On 1 November Richard formally tookover from Jeff Hill as the Director of theCentre.

Professor Jeff Hill(jhill@dmu.ac.uk)Jeff Hill continued as Director of theICSHC until 31 October 2007, whenhe handed over to Richard Holt and

took up a 0.2 appointment as Professorof Historical and Cultural Studies. Jeffhas been the Centre Director since2001. His research interests havecontinued to develop in the area ofhistory and literature; following thepublication in late 2006 of his Sportand the Literary Imagination, togetherwith an article in Sport in History, hepresented a paper on the subject of AlfTupper at the European Sport Literatureconference in Budapest in March 2007.In June he presented on RobinJenkins’s The Thistle and the Grail andScottish national identity at the SportLiterature Association conference inSaratoga Springs, New York, thoughregrettably illness prevented him fromspeaking at the CESH conference inL’Orient, France in September. He iscurrently planning with Dr JeanWilliams, a special issue of Sport inHistory based upon papers given at thetwo conferences held at De MontfortUniversity in October 2005 and May2006 to explore themes in sport andliterature. He examined PhDs atUniversity of Central Lancashire andBedfordshire. In January 2007 he was aguest on the BBC Radio 4 programmeThe Long View.

During 2007 Jeff co-ordinated the2008 History RAE submission.

Dr Dilwyn Porter(Dilwyn.Porter@dmu.ac.uk)Dil Porter has continued to work on anumber of projects in sports historywhile maintaining his commitment toresearch and teaching in 20th centuryBritish history. He co-edited (withStephen Wagg – Leeds MetropolitanUniversity) a special issue of Sport inHistory (December 2006) onAmateurism in England. This includedhis own piece ‘Revenge of the CrouchEnd Vampires’ on the FA/AFA split. Thisspecial issue is due to be republishedby Routledge in book form shortly.Meanwhile his work as co-editor ofSport in History has continued and hehas also been busy as a reviewer forContemporary British History, Culturaland Social History, Journal of SportsHistory, as well as for Sport in History.

He is currently working on two projectsrelated to football and rugby at theLondon 1908 Olympic Games.

Dil was active on the conference circuitin 2007, delivering papers at the annualconference of the British Society ofSports History and, by invitation, at theannual conference of Sports HistoryIreland. He took the lead, on behalf ofthe Centre, in co-organising the first‘Sport and Business’ conference, heldin conjunction with the BusinessHistory Unit at London School ofEconomics (LSE), where he retains‘Research Associate’ status. Thisinitiative was successful in attractingsponsorship from the Economic HistorySociety and it is hoped to follow it upwith another joint conference at De Montfort University in the autumn of2008. Dil has been invited to furtherdevelop the ‘Sport and Business’theme as a guest speaker at the annualconference of the German BritishStudies Society to be held in Duisburgin May 2008.

In March 2007 Dil co-organised a dayseminar in Leicester with guestspeakers from the Centre for Idraet,University of Aarhus (Denmark) on thesubject of sport and physical culture.

Dr Neil Carter(necarter@dmu.ac.uk)In 2007, the Wellcome Trust sponsored‘A History of Sports Medicine’ project,of which Neil Carter was ResearchFellow, came to an end. In September2007, he began a two year ResearchFellowship in the ICSHC.

During 2007, Neil had two articlespublished. These were ‘Managing theMedia’: The changing relationshipbetween football managers and themedia’ in Sport in History (June 2007)and ‘Metatarsals and Magic Sponges:English Football and the Developmentof Sports Medicine’ in Journal of SportHistory (Autumn 2007).

Neil presented various papers on thehistory of sports medicine and thehistory of football. In February 2007, at

| | |04

the conference ‘Northern SportingHeroes: New Historical Perspectives’,he presented a paper titled, ‘WilliamSudell: Football’s First Northern Hero?’The conference was held at LeedsUnited Football Club. In March he gavea paper on ‘Better and Safer Boxing:Ringside and Boardroom MedicalControl of Boxing Careers in theTwentieth Century’ at the AarhusUniversity/De Montfort University jointsymposium. At the British Society ofSports conference at Stirling Universityin August, he was part of the WellcomeTrust sponsored panel on the history ofsports medicine and gave a papertitled, ‘The Rise and Fall of the MagicSponge: Football Trainers and thePersistence of Popular Medicine’. InDecember, he presented a paper at theUniversity of Warwick at the ‘Regimensof Health’ conference. His paper wastitled, ‘Staying healthy to win: Thetraining of professional footballers,1880-1939’.

Professor Matt Taylor(mtaylor@dmu.ac.uk)Former Centre PhD student andresearch fellow, Matt Taylor, wassuccessful in applying for the post ofProfessor of History following theretirement of Prof Jeff Hill. CentreDirector Prof Richard Holt said, “MattTaylor’s work on the history of footballis of outstanding scholarship andinternational importance. We aredelighted to have Matt back in theCentre in a senior role”. Matt joins theCentre from the University ofPortsmouth.

Matt Taylor had his book TheAssociation Game: A History of BritishFootball published by Longman inAugust 2007.

An article entitled ‘Four Nations Againstthe World: Britain, “Britishness” andthe Football World Cup’, will bepublished soon in a collection on theWorld Cup edited by Alfred Wahl. Healso had two articles – one onglobalisation and the migration offootballers and the other on the politicalculture of British football. Both articleswere published in the Swedish onlinejournal idrottsforum.

Matt is currently working on a numberof new projects. Alongside a history of20th century British boxing with MartinJohnes (Swansea University), he has

been involved with Ray Physick,Richard Holt and the London Ex-Boxers’ Association in a bid to create aHall of Fame, an oral history archiveand a popular history of London boxing.In addition, he is working on articles onSport, Mass-Observation and CivilianMorale in the Second World War,Boxing and Unionism in the 1930s,Sporting Autobiographies, and onvarious aspects of the social andcultural history of post-war Englishsoccer. Matt is also editing a specialedition of the London Journal, themedaround ‘Sport and the Olympics’, towhich he will contribute a piece onBoxing in London between the wars.

During 2007, Matt delivered papers on‘Sport and Mass-Observation’ at theBritish Society of Sports History annualconference and on ‘The Pioneers:British Coaches Abroad’ at the DeMontfort University ‘Managing Athletes’conference in December 2007. Finally,Matt has acted over the past year as areader for proposals to a number ofpublishers, journals and researchcouncils, and served as an internalexaminer to two PhDs while at theUniversity of Portsmouth.

Dr Jean Williams(jwilliam@dmu.ac.uk)In October 2007 Jean had her book, A Beautiful Game: InternationalPerspectives on Women’s Footballpublished by Berg. The book examinescase studies of the United States ofAmerica, England, Australia and China,particularly with regard to thedevelopment of a World Cup forWomen (1991) and Olympic

Competition (1996).

In May 2007 Jean co-organised theICSHC conference, ‘RepresentingSport – Exploring the literary turn insport history’, with Jeff Hill. Jean alsopresented a paper entitled, ‘HarryPotter Quidditch: The Revenge of theNerds?’ This was in addition to herpaper, ‘Oral History and Women’sSports’ at the second InternationalQualitative Sporting Conference atLiverpool John Moores University. InMarch 2007 she gave a paper entitled,‘A Local Sporting Distinction for LocalPeople’, at the De Montfort University/Aarhus University day seminar inLeicester.

Jean was successful in gaining fundingfor three projects in 2007. The projectscovered, The Reflective Practitioner inUndergraduate Education StudiesModules, Bedford Physical TrainingCollege Archive Project and Sport andthe Image. Jean’s media activity in2007 included interviews and articleson women’s football for BBC Nationon Film and a series on The GlobalGame with John Turnbull –theglobalgame.com, for example,‘Rough girls, delicate boys’ September22, 2007.

Dr Daphné Bolz(dbolz@dmu.ac.uk)In 2007 Dr Bolz collaborated with theUniversity of Lyon, France, on a projecton the Olympic Games held in Paris in1924. In the chapter she has written forthe collective book linked to thisproject, she analyses the comments ofthe German journalists on the Paris

05 | | |

ICSHCNewsletter

| | |06

As part of the East Midlands UniversityAssociation (EMUA) programme tofoster co-operation between theuniversities of the region, De Montfort

University has responded generously byfunding a three year full cost PhDstudentship to be supervised jointlywith Leicester University on ‘Sport,

Ethnicity andCommunity inLeicester c.1960-1990s’. Theproject will bejointly supervisedby Prof. RichardHolt from the

ICSHC and John Williams of theLeicester University SociologyDepartment. The PhD will be linked to alarger funding bid to the ESRC to carryout a major survey of sport andethnicity in Leicester. Prof. Holt said,“The city of Leicester is currently takingmajor initiatives in promoting sport andsocial integration and this project willmake a significant scholarly contributionto that process”.

Games – (German athletes were notinvited as a consequence of World WarI). The chapter is entitled ‘Rabaisser,dénoncer et dépasser: la réception desJeux olympiques de 1924 dans lapresse allemande’ and the book will bepublished shortly under the reference: TTerret (ed), Les Paris des Jeuxolympiques de 1924, Biarritz, Atlantica,2008.

Articles written by Daphné on the 1934football World Cup in Italy and the1936 Olympics in Berlin came out inNovember 2007: ‘La mise en scènesportive de l’Italie fasciste et del’Allemagne nazie: la Coupe du mondede football de 1934 et les Jeuxolympiques de 1936’. They form part ofa wider collection of essays: AndréGounot, Denis Jallat, Benoît Caritey(eds), Les Politiques au stade.Manifestations sportives nationales etinternationales (du XlXe au XXlesiècles), Rennes, PUR, 2007. Anotherarticle, on the Commission for SportsFacilities under fascism, is about to bepublished in the Italian journal for sportshistory Lancillotto e Nausica: ‘LaCommissione Impianti Sportivi delCONI fascista. Tra sport e politica’.Finally, the slightly re-written text of herdoctorate will be out in January 2008:Les Arènes Totalitaires, Paris, Éditionsdu CNRS.

In February 2007, and as part of herMarie Curie Fellowship, Daphnépresented a paper at the De MontfortUniversity History Research Seminar.Her paper was entitled, ‘The Political

Dimension of Sports Architecture: AComparative Study of the German,Italian and British Experiences in theInterwar Period’. She also gave papersat ISSA and ISHPES Joint WorldConference in Copenhagen (Denmark)in August 2007: ‘Sports Architecture inEnglish Society. A Few Examples fromthe Inter-War Period’, and was invited togive a paper on the representations ofthe sportsman in fascist Italy at aconference on German sports leaderCarl Diem at the University of Münster,Germany.

In September 2007 Daphné presentedto the International Congress of theEuropean Committee for Sports Historyin Lorient, France. As a member of thepublication committee, she alsodiscussed changes for the new journal,which is about to be published underthe title European Studies in SportsHistory.

Finally, in 2007 Dr Bolz was made amember of the International Society ofOlympic Historians (ISOH).

Professor Tony MasonProf. Mason and Dr Eliza Riedi(University of Leicester) are in theprocess of finishing a new book, Sportand the Military 1880-1960, which isdue to be published by CambridgeUniversity Press in 2008. During theyear he also wrote several articles forthe Oxford Dictionary of NationalBiography, including those of BrianClough, Kenneth Wolstenholme andPercy Young. In 2007 Tony gave

lectures on the Humanities of Sportmodule on the FIFA Masterpostgraduate course. Finally, Tony hascontinued his PhD supervision and twoof his doctoral students are due tocomplete in early 2008.

Professor Pierre Lanfranchi(planfranc@dmu.ac.uk)Prof Lanfranchi has continued hissecondment to FIFA where he has akey role in developing their highereducation programme in Africa inpreparation for the 2010 World Cup.This involves a very heavy programmeof travelling to South Africa, Egypt andSenegal as well as maintaining his roleas academic adviser to the FIFAeducation programme in SouthAmerica. Despite these heavycommitments he played a major role asa Scientific Director of the FIFAMasters programme, selecting studentsfrom a large field of applicants andteaching the internationalisationelement of the course at DMU. He hasmaintained his research interests in theideology and diffusion of sport and themigration of football players. Pierre hasattended and spoken at conferencesworldwide as well as taking a specialinterest in the work of Dr. JulioFrydenberg, the Joseph BlatterDistinguished Research Fellow, basedin the Centre. Pierre and Julio plan todevelop further international projectsbeginning with an Anglo-Argentinianresearch programme on the history offootball in London and Buenos Aires.

Centre staff news (continued)

De Montfort University funds newresearch into sport and ethnicity

Field visit contributors for this academicyear included All England Lawn TennisClub – Wimbledon, Rugby School,National Football Museum, ManchesterUnited FC, Bolton Wanderers FC, RFUTwickenham, Leicester Tigers RFC,Aston Villa FC, Leicester City FC,London 2012 and MCC Lord’s. Guestspeakers also representedNottinghamshire LTA, Premier League,NFL, Drug Free Sport – UK Sport,London Marathon, Canterbury andSport Against Racism Ireland. JamesPanter, who is the FIFA Humanities ofSport Module Co-ordinator, said,

“Once again I would like to thank all ofthe module contributors for theirsupport this year. When you add theguest speaker and field visitprogramme to the International Centrefor Sport History and Culture internallecture timetable you have a once in alifetime student experience. This isclearly demonstrated by the world classreputation the course has nowestablished in the international marketplace”.

The 29 students of the eighth editionwill next travel to SDA Bocconi School

of Management in Milan to undertakethe Management of Sport module. Afterthe completion of this stage of thecourse they will transfer to theUniversité de Neuchâtel (Switzerland)to complete the Sports Law module.The students will graduate inSwitzerland, receiving their certificatesfrom the 2007/08 course patron,Joseph S Blatter (President of FIFA)who takes over from the seventhedition patron, Lord Coe.

ICSHCNewsletter

07 | | |

FIFA Master Humanities ofSport module 2007/2008FIFA Master Humanities ofSport module 2007/2008

In December 2007 the eighth edition of the FIFA International MA completed the Humanities of Sport module runby the Centre. The 2007/08 class is made up of 29 students from 22 different nationalities and, once again,module teaching was supplemented by a wide range of guest speakers and field visits.

From left to right: Yasemin Bay, Renata Roth, María Guadalupe Navarette Hernández and Sybille Lötscher during the London 2012 Olympic visit.

On 23 November 2007, in Durban,South Africa, FIFA hosted the worldpremier of the feature film docudrama,‘More Than Just a Game’. The eventwas part of a four day meeting leadingup to the preliminary draw for the 2010FIFA World Cup. The film wasintroduced by President of FIFA, MrJoseph S Blatter and Mrs PhumzileMlambo-Nguka, the Deputy Presidentof the Republic of South Africa. Theevent was attended by a number ofrepresentatives from FIFA, internationalmedia and South African government,business and sports personalities.However, most importantly theaudience included a number of formerpolitical prisoners who had served theirincarceration on Robben Island and thefour men whose lives provide the basisfor the film story. The film and the

events that are the basis for it havereceived considerable media coverageincluding feature articles in TheObserver, The Financial Times,FourFourTwo Magazine, The Times(South Africa) and The Sunday Times,as well as numerous wire servicearticles.

The basis for the film is the researchbegun in 1997 by visiting ICSHCacademic, Prof Chuck Korr. The filmtells the story of how the politicalactivists sentenced to Robben Islandwon the right to play football (after aseries of protests) and then created ahighly structured football league, whoseconstitution and other arrangementsmet the standards established by FIFAfor such organisations. The prisonersused football as a way of maintaining

their morale in the face of the brutaltreatment by the authorities. Footballbecame an outlet for them, a way tocontrol something in their lives and tofind a way to bring some enjoyment tootherwise horrid circumstances. Theysaw football as a way to create acohesive community amongst prisonerswho came from different politicalfactions and ethnic groups. It was alsoa way to reinforce the character traitsand administrative skills they knew theywould need when freedom anddemocracy finally came to South Africa.

The film is produced by Anant Singh,South Africa’s leading film maker anddirected by the award winning JunaidAhmed. Chuck Korr was the co-producer and historical consultant forthe film.

Robben Island film launched at FIFA2010 World Cup preliminary draw

modernhumanities

Speakers include:n Prof Ian Talbot, Dept. of History, Southampton University – ‘Cricket, Identity and India’n Prof Peter Cain, Sheffield Hallam University – ‘Character, the British Empire and

Sport: Some Reflections on 1870-1914’.

n Dr Keith Brewster, Dept of History, University of Newcastle – ‘Recent trends in thestudy of Mexican sports history’

n Dr Emma Griffin, Dept of History, University of East Anglia – ‘Sport in the long 18th century’

n Dr Adrian Smith, Dept of History, University of Southampton – ‘Sport, Speed and theTechnological Imperative – dealing with declinists’

n Prof Dave Russell, Leeds Metropolitan University – ‘Sporting honours. The rise andrise of the sporting award’

Saturday 27 October 200710.30am-4.30pmClephan BuildingDe Montfort University, Leicester£30 (students £10) includes a buffet lunch

The International Centre for Sport History and Culture,De Montfort University, Leicester, will hold theirseventh ‘Historians on Sport’ conference on Saturday27 October 2007. We continue the successful traditionof inviting a mixture of distinguished mainstreamhistorians to reflect on the wider significance of sportand sports history specialists who have made anotable contribution to the subject. As usual thepapers will be broad in focus and there will be plentyof opportunity for questions.

Historians on Sport 2007

To register and for further informationabout this conference please contact:International Centre for Sport History and CultureDe Montfort UniversityClephan BuildingLeicester LE1 9BH, UKT: +44 (0)116 250 6486E: ICSHC@dmu.ac.uk

© THESTUDIO Marketing Department, De Montfort University. October 2007. (HUM183) All rights reserved.

| | |08

ICSHC holds seventh Historians onSport conference – October 2007

The last Saturday in October hasbecome something of fixture for thosecommitted to the notion that thehistory of sport is part of a much biggerhistorical agenda. The Faculty ofHumanities Postgraduate Centre waspacked to hear six invited speakers, allwidely published and distinguished intheir area. The conference ranged verywidely this year.

The conference began with Prof PeterCain, Sheffield Hallam University, oneof the foremost historians of the BritishEmpire, who gave an inspiring paper onthe social origins of amateur cricketers,exploiting Wisden in new ways. Thencame Prof Ian Talbot, University ofSouthampton, a distinguished historian

of India and Pakistan, who laid out therange of big themes in politics andethnicity which can be exploredthrough the cult of cricket. The morningwas rounded off by Dr Keith Brewster,Newcastle University, who cast newlight on the place of sport in history in20th century Mexico. The afternoonwas spent looking at Britain. First DrEmma Griffin, University of East Anglia,spoke vividly about her new book on18th century fox hunting, as publishedby Yale UP. This was followed by DrAdrian Smith, University of Southampton,on the neglected history of speed andtechnology in motor sport in the contextof the alleged decline of the Britisheconomy. Finally, the ICSHC wanted toinvite someone who had made a

special contribution to sports historyover many years. Prof Dave Russell isheld in high regard by everyone whovalues carefully crafted and widelycontextualised work. His paper on ‘TheRise and Fall of the Sporting Award’fulfilled all of the guests expectations.James Panter, the ICSHC ResearchAdministrator, handled all theadministration with his typicallyunderstated efficiency and Dil Porterwas an excellent Chair. Our thanks toall those who keep coming back for more.

Prof Richard Holt – December 2007

From left to right: Prof Ian Talbot(Southampton University), Dr Keith Brewster(University of Newcastle), Dr Emma Griffin(University of East Anglia), Dr Adrian Smith(Southampton University), Prof Dave Russell(Leeds Metropolitan), Prof Richard Holt (De Montfort University).

Poster from event held last year.

By Professor Richard Holt – ICSHC Director and ‘Historians on Sport’ organiser

09 | | |

ICSHCNewsletter

In December 2007 Dr Julio Frydenberggave the first Joseph S BlatterDistinguished Lecture as part of thefinal week of the FIFA Humanities ofSport module in Leicester. DrFrydenberg, who is an academic at SanMartin University, Buenos Aires, andCIES co-ordinator for Argentina,presented a paper on the evolution offootball spectatorship in Buenos Airesfrom 1920-1990. This paper concludedan 18 month secondment by DrFrydenberg to the ICSHC. He will nowreturn to Argentina to continue hisresearch and the ICSHC hope to workon joint projects with Dr Frydenberg.

During Dr Frydenberg’s stay at theICSHC he travelled back to BuenosAires to be part of the academic team,along with the Centre’s Prof Lanfranchi,who opened the new ‘SportsObservatory’ for Argentina. The launchevent was held at the Plaza Hotel inBuenos Aires. The opening included aseminar on ‘The Future of SouthAmerican Football’, allowing directorsand investigators from both SouthAmerica and Europe to debate differentvisions and conceptions regarding thecurrent state of football. The extensive

discussions revealed the need forfurther lectures and seminars and thepossibility of joint projects on themesnot previously addressed. Guests atthe first seminar included CIESmembers, lawyers, economists andsocial scientists from Europe,Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. Inaddition, the President of the ChileanFootball Federation and the LegalSecretary of the Argentina Football

Association (AFA) (President of theLanas Athletic Club) also attended.Prof Lanfranchi gave the closing paper.

The founding members of the “SportsObservatory” are Jose Claria, MarianoClaria, Rafael Trevisan, Raul Caravajal,Eduardo Galeano, Pierre Lanfranchiand Julio Frydenberg.

Joseph S Blatter DistinguishedLecture at De Montfort University

Prof. Lanfranchi introduces Dr Frydenberg for his inaugural lecture.

The first half of the day programmefocused on more historical topics andwas opened by Prof Matt Taylor fromthe ICSHC. Building on his earlier workon footballers and migration, he lookedat British coaches abroad, mainlyduring the inter-war period. He wasfollowed by Dr Julio Frydenberg, theJoseph S Blatter Distinguished Scholar,visiting the ICSHC from Argentina. Hespoke on ‘The origins of theArgentinian football trainer’, and arguedthat during the 1940s and 1950s anArgentinian style emerged that wasbased on an attitude that ‘our way’ was

best. Prof Collins of LeedsMetropolitan University concluded themorning session. He looked at rugbyunion and how its development hadbeen shaped by the long standingnotion of ‘character’ within the game.

The afternoon session looked at morecontemporary issues. Dr ChrisHarwood of Loughborough University,and a chartered psychologist, gave acase study of the use of psychology bycoaches who work with young playersat Nottingham Forest FC. Dr SarahGilmore, Portsmouth Business School,

brought a Human Resourcesperspective to her case study of BoltonWanderers FC. Her research looked athow the club had survived and thrived,‘while avoiding the need for wholesaleand radical internal transformation,including a coercive command andcontrol style of leadership’. The finalspeaker was Dr Sue Bridgewater ofWarwick Business School who spokeon the current challenges of footballmanagement in light of her experiencesas the course director for the MA inApplied Football Management atWarwick.

Managing Athletes conferenceIn December 2007 Dr Neil Carter was the organiser of an inter-disciplinary conference at De Montfort University entitled, ‘Managing Athletes: Cultures and Practices’. It examined thedevelopment of managers and coaches in sport from a number of perspectives – historical,international current developments in sports science and the business of sport.

| | |10

Distinguished Lecture – 3 December 2008

Denis has been Secretary General and is now President of theInternational Rowing Federation as well as holding key positionswithin a large number of other sporting bodies, including theAssociation of International Olympic Sport Federations. Hebecame a member of the International Olympic Committee in1991 and of its Executive Board in 2000 and has had manyimportant roles within the committee including Chairman of theCo-ordination Commission for the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad,Athens 2004, Chairman of the Co-ordination Commission for theGames of the XXX Olympiad, London 2012 and Vice-Chairman ofthe Eligibility Commission (1992-1998).

Denis is himself an accomplished sportsman having been 13times National Champion and having participated in three OlympicGames as a rower (with a bronze medal as best result).He was also a runner, skier and ice-hockey player.

To book a place to attend this lecture as part of the University Distinguished Lecture series, please contact the De Montfort University Events Office: eventsoffice@dmu.ac.uk or call - +44 (0)116 257 7164

DISTINGUISHEDLecture Series

Denis Oswald was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland, in May 1947and studied at Universities in Switzerland and the UK. He is alawyer, a judge at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and aprofessor at Neuchatel University. He is also Director of theInternational Centre for Sport Studies, which co-ordinates theFIFA Master Course taught jointly by De Montfort UniversityLeicester, Bocconi University Milano, and Neuchatel University. He was President of the Bar in Neuchatel.

On Wednesday 3 December 2008, Senior International Olympic Committee (IOC)member and FIFA International MA Scientific Committee President Prof DenisOswald will give a Distinguished Lecture at De Montfort University, Leicester.

^

^

^

^

ICSHCNewsletter

11 | | |

‘The Business Historyof Sport’ – one-dayconference organisedjointly with theLondon School ofEconomics (LSE)A conference, co-organised by DrTerry Gourvish, Director of theBusiness History Unit at theLondon School of Economics(LSE), and Dr Dilwyn Porter, SeniorResearch Fellow within theInternational Centre for SportHistory and Culture (ICSHC), tookplace at the LSE on 26 September2007. It was the first of what ishoped will be a series ofconferences exploring variousaspects of this important theme.

The conference was well attended withrepresentatives from the Centre amongthe delegates. Dil Porter opened themorning session (chaired by TerryGourvish) with a paper surveying themethodological links between SportsHistory and Business History. Hispaper explored the areas sports andbusiness historians had in commonand looked at a possible agenda forjoint research. Dr Porter said, “Aconference of this kind seemed longoverdue. The Business History Unit atLSE and the ICSHC at De MontfortUniversity are leading research centresin their respective fields. Both businesshistorians and sports historians areincreasingly aware of the need tolocate their research within widercontexts and to speak to wideraudiences. Too often historians operatewithin narrow specialisms and addressonly other specialists in their ownfields. This was a joint effort to breakthis ‘ghetto mentality’ by bringingtogether historians who might nototherwise meet in an effort to generatecreative synergies”.

There were four other speakers, twowith very strong Centre connections.Prof Tony Collins (Leeds MetropolitanUniversity) spoke on ‘Amateurism,Commercialism and Rugby in theInterwar Years’ and Michael Cronin(Boston College) followed up with apaper on ‘The Gaelic AthleticAssociation and the Selling of CrokePark’. The two speakers in theafternoon session (chaired byProfessor Jeff Hill – ICSHC) were ProfStefan Szymanski (Imperial College),who developed ‘A Theory of theEvolution of Modern Sport’, and DrAdrian Smith (Southampton) on ‘Clubversus Country: English Rugby in theAftermath of the 2003 World Cup’.The conference concluded with aplenary session which proved veryfruitful in identifying topics andpotential speakers for the next jointinitiative, which will be held at De Montfort University in 2008. Theone-day event was sponsored by theEconomic History Society.

Prof Jeff HillRetires as CentreDirector and ‘Goes to Paris’.It was the news none of theICSHC wanted to hear. Prof JeffHill announced his retirement asCentre Director.

Nobody in the ICSHC wanted Jeff togo but he had stayed on longer thanhe had intended and done a superbjob. Jeff’s quiet efficiency andprofessionalism, his warmth andcourtesy, his intelligence andinnovative approach to the subject aswell as a commitment to teaching andsupervision at all levels made theCentre a happy and exciting place towork. Jeff always did his share of thechores – in fact, more than his share –and was finishing the major task ofwriting the History RAE submission onthe point of retirement. No-one couldask for more.

How could the ICSHC show itsaffection and respect? A surprise partyfor one thing and our Swiss colleaguesflew over just for the dinner along withProf Pierre Lanfranchi, our longestserving Centre member currentlyseconded to FIFA, who came fromItaly. Jeff’s wife, Mary, happily colludedand he was lured to Bistro Pierre inLeicester for ‘a little supper’ for four.There were in fact twenty friendswaiting for him with colleagues comingfrom Manchester, Wales and London.Jeff and Mary were presented with atrip to Paris on Eurostar and Prof Jean-Louis Juvet, with whom Jeffworked closely on the FIFA Master,presented him with the keys to hisParis flat for the trip. Jeff will stay on inthe Centre in a reduced role to run hisAHRC ‘Sport, History and Heritage’network and do doctoral supervision.Thanks, Jeff, from all of us here, andfrom all those whose careers you didso much to develop, especially MikeCronin and Tony Collins.

Dick Holt has taken over as CentreDirector with effect from 1 November2007.

Dr Dilwyn Porter, Senior Research Fellow

| | |12 © THESTUDIO Marketing Department, De Montfort University. February 2008 (HUM198). All rights reserved.

Distancelearning SportsHistory andCulture MA2007 was another successful yearfor the Sports History andCulture MA. Recruitment wasagain strong and the academicteam is proud to have such highquality students studying on theMA programme. Several studentscompleted the course in 2007with distinction and have thepotential to progress ontodoctoral study within the Centre.Many students presented papersin 2007 at a range of academicconferences, both at De MontfortUniversity and other universities.

Dr Jean Williams, who is the SportHistory and Culture distance learningcourse leader said, “It’s pleasing tosee more of the MA studentsattending a wider range of Centreactivities, such as ‘Historians onSport’ and Dr Carter’s ‘ManagingAthletes’ conference. In addition,several attended the co-hostedseminar with LSE in London. We arehoping to extend this development inthe future”.

In 2007 several members

of the Centre academic

team had key books

published. Firstly, Matt

Taylor had his book TheAssociation Game: AHistory of British Footballpublished by Longman in

August 2007. A study of

the history and historiography of football, the

book is the first scholarly book to focus on all

four British nations and on recreational and

grassroots football alongside the professional

game. It traces British football from the

establishment of the earliest clubs in the 19th

century to its place as one of the prominent and

commercialised leisure industries at the

beginning of the 21st century. The publication

covers supporters and fandom, status and

culture, big business, the press and electronic

media and developments in playing styles,

tactics and rules.

The second book, ABeautiful Game:International Perspectiveson Women’s Football was

published by Berg in

October 2007, and came

from Dr Jean Williams. The

book examines case

studies of the United

States, England, Australia and China. Emphasis

is placed on the development of a World Cup

for Women and the Olympic competition, using

archival, popular, academic and oral history

material. During the research phase for the

publication, Jean was allowed extensive access

to the FIFA collections. Jean considers the

evolution of the women’s game against a

backdrop of issues, such as media

representation, access to facilities, lack of

resources, coaching, sponsorship, talent

identification, training and professionalisation.

Dr Daphné Bolz published her doctorate Lesarènes totalitaires. Hitler, Mussolini et les jeuxdu stade in January 2008 (Éditions du Centre

National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS),

Paris). Her work aims

to compare the

policies concerning

the construction of

sports facilities in

fascist Italy and Nazi

Germany in order to

train and supervise the

masses through sport

and to show the

superiority of their

doctrine. The first part of the research focuses

on the way the fascist and the Nazi regimes tried

to supervise the popular practising of sport from

an ideological point of view but the research

also aims to make clear the use of sport as a

spectacle in order to mobilise the masses

(football World Cup in Italy in 1934 and the

Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936). The most

original approach in the work is the study of

sports architecture, which is examined in the

second part. Indeed, for these regimes

architecture had a high symbolic value. Through

the study of sports architecture her research

shows how sport and art complement one

another in order to create an atmosphere which

is particularly symbolic. The sources for the

research were mainly the Italian and German

national archives, Italian communal archives and

the archives of the International Olympic

Committee.

Finally, the Centre’s Dr Dil Porter was co-editor

with Stephen Wagg (Leeds Metropolitan

University) on a newly published book called,

Amateurism in British Sport – It matters notwho won or lost?, (Routledge 2008). Dil Porter

noted, “Most modern sports, even those where

professionalism developed rapidly, originated in

an era when the gentlemanly amateur

predominated, both in politics and society, as

well as in the realm of sport. Enforcement of

rules and conventions that embodied the

amateur-elite ethos effectively limited

opportunities for working class competitors to

‘turn the world upside down”. The book

previously appeared as a special issue of Sportin History.

New books publishedby Centre academics

All DMU publications are available in alternative media where appropriate. This includes via email (.pdf), CD-ROM and DVD-ROM.

You may request a large font size, audio or Braille version of any publication and where possible, this will be supplied for you.It may not be possible to supply all publications in full, due to size. On these occasions, you will be asked to request specificsections only.

DMU will make every effort to find an appropriate alternative format for all requests. However, in rare cases this may incur acharge. For further information on how we can help, please contact the Enquiry Centre on 08459 45 46 47,dmu.ac.uk/enquiry or text phone +44 (0)116 257 7908.

Centre contact detailsInternational Centre for Sport Historyand CultureDe Montfort UniversityFaculty of HumanitiesThe GatewayLeicester LE1 9BH, UK

T: +44 (0)116 250 6486E: jpanter@dmu.ac.uk