Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
Duncan Stone argues that classism and racism have held back England’s summer sport for decades
Duncan Stone talks to Spencer Mizen about cricket’s history of elitism – a story that, he contends, has long seen the rich and powerful dominate the sport’s evolution and image. Duncan Stone is the author of Different Class: The Untold Story of English Cricket (Repeater, 2022) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones How to download the HistoryExtra podcast Download as MP3
Dr Souvik Naha reveals how the Victorians used cricket to export “British virtues” across the empire
For 19th-century imperialists, cricket wasn’t just a game, it was a means of exporting “British virtues” across the empire. Dr Souvik Naha tells Spencer Mizen about the sport’s great “civilising mission”. Read more in our feature about how Victorian cricket was more than just a game How to download the HistoryExtra podcast Download as MP3
Batting for the British Empire: how Victorian cricket was more than just a game
For Victorian imperialists, cricket was more than just a game, it was a means of exporting English virtues across the globe. But how, asks Souvik Naha, did this great “civilising mission” go down with the colonised peoples?
Listen to this article: A strange letter was published in The Times on 25 June 1968. The writer, DM Brittain from Aberdeen, said: “Now I know that this country is finished. On Saturday, with Australia playing, I asked a London cabby to take me to Lord’s [cricket ground], and had to show him the way.” The letter summed up the growing anxiety about a rapidly changing world in which the British empire had lost its prestige, and people with little interest in cricket drove cabs in the capital city. If cricket was no longer central to British identity, Brittain reasoned, what hope was there for the future of the nation? Cricket has been a marker of English identity for two centuries. It is the “most exalted icon”, as one scholar has written, of “theme park heritage Englishness”. In order to be England’s national game, cricket had to be English in origin and character (though it may have evolved from games in France and the Netherlands). And when Englishmen travelled the world to forge an empire, they took their “national” game with them. It was the Victorians who wove a distinctive English imprint into cricket by trumpeting the virtues of fair play, equanimity and loyalty – all of which they hailed as the building blocks of British democracy and empire. The timeless, leisurely nature of cricket in the mid-19th century was imbued with the wistful imagery of a bucolic past set in contrast with the industrial present, rooting the sport strongly within English history and culture. And this was an ideal to which Victorians were introduced at the youngest of ages. The public school system mythologised the sport as the ultimate lesson in morals, justice, religion and life itself. By playing cricket, boys – and later girls, non-Christians, and colonial people – would become exemplary citizens of the British empire. “Give me a boy who is a cricketer and I can make something of him,” said George Ridding, headmaster of Winchester College. In the contest between bat and ball, social and cultural leaders from the mid-19th century to the end of the Second World War found the answer to every social problem, including health and illiteracy. In Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown‘s Schooldays, a schoolteacher emphasised the importance of discipline, teamwork and putting one’s team’s interest ahead of oneself. Just as you should not dissent the umpire’s decision, so you must not question the nation and the empire. Adopting such a mindset was seen as the perfect preparation for imperial administrative and military functions. If this vision of a sport in sync with the ideal society was to succeed, cricket had to be depicted as central to England’s character – the nation’s lifeblood. A cartoon published in The Star newspaper days before Christmas in 1920, titled “The Relative Importance of Things”, showed the discussion about cricket, even in off-season, towering above Christmas, the weather, the latest divorces, and politics in the pecking order. Neville Cardus, the celebrated writer and critic, made a sweeping claim that “if everything else in this nation of ours was lost but cricket... it would be possible to reconstruct from the theory and practice of cricket all the eternal Englishness which has gone to the establishment of that constitution...” Read more: 4 historical cricketing curiosities In the age of empire, when Britons were busily exporting their values across the globe, it didn’t take long for the nationalist and imperial sensibility associated with cricket to be transferred to British colonies. Homesick colonials played cricket wherever they went. In 1721, a group of British seamen reportedly played cricket while their ship was anchored at the Bay of Cambay in Western India. The writer Horace Walpole, who hated cricket, witnessed a match in Paris in 1766. Horatio Nelson organised a game in Naples in 1793. The earliest players were chiefly members of the armed forces. In the West Indies, the first known reference to cricket is from a match between two garrisons in 1806, and the British Army founded clubs everywhere from Rangoon (now Yangon) in 1825 and Buenos Aires (1831) to Shanghai (1858). In 1818, Lord Thomas Cochrane’s arrival in Valparaiso to commandeer the Chilean navy in their war of independence against Spain was celebrated with “grand dinners, cricket-matches, races and picnic parties”. Cricket may now have been played across the globe, but it was still viewed as a white man’s sport. When Indian soldiers in the British Army started playing for regiment teams in the 1830s, they were hardly welcomed with open arms. Rather, cricket helped the white soldiers self-differentiate from the imitative “natives”. A regiment in India, when pressed hard to play against a Parsi club, agreed to do so on the condition that the match be played as “officers with umbrellas versus natives with bats”. It was a similar story in the West Indies, where black people would have to wait until 1895 before being included in any competitive match. In the same decade, Barbados refused to play Trinidad in the Challenge Cup if black players were selected. Civilising mission Yet just as white soldiers in the outposts of empire sought to exclude locals from cricket, British politicians were increasingly tuning in to the game’s potential as a conduit of imperial solidarity. Cricket, they thought, could serve as a unique cultural bond between the coloniser and the colonised. Colonialism, a matter of great pride for the British ruling elite, brought with it – in their eyes, at least – a moral obligation. They regarded empire-building as a “civilising mission”. And what could educate the non-white natives better than cricket? British governors in India such as Lord Harris and Lord Brabourne patronised the sport in the hope that it might “bond together India’s religiously, linguistically and ethnically diverse population”. For them and others, however, the proliferation of cricket among the “inferior other” served to buttress the empire’s white supremacist agenda. It was thought that the “excitable Asiatic” was at a disadvantage to the “phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon” on the field of play. And while the English nature was the perfect harmony of mind and body, black West Indians possessed “brute physicality” and “oriental” people had intelligence without physical prowess. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/08/GettyImages-120557894_cmyk-6e89a41.jpg" width="2530" height="1789" alt="A batter at the crease in the Trobriand Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2009." title="A batter at the crease in the Trobriand Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2009. No sooner had British missionaries introduced the sport in the early 20th century than the islanders were making their own modifications to the game, expanding the number of players and incorporating dance and song into proceedings. (Photo by Eric LAFFORGUE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)" /> Arguably, cricket’s most enthusiastic patrons were Christian missionaries. Charles Darwin saw a match played by freed Maori slaves, led by the son of one such missionary, at Waimate North in New Zealand in 1835. When missionaries introduced cricket to the Trobriand Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the natives gave it their own distinctive spin, expanding the number of players, adding dance and song, and modifying the bat. Distinguished players From Shanghai to Samoa, colonists used cricket to spread the word of God by reshaping the pastimes – and, by extension, the mentalities – of the non-believing natives. This propagation took place mainly in schools and colleges that aimed to replicate the English public school ethos in the colonies. These establishments were attended by scions of some of the more influential families of the region, who took a lead in popularising cricket among the masses. Ranjitsinhji, who played for England (from 1896–1902) with distinction and later became the Jam Sahib (titular prince) of Nawanagar, is the most famous product of this system. In 1879, two Cambridge-educated British schoolmasters in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) started an annual match between Colombo Academy (now Royal College) and St Thomas’ College. The fixture is still played today, making it among the world’s oldest school-cricket derbies. Read more: From bats and brawls to new links between colonies: the origins of Australian cricket But not all colonists saw it as their mission to spread the word about the sport. In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, white settlers largely distanced themselves from local influence, as well as local cricket. These conclaves of whiteness were presided over by politicians, military officers and rich businessmen – a fact that’s reflected in the titles of the domestic first-class tournament trophies: Sheffield Shield (Australia), after British Conservative politician Henry Holroyd, Earl of Sheffield; Plunket Shield, presented by British diplomat Lord William Plunket (New Zealand); and South Africa’s Currie Cup, donated by Scottish shipowner Sir Donald Currie. For Australians, cricket generated a sense of exclusive, racialised nationalism, which enabled them to self-identify as citizens of the British world but not necessarily subjects of the empire. Beating England in cricket nurtured a sense of national belonging among the colonial officials, guards, convicts and free settlers in Australia. At the same time, those with English ancestry could celebrate their Englishness in the field of play. Listen: Prashant Kidambi revisits the first Indian cricket tour of Britain, which took place in the summer of 1911 After Australia’s emergence as a self-governing Dominion, its national identity was expressed even more powerfully with bat and ball. The “Bodyline” series of 1932–33, in which England’s bowlers adopted the infamous tactic of directing short, fast deliveries at the bodies of the Australian batsmen, strained the two countries’ diplomatic relationship to breaking point. Cricket’s power to shape diplomacy was exploited no less potently by indigenous groups. Indian princes, in particular, patronised the sport as a means to ingratiate themselves with the British rulers. Partly due to their participation, the late 19th and first half of the 20th century saw an explosion of British cricket tours to a variety of destinations, including, of course, India itself. And this was far from one-way traffic. When a party of Australian Aboriginal cricketers arrived in London in 1868, they were merely paving the way for a succession of indigenous cricketing tourists to England – including two Parsis teams in the 1880s, and an all-India team in 1911. By the second quarter of the 20th century, the relationship between the colonisers and colonised was beginning to change. Far from viewing cricket as a means to impress the imperial authorities, the Indian and Caribbean middle classes were now employing it as a tool to resist British criticism of their masculinity. The sport became a symbolic weapon to protest the inequality of colonial rule. When, in 1926, CK Nayudu hit 153 in two hours, including 11 sixes, against a touring side representing the MCC (cricket’s London-based governing body), one spectator thought each shot was a nail in the coffin of the empire. Almost a century on, the empire is still woven into cricket’s fabric. While cricket retains its power to captivate players, journalists and spectators across the globe, that power is restricted to a handful of nations, most of whom are former British dominions. It’s hardly surprising then that, three centuries after a British seaman produced a bat and ball and challenged his companions to a match at the Bay of Cambay, cricket is yet to shed the tag of the empire’s game. Souvik Naha is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral research fellow at Durham University. His forthcoming book is Indian Cricket and Postcolonial Society (CUP) This article was first published in the July 2021 issue of BBC History Magazine
The term 'the Ashes' first originated in 1882 after England's cricket team lost to Australia at The Oval in London. Since then, the Test series has continued between the rival teams. We look back at some of the most memorable matches through history...
<img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/ashes8001-be8a253.jpg" width="800" height="530" alt="BDW39T The Australian XI of 1882, the cricket team toured England and won the only test at the Oval, the start of the Ashes legend. Image shot 1882. Exact date unknown." title="The Australian XI of 1882, the cricket team toured England and won the only test at the Oval, the start of the Ashes legend. Image shot 1882. Exact date unknown." /> An 'obituary' in The Sporting Times on the 'death' of English cricket, which appeared after England lost the 1882 Test Match against Australia. The bales were burnt and the ashes placed in an urn to become 'The Ashes', for which the Australia and England cricket teams compete. The England team for the second Test of the 1899 Ashes series against Australia. The Australians won the match by 10 wickets. All the other four matches of the series were drawn. A print from The Book of Cricket, a Gallery of Famous Players, edited by CB Fry, George Newnes Ltd, London, c1899. Tibby Cotter of Australia bowling to Wilfred Rhodes of England in the second Ashes Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne, Australia, 30 December 1911 to 3 January 1912. England won the match by eight wickets. (Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images) The English cricket team during a team photo at the start of their Ashes campaign, 1928. SMH SPORT Picture by HH FISHWICK. (Credit: Fairfax Media/Fairfax Media via Getty Images) Don Bradman of Australia in bat while wicketkeeper Godfrey Evans and Bill Edrich field for England during the first Ashes Test match at Trent Bridge in Nottingham, England, 1948. Australia won by eight wickets. (Credit: Allsport Hulton/Archive) 'The Ashes', a funeral trophy for which English and Australian cricket teams compete. It is kept in the Long Room of the pavilion at Lord's cricket ground in London. Picture dated 1951. (Credit: Central Press/Getty Images) Mr and Mrs O’Neill, Mr and Mrs Williams and Mr Deane wait for day two of the third test to commence at the SCG, 5 January 1951. SMH Picture by Frank Burke. A victorious England team carries their captain Ray Illingworth off the field after clinching the Ashes by a 62 run win in the 7th Test Match in Sydney. Two captains, Australia's Ian Chappell, left, and England's Ray Illingworth, toast the end of The Ashes Series at the Fifth Test at The Oval, during Australia's 1972 tour of England, 10 -16 August 1972. Ian Chappell of Australia drops the ball from Derek Pringle of England during First Ashes Test match in Perth, Australia, 1982. The match ended in a draw. (Credit: Adrian Murrell/Allsport/Getty Images)
Which player was 'kinapped' as he was about to open the batting at Lords? And which item of clothing was 'unsporting' when women began playing the game? We revisit an article from Oxford historian Dr Benjamin Mountford, who shares some historical cricketing curiosities...
Bodyline and 'kidnapping': it’s just not cricket! Cricket contests between England and Australia have resulted in a number of controversies, most notoriously when, during their 1932–33 tour to Australia, England deployed the infamous ‘bodyline’ technique to counter the batting of Donald Bradman. The tactic saw bowlers bowling the ball directly at the batsman's body. “When Douglas Jardine unleashed his hostile fast attack of Harold Larwood and Bill Voce, who bowled short on and outside the line of the leg stump, there was outrage… The cost to England's image was catastrophic,” says ESPN. One of the great controversies of the Victorian age was the ‘kidnapping’ of the Australian player Billy Midwinter by WG Grace. About to open the batting for Australia at Lords, Midwinter was bundled into a cab by Grace and taken to play for Gloucestershire at the Oval. When his Australian teammates hopped into their own cab and set off in pursuit, an unseemly argument took place outside the ground, with Grace branding the Australians “a nasty lot of sneaks”. After several heated letters had bounced back and forth, Grace eventually issued a written plea to “let bygones be bygones” and apologised for his “unparliamentarily language”. Read more about cricket history: Cricket, curry and cups of tea: India's influence on Victorian Britain From bats and brawls to new links between colonies: the origins of Australian cricket In pictures: the history of the Ashes The gentleman’s game? In Australia, as in England, cricket was often depicted as an exclusively male preserve during the 19th century. Yet by 1874, women in Australia had begun to play. The first match between Victoria and New South Wales took place in Sydney in 1890, and in 1891 Rosalie Dean made an impressive 195 and 104 in a match at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Early female players were advised to secure their hats tightly so that both hands would be free to take catches, while stopping the ball with one’s petticoats was considered unsporting. National competition developed in the 1930s, and the first test matches between Australia and England were held in the southern summer of 1934–5. All of the 16-strong English team, captained by Betty Archdale, paid for their own equipment and passage to Australia for the six-month tour. From the late 1990s, following the ceremonial burning of a bat at Lord’s, the contest between England and Australia became officially known as the ‘Woman’s Ashes’. The state of the wicket There was much talk during the 2015 Ashes series about the state of the English wickets. Likewise, in the 1870s, at hot and dusty Stawell in country Victoria, WG Grace produced one of his less glamorous performances on a field that had apparently only been plowed some three months before. “The ground was in a deplorable condition”, Grace later wrote. “Here and there were small patches of grass, but the greater part was utterly devoid of herbage”. One ball simply stuck in the dust before it reached the batsman. Having travelled over great distances, however, there was little choice but to play on the “execrable wicket”, amid a “plague of flies”. The cricket, Grace confessed, was “shockingly poor”, and the match a “ludicrous farce”. The politics of the cricket pitch Like their British counterparts, many Australian prime ministers have professed a love of cricket and stressed the game’s importance to the evolution of the relationship between Australia and Britain. For the Anglophile Robert Menzies, writing in 1963, cricket was a valuable part of Australia’s British inheritance; a reminder that “Great Britain and Australia are of the same blood and allegiance and history and instinctive mental processes”. During the 19th century, the gifted sportsman and statesman Alfred Lyttelton played four test matches for England against Australia. When he entered the British cabinet as colonial secretary in 1903, however, the Australians accused him of being little more than a disinterested nightwatchman. “Lyttelton has been a pronounced failure,” the Australian prime minister Alfred Deakin wrote in a typical evaluation, “doing less and apparently caring less than any Colonial Secretary I can remember”. Dr Benjamin Mountford is the Michael Brock fellow in modern British history at Corpus Christi College Oxford, and an honorary senior research fellow at Federation University Australia. His first book, on the coming together of the British and Chinese Empires in colonial Australia, will be published through Oxford University Press in 2016. This article was first published in August 2015
Lord's cricket ground: the mecca of the sport
At Lord's, the host of the 2019 Cricket World Cup final, Spencer Mizen soaks up two centuries of history – Victorian grandeur, priceless art and stuffed sparrows to the fore – at cricket's most storied venue
When, on 14 July, the players walk out onto Lord’s’ impeccably manicured turf to contest the final of the 2019 World Cup – bringing the curtain down on a six-week extravaganza of towering sixes, toe-crunching yorkers and brilliant catches – cricket will feel very much like a game for the here and now. Yet of all the world’s leading sports, perhaps none is more in thrall to its past than England’s summer game, and nowhere is this more evident than at Lord’s. In fact, from the moment I arrived at cricket’s most storied venue – stopping to admire the Grace Gates, the cast-iron tribute to WG, one of the most famous of all Victorians – I could almost feel history hurtling towards me like a well-directed bouncer. And it’s a long history – one that stretches back to 1787 when Thomas Lord – the son of Yorkshire who gave the venue his name – secured a ground for the newly formed Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) to play on.Lord’s first forays into ground ownership were chequered: he moved the MCC out of its first home at Dorset Square after the area became a haunt of cutthroats; and was forced out of its second by the decision to carve the Regent’s Canal right through the ground. Even the move to the current site in St John’s Wood in 1814 almost ended badly, when Lord came close to selling the land to housing developers. Yet, once that fate was averted, the ground soon established itself as the epicentre of cricket. Rich Londoners were rapidly falling in love with the game, and the MCC – already established as the arbiter of cricket’s laws – was uniquely placed to exploit this passion. Cricket, curry and cups of tea From bats and brawls to new links between colonies: the origins of Australian cricket 10 things you didn’t know about London’s sporting history Since then, Lord’s has witnessed many of cricket’s landmark moments – the first Oxford versus Cambridge match in 1827, Don Bradman’s flawless 254 for Australia in 1930, the first World Cup final in 1975. Yet in terms of sheer magnificence, nothing in the ground’s history has stood the test of time better than Thomas Verity’s pavilion, opened in 1890. A masterclass of Victorian grandeur, it’s little wonder that it is the most celebrated building in world cricket, perhaps in all of sport. The pavilion isn’t just admired for its architectural beauty but also for what it contains. There’s the largest collection of cricket paintings in the world – my eye was drawn to a huge portrait of the West Indies’ master blaster Viv Richards; and there’s the honours boards in the changing rooms, listing every player who’s scored a century, taken five wickets in an innings or 10 wickets in a match since the first Lord’s Test in 1884. But the centrepiece of the pavilion is surely the Long Room, cricket’s holy of holies. Part art gallery, part impossibly exclusive executive box, it’s here that MCC members gather to greet the players as they make their way onto the playing surface. It’s a circuitous route from changing room to pitch – just ask England’s David Steele who, on his Test debut in 1975, got lost and ended up in the pavilion’s basement toilets. Cricketing gold mine One of the beauties of a visit to Lord’s is that you can step out of the most famous building in cricket and, just a few seconds later, find yourself in front of its most famous artefact. The Ashes – the 11cm high urn that inspired the biennial clash between England and Australia – is the highlight of the MCC museum, situated just a few metres away from the pavilion, but it’s far from the only attraction. From WG Grace’s kit to the stuffed sparrow that was ‘bowled out’ by Jahangir Khan during a game in 1936, this, one of the world’s oldest sports museums, is a gold mine of treasures from cricket’s past. Lord’s celebrates its history, but it doesn’t purely trade on past glories. The space age media centre (opened in 1999) that hovers above the ground’s Nursery End is testament to that. And, on 14 July, that centre will be packed with journalists ready to run the rule over a new chapter in Lord’s unique story. VISIT: For more information on booking a guided tour to Lord's cricket ground, go to lords.org LISTEN: You can hear World Cup commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, and follow the tournament via the BBC website This article was first published in the July 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine
Cricket, curry and cups of tea: India's influence on Victorian Britain
As Queen Victoria's friendship with her Indian attendant is explored in the new film Victoria and Abdul, Shompa Lahiri examines how the queen helped popularise India's cultural influence on all areas of British society, from polo to pyjamas...
They cooked up Indian curries, played Indian sports, draped themselves in Indian textiles and even voted for Indian politicians. The Victorian era saw Britons falling in love with the culture of the subcontinent, and it seems that the people took their prompt from the very top. Queen Victoria herself declared a great interest in the empire’s largest possession and greatest trading partner, so helping to popularise Indian delicacies, fashion, jewellery and architecture. The genesis of this passion for India can be traced back to the 16th century, when British merchant adventurers began to import spices, dyes and, most importantly, textiles from India via newly discovered sea routes. From 1600, the East India Company controlled this trade, and from the 1750s the commercial interests of the company were consolidated into outright political and territorial domination. After a massive rebellion against foreign rule in 1857, the British government decided to place India under the direct control of the crown the following year. Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India in 1877. Victoria’s interest in India sprang, at least in part, from her Indian assistant Abdul Karim, who came to Britain in 1887 to serve the queen. He rose within Victoria’s affections, as well as in status to the title of ‘Munshi’ (teacher or clerk), teaching the queen Hindi and Urdu and advising on all matters concerning India. Karim was one of a steady stream of Indian migrants coming to Britain during the 19th century (estimates suggest more than 110,000), including domestics, maritime workers, petitioners, performers, royalty, social reformers, students and travellers. Concentrated in Britain’s port cities, especially London, Indians were visible in Britain’s streets, docks, buses, trains, Inns of Court, medical schools, universities, exhibitions and parliament. Britons were most attracted to those aspects of Indian culture that they could readily consume, such as food and textiles. But this relationship wasn’t always mutually beneficial. While consumers profited from innovations in textile production in Britain, British machine-made textiles destroyed the Indian textile industry that had inspired them, and impoverished Indian weavers. For good and bad, Indian influences were discernible in all aspects of Victorian society, from novels such as the The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins to politics, sports, popular culture, fashion and diet. Turn the page to find out more… Politics Indians storm the barricades of parliament... and they ask difficult questions about Britain’s attitude to their homeland The Victorian era saw the election of two Indians to the House of Commons. Dadabhai Naoroji became Liberal MP for Finsbury Central in 1892, while Mancherjee Bhownagree was elected Conservative MP for Bethnal Green in 1895. Naoroji was elected by justa few votes, earning him the nickname ‘Dadabhai narrow-majority’. Despite this, he was to become a household name – thanks, in part, to the Tory prime minister Lord Salisbury’s public declaration of doubt that Britons would elect “a black man”. Naoroji was a fierce critic of the Raj, arguing that British rule was draining India of up to £300m in the form of lost revenues, interest on loans and excess of exports over imports. By contrast Bhownagree, known in India as ‘Bow-and-Agree’, was a supporter of British colonialism in India. The two men may not have shared the same views on Britain’s relationship with their homeland but their rise to power ensured that India was discussed and debated at the symbolic heart of Victorian political life: parliament. Fashion and home: a craze for the east Victorians loved ‘Indian’ designs, which were produced all over Britain Victorian fashion was heavily influenced by India – thanks to the use of Indian fabrics, including cotton and silk, in the making of British clothes. Britons also adopted and imitated Indian patterns, style, motifs and even garments – such as pyjamas and the Kashmir shawl. British women had worn the Kashmir shawl – to provide a little extra warmth over short-sleeved, lightweight dresses – since the mid-18th century. Soon it had become a symbol of status, respectability and fashion, but one that was well out of the reach of all but the wealthiest women. However, in the mid-19th century everything changed. By then, the demand for the shawl had reached such a crescendo that mills in Norwich, Edinburgh and Paisley, near Glasgow, began producing imitations. Suddenly women of limited means could acquire shawls that, to the untrained eye, appeared to be made in India. Several emporiums opened in London to cater to the demand for both British and Indian-made shawls, among them the Liberty department store. Opening on Regent Street in 1875, it had soon expanded its range of Indian goods to stock not just shawls, cloaks, scarves and jewellery to adorn the body, but Indian fabric, furniture, carpets, rugs, incense burners and brasses to decorate the home. Food and drink Curry finds favour... plus, it’s thanks to cheaper Indian tea that the Great British tea break is invented It was during the Victorian period that Britons fell in love with curry, a culinary concoction that is today Britain’s favourite dish. Though it was initially the preserve of the elite, by the 1860s spicy food had percolated down into the middle and working-class diet. During that same period, curry powder, pastes, chutneys and pickles became available on a mass scale, manufactured by companies such as Crosse and Blackwell. Curry was also perceived to be nutritious and economical – particularly when used with leftover meats. Curry wasn’t the only Indian delicacy to delight the British palate. By 1900, Indian and Sri Lankan tea accounted for 90 per cent of Britain’s tea imports, a fact reflected in a marketing campaign for Lipton tea, which featured an Indian female plantation worker and sandwich-board men dressed as Indians. Like other colonial goods from India, tea was no longer restricted to an affluent minority. In fact, it became a staple of Victorian Britain, playing a central role in the rituals of daily life. It helped to structure the working day in the form of the tea break, and, among working-class families, it was even employed as a term to describe the meal at the end of the day. New forms of sociability developed around the beverage, which was drunk in a wide range of locations, including family gatherings, political meetings and, of course, tea shops. Sport Reinventing cricket... and how the ancient art of Indian club swinging entered the classroom Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji was arguably the most celebrated of all Indians in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, feted as a sporting hero and adored by the British public. And that was because he was a master of a British obsession: cricket. Ranjitsinhji – or Ranji, as he was popularly known – achieved three notable firsts. He was the first Indian to gain a place on a university cricket team, Trinity College, Cambridge; the first to captain a county cricket team, Sussex; and, most significantly, the first to represent England in test cricket. Widely acknowledged as one of the finest batsmen of the Victorian era and beyond, he brought innovation and style to cricket and changed the face of British sport. Yet, despite his legions of fans, Ranjitsinhji remained exotic, described in the British press “as graceful as a panther”, with “wrists supple and tough as a creeper of the Indian jungle” – a man who turned cricket “into an oriental poem of action”. While cricket would go on to be widely popular, polo was a more elite activity, introduced to Britain by Indian army officers in the 1870s. Another subcontinental pastime brought to Britain in the 19th century was Indian club swinging. Originating from Hindu physical culture, this became a very popular form of gymnastic exercise for both men and women, spreading from the upper to the middle classes. Club swinging spawned exercise classes and competitions and became a part of physical education in schools. Popular culture Passion – and ignorance India’s style was everywhere, yet Britons still knew very little about the country Britons were continuously exposed to imperial propaganda through advertising, the press, education and the church, as well as popular culture. Theatrical productions with Indian themes – such as The Grand Mogul (1884), The Nautch Girl (1891) and Carnac Sahib (1899) – enjoyed long runs. The Indian pageant performed at Earl’s Court’s 6,000-seat Empress Theatre was particularly successful. Outside the theatre, Victorians were entertained by Indian street jugglers and musicians – or ‘Tom Tom players’, as the drummers were known in London. According to the Strand Magazine: “Ask the average man for what India is most celebrated, and chances are ten to one that he will ignore the glories of the Taj Mahal, the beneficence of British rule, even Mr Kipling, and will unhesitatingly reply in one word, ‘Jugglers’.” Another way ordinary Victorians encountered India and Indians was through exhibitions. Some 5.5 million people visited the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886. All aspects of Indian art, architecture, commerce and industry were exhibited, including a living exhibit of Indian ‘village’ artisans, who were in fact prisoners of Agra gaol. As this example proves, it was not just Indians who were put on display during the exhibition: Britons’ ignorance about Indian life was also subjected to the harsh light of satirical scrutiny. Shompa Lahiri is a research fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. Her books include Indian Mobilities in the West, 1900-1947 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) and Indians in Britain (Frank Cass, 2000). This article was first published in the October 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine.
From bats and brawls to new links between colonies: the origins of Australian cricket
On the 140th anniversary of the first recognised cricket test match, played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground between Australia and England (and which Australia won by 45 runs), Oxford historian Dr Benjamin Mountford explores the roots of Australian cricket… This article was first published in August 2015
By December 1803 they were already at it. Just 15 years after the arrival of the First Fleet at Botany Bay, and just 16 years after the first match had been played at Lord's in London, cricket had made its way to New South Wales. On 8 January 1804 the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Telegraph reported: The late intense weather has been very favourable to the amateurs of cricket who have scarce lost a day for the past month. The frequent immoderate heats might have been considered inimical to the amusement, but were productive of very opposite consequences. Cricket was the first team game to be successfully exported from England to Australia. In the distant penal colony of New South Wales, it was encouraged by colonial governors as a worthy entertainment. Importantly, it provided the new arrivals with a vital link to the world they had left behind. Thousands of miles from home, on a patch of land set aside for recreation (which after 1810 would be known as ‘Hyde Park’), Sydney's first cricketers set about recreating that most English of games in the “immoderate heat[s]” of the Australian sun. During its infancy, Australian cricket developed some distinctive characteristics, owing in part to the distance between the colony and England – the first cricket clubs struggled to import copies of the latest rules and equipment. As such, they made use of local timbers and leather and were late to adopt certain English innovations, such as the use of overarm bowling and the coin toss [to determine which team bats first]. Matches were well supported by both the respectable and incorrigible classes of Australian society. In the 19th century, cricket developed into one of the essential features of the Australian cultural landscape. By 1826 Sydney was home to a number of cricket clubs including the Currency, the Military and the Australian. During the 1820s, 30s and 40s, white colonisers took the game with them as they spread across Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland. The Melbourne Cricket Club, Australia’s most prestigious, was formed in 1838. In the 1850s, the gold rushes that swept the Australian colonies brought a new influx of men with experience in English cricket. Having tried their luck with the pick and pan, many fared better with the bat and ball. In later years, keen cricketers could be found in all corners of the island continent. According to the pre-eminent historian of Australian cricket, the late Jack Pollard, at one stage seven men who had earned their blues playing for Oxford and Cambridge could be found working as sugar planters in Queensland. In the southern summer of 1850–1, the first intercolonial match took place between Victoria and Tasmania, marking the start of first-class cricket in Australia. In the years that followed, these matches developed into great social occasions. Brass bands performed during breaks in play and champagne flowed freely. Although well-attended by the upper echelons of colonial society, the matches could also be feisty affairs. Disputes on the field regularly spilled over into wars in the press, and occasionally into brawls in the crowd. For the players, meanwhile, the match might come at the end of a gruelling journey. Visiting teams regularly endured rough voyages on small coastal craft to reach neighbouring colonies, followed by bruising coach rides along poor roads if they proceeded to regional areas. Unsurprisingly, it seems many players made the most of local hospitality when they finally reached their destination – adding a sore head to the list of aches and pains they had developed en-route! The first English teams to tour Australia began arriving in the 1860s. English teams had already toured successfully to Canada and the United States when, in 1861, the Melbourne restaurateurs Spiers and Pond sought to promote their businesses by organising a visit to the antipodes. Having left home in October, on Christmas Eve the English team (pictured below) arrived at Melbourne and was greeted by a large and enthusiastic crowd and cheered through the streets. The tour was a resounding success, with an estimated 15,000 people watching as the English 11 took on a team of 18 (recognising their handicap) from Melbourne. First England Team that toured Australia in 1861. (© Lordprice Collection/Alamy) Subsequent tours by English teams, including two teams featuring the great Victorian hero WG Grace, played an important role in stimulating Australian interest in cricket and in uniting the colonies in sporting endeavour against England. By the 1880s most Australian towns boasted a local pitch, and cricket was increasingly being recognised as a national game. Traffic the other way began in 1868, when an all-Aboriginal team from Australia toured England. The tour took place despite the resistance of the authorities, who feared the players might be exploited and would suffer in the English climate. After arriving in England the team was subjected to an intense schedule, playing 47 matches across six counties between May and October. Their performances impressed and attracted widespread attention, ten years before the first white Australian team played on British soil. The all-rounder Unaarrimin (known as Johnny Mullagh) won particular praise for his abilities, while Yellanach (Johnny Cuzens) put fear into English batsmen with the pace of his bowling. The Times reflected after their first appearance at the Oval: “No truer test of the interest taken by the public in the performance of this team from the antipodes can be afforded than that of 7,000 persons congregated”. That interest was in part due to the Victorian fascination with ‘exotic’ races, which had been stimulated by the recent publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. “Many and confused”, The Times continued, “were the ideas generally entertained about these aboriginals, both as regards their cricketing acquirements and their physical confirmation”. Between sessions the Australian players displayed a range of skills with the spear and the boomerang for their curious English audiences. Having seen the players in the field, the bohemian and naturalist William Tegetmeier, a correspondent of Darwin’s, studied and photographed some of them and established a small display of their weapons. Although the players earnt the respect of many British observers, their visit to the heart of the empire provided regular reminders of the strength of its racial prejudice. At the same time, however, the tour reflected the often complex relationship between sport, race and empire that has fascinated generations of historians. At York, for instance, the Aboriginal players were banned from the lunch tent, while at Lord’s they won plaudits for their performance against a team that included a viscount, an earl, a lieutenant-colonial and a captain. It was some 10 years later, in the northern summer of 1878, that the first white Australian team toured England (pictured at the top of the article). At Sydney a crowd of less than a dozen turned out to see them off as they began the long journey to Liverpool via the United States. When the team arrived at Nottingham for their first match, locals were confused – they had apparently expected the players to be black. After a disappointing first performance, the Australians turned things around against the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord’s. As word spread across London that the colonists had dismissed the mighty MCC for a paltry 33, crowds poured in for the second innings, which proved a whitewash. In less than four hours the Australians had dispatched the elite of British cricket, in the game’s spiritual home. Reflecting on the loss and the poor performance of even the great WG Grace, Punch parodied Lord Byron: The Australians came down like a wolf on the fold, The Marlyebone cracks for a trifle were bowled; Our Grace before dinner was very soon done, And Grace after dinner did not get a run. English cricketer WG Grace, date unknown. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images) The Australian victory at Lord’s marked an important turning point. For the first time it convinced many in England of the viability of international cricket, and of the game’s imperial resonance. In Australia the 1878 tour and those that followed did much to foster national sentiment, as the colonists came together to take on ‘Old England’. When the team returned to Sydney (and later visited Melbourne and Adelaide), they received a rapturous welcome and were conveyed through the streets of the city amid much cheering and celebration. It was again in London, this time at the Oval, that the ‘Ashes’ was born. Having been beaten soundly in the first innings (England needing only 85 from their second innings to win), an Australian team led by ‘the demon’ bowler, Fred Spofforth, managed a remarkable comeback. During the last half hour of play the English batsmen fell in quick succession, several spectators fainted from shock, and one poor onlooker died of a heart attack. Five days later, the Sporting Times published a mock obituary, which began the legend of the Ashes: In Affectionate Remembrance of ENGLISH CRICKET which died at The Oval on 29 August, 1882 Deeply lamented by a large circle of Sorrowing Friends and Acquaintances R.I.P. N.B. – The body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia. From its humble beginnings in Sydney’s Hyde Park, Australian cricket has been intricately bound up with the making of Australian history. Moreover, it has remained an essential element of the evolving relationship between Britain and Australia. Dr Benjamin Mountford is the Michael Brock fellow in modern British history at Corpus Christi College Oxford, and an honorary senior research fellow at Federation University Australia. His first book, on the coming together of the British and Chinese Empires in colonial Australia, will be published through Oxford University Press in 2016.
Shakespeare’s world and cricket in South Africa
Edward Wilson-Lee looks at how the playwright’s work became celebrated on a global scale, while Dean Allen recounts the story of a pioneering British cricket enthusiast who popularised the sport in 19th-century South Africa
As we reach the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, Edward Wilson-Lee shows how the playwright became celebrated at a global level and, in particular, in the countries of East Africa. Meanwhile, historian Dean Allen recounts the story of pioneering British cricket enthusiast James Logan, who popularised the sport in 19th-century South Africa.
On 6 May 1954, Roger Bannister broke the world mile record and the four-minute barrier at the Iffley Road Track in Oxford, completing the distance in 3 mins 59.4 seconds – a huge achievement for British sport. Here, Professor Tony Collins discusses ten locations linked to the development of sport in Britain over the past 200 years – from Much Wenlock to Stamford Bridge
This article was first published in the February 2012 issue of BBC History Magazine The British, it’s often said, have a particular genius for inventing sports and games. Considering how many of these sports and games turn out to have evolved elsewhere in the world too, this may or may not be true. However, we can be certain about one thing: the British invented modern sports in all their money-drenched and over-hyped glory. To put that another way, you can trace a direct line from Britons setting down recognised rules for horse racing, boxing and cricket through to football’s World Cup, the Indian Premier League and the modern Olympic Games. “Although most countries have variations of folk tradition sports, which can range from hitting a ball with a bat through to mob forms of football through to maypole dancing – traditions that are very rooted in rural, agricultural lifestyles – Britain was the first place to develop what we would see today as codified, organised and commercialised sports,” says Tony Collins of De Montfort University in Leicester. It’s a story that begins in earnest in the 18th century. “The reason why Britain developed these sports was it was the first nation to become an industrial, capitalist economy where people had disposable income,” comments Collins. “There was the wealth to generate both an interest in sports and also markets for sports.” From the off then, money was central to sport’s growth. It’s no coincidence that this was also an era when, especially in a south-east growing prosperous as the centre of empire, the theatre grew in popularity and newspapers began to flourish. Beginning with the aristocracy, Britons were discovering the joys of leisure time. This meant games played for high stakes and gambling. Cricket matches with prize money of 1,000 guineas weren’t unheard of. Predating today’s ‘in-game’ wagers, on-site bookies would even offer odds on individual batsman’s scores. If this doesn’t tally with the familiar idea of stolid chaps playing up, playing up and playing the game, that’s because the idea of the noble amateur dates from the 19th century. This was a reinvention of sport linked to the growth of muscular Christianity and expressed in Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), a novel set in Rugby School that pushed “the moral and the educative lessons that sport could teach”. However, the idea of the amateur was always problematical. Cricketer WG Grace is reputed sometimes to have refused to walk when given out, perhaps in part because he was conscious that his generous ‘expenses’ made him better paid as an amateur than professional cricketers and that his role was to draw a crowd. As for why Grace hypocritically preferred expenses to a match fee, it’s because amateurs were gentlemen but professionals were lower class. The 19th century was also an era when mass spectator sport began to take off. The 1895 split between rugby union and rugby league, for example, wasn’t, as it’s often portrayed, just about clubs such as Widnes and Warrington wanting to pay their players. It also came about because northern clubs wanted rule changes to make rugby more attractive to Saturday spectators who were increasingly deserting for association football – the Football League, at first made up of teams based in the north of England and the Midlands, was founded in 1888. Fast forward to today and what Tony Collins calls the “arc of the amateur era” has most definitely ended. You could even argue that popular spectator sports, unashamedly professional and rich with the munificent sums paid by television, have returned to their 18th‑century roots. As for a figure such as Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, it doesn’t seem wholly unreasonable to see him as a spiritual successor to louche aristocrats looking for amusement. And yet sport is never just about rich individuals. In Britain, as sport has become a national obsession, it’s also become tied up with national well-being and identity. Hungary’s 6-3 rout of England at Wembley in 1953 had as much of an impact on the national sporting psyche as the 1956 Suez Crisis did on British politics. “It was a tremendous shock to the system because it seemed to place a question mark over British superiority,” says Collins. “It’s not an accident that a lot of those kinds of doubts came to the fore in the 1950s when there’s lots of soul-searching and discussion about the role of Britain as its empire starts to disintegrate.” The dance between sport and the state of the nation continues. Leaving aside for a moment the problem of conflating English and British sport, what price a future historian contrasting England’s victory at the 2003 Rugby World Cup, when Clive Woodward’s strategy-fixated coaching methods seemed rooted in the management thinking of a then buoyant City of London, with the team’s dismal, undisciplined performance at the post-crash 2011 World Cup. Ten sites related to the development of British sport The Kirkwall Ba’ Orkney Islands Where rival ‘factions’ go head-to-head Football may be ‘the beautiful game’ but its deepest roots are plum ugly, mass contests where entire communities wrestled with an animal’s bladder trying to score a ‘goal’. The Kirkwall mass football game, which takes place twice a year, on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, pits ‘Uppies’ against ‘Doonies’ – those born south of the local St Magnus Cathedral against those born to its north. It’s a primal spectacle and also a glimpse back to an agrarian society where people made their own entertainment on holidays – south of the border mass football often took place on Shrove Tuesday, Whitsuntide or May Day. The ba’ itself is a handmade, cork-filled leather ball, weighing about three pounds with a circumference of around 28 inches. While these football games typically had few if any rules, their reputation for violence may be overstated. Unlike modern sports, where injuries are often a by-product of the athletes’ great speed, traditional football is a slow-moving, attritional maul. You’re in far more danger of getting crushed than anything else. Typically there are local conventions to ensure that those who don’t want to be at the centre of the action can get away. The two annual ba’s begin on Kirkwall’s Broad Street, near St Magnus Cathedral, with the Men’s Ba’ starting at 1pm. Spectators are welcome, but be warned, the Men’s Ba’ can last up to eight hours! Subscription Rooms, Newmarket, Suffolk Where 19th-century gentlemen had a flutter on horse races Newmarket’s Subscription Rooms were where 19th-century betting men met after a day’s racing and is now home to the National Horseracing Museum, which traces the history of the ‘Sport of Kings’. Back then the splendid building was the venue for gambling men such as George Payne, Sir Joseph Hawley and the Marquess of Hastings to wager their bets, while outside large crowds would gather to find out from emerging members which horses were being backed. In the case of British racing, the most important king is arguably Charles II, who didn’t just reopen the theatres after the Restoration but was also keenly interested in the horses. Charles regularly moved his court to Newmarket, a town he adored, to enjoy the racing. As well as inaugurating the Town Plate, still run today, he founded the Palace House Stables and even raced as a jockey himself on occasion. Newmarket has been a home for British flat racing ever since and thus occupies a uniquely important role in the commercialisation of British sport. The first professional horse trainers were based in the town as early as the late 17th century, an era when other sports were hardly organised at all. Tellingly, the Jockey Club was founded as early as 1750, while the St Leger, the oldest-established of the English ‘classics’, was first run in 1776. The Rooms closed in 1981 after a decline in their use, but the building opened as a museum in 1983. Hambledon, Hampshire Where the ‘gentleman’s game’ came of age While the exact birthplace of cricket is unclear, few dispute that its cradle lies in Hampshire. In the late 18th century, Hambledon was home to the best team in the land, a village side so good that it famously walloped a strong All-England XI by a full innings in June 1777. Captain of the side in its glory years was local publican Richard Nyren. His son John would later immortalise his father and other members of the Hambledon team in The Cricketers of My Time (1833). It’s said that crowds of 4,000 and 5,000 would regularly turn out to watch the side, whose members were often poached by aristocratic teams based in London. The club was also important in developing the game, even pioneering the idea of a third stump in the wicket. Hambledon played at Broadhalfpenny Down, making this particular green space arguably the site of the first major cricket ground in England. Have a pint in the Bat and Ball Inn and you’ll be supping in a place that was once, in the words of David Gower, “the centre of the cricketing universe”. The Tom Cribb pub, Piccadilly Circus, London Where a prize fighter turned landlord is celebrated The idea of the athlete whose fame somehow transcends his own sport doesn’t begin with David Beckham. Or even Muhammad Ali. In December 1810, bare-knuckle pugilist Tom Cribb took on American former slave Tom Molineaux at Shenington Hollow in Oxfordshire. After a brutal and bloody fight that lasted more than 30 rounds, Cribb was declared the winner and became world champion. In 1811, Cribb broke Molineaux’s jaw at a rematch that drew at least 15,000 spectators, including many representatives of the great and good. Following Cribb’s win, his celebrity was such that he was mobbed wherever he went. A former coal porter had become a star, known personally to Byron and the Prince Regent. He was even a page at George IV’s coronation. Cribb later became the landlord of the Union Arms, a few doors from the boxing memorabilia-decorated pub that now bears his name on Panton Street. He is buried in St Mary Magdalene churchyard, Woolwich. “Even today any boxing fan with an awareness of the history of the sport would know Cribb’s name,” says Tony Collins. “For someone’s reputation in a sport to last more than 200 years is testimony to the impact he had on the national psyche.” Much Wenlock, Shropshire Where a Victorian local sports day took place Organised by surgeon and magistrate Dr William Penny Brookes, the Wenlock Olympian Society Annual Games first took place in October 1850. This was a very Victorian local sports day in that it came complete with a strong social agenda: “The promotion of the moral, physical and intellectual improvement of the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Wenlock and especially of the working classes.” The games, which emphasised cultural pursuits such as poetry as well as hearty physical activity, were a big influence on Baron Pierre de Coubertin, credited with being the father of the modern Olympics, which were revived in Athens in 1896. In 1890, de Coubertin visited Wenlock and met with Brookes at the still-trading Raven Hotel, where you can still see memorabilia relating to the two men. He later gave a glowing account of his visit and referred to Brookes as “my oldest friend”. Unlikely as it may initially seem, there’s thus a direct link between muscular Christianity on the English-Welsh border and the ballyhoo surrounding London 2012. The Wenlock games themselves continue to this day. Should you visit between 8 and 15 July 2012, there’s the chance to view locals competing in pursuits ranging from volleyball to fencing and athletics to clay pigeon shooting. Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum, Wimbledon, London Where top British tennis players are remembered While the Victorians favoured vigorous exercise for boys and young men, their prudery meant there were few opportunities for women to participate in sport in the 19th century. In this context, what Tony Collins calls “more suburban, middle-class sports” such as tennis and golf were important because they offered women the chance to get involved. In 1884, the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club held its first ladies’ singles championship, won by a local vicar’s daughter, Maud Watson. However, the first true female sports star of the modern era was Lottie Dod, who won the first of her five titles in 1887, when she was just 15 years old. A versatile sportswoman, Dod also represented England at hockey, excelled in golf and winter sports, and won a silver medal in archery at the 1908 Olympics. Wimbledon’s museum, where you can see championship trophies and a collection of tennis memorabilia that dates back to the 16th century, pays due respect to Dod’s achievements. The All England Club also offers guided tours and holds an annual public ticket ballot for those who want to attend the championships. National Cycle Collection, Llandrindod Wells, Powys Where you can view 250 vintage bicycles If you want to see where the history of cycling happened, look down your local street. In the late 19th century, bicycles came financially within the reach of ordinary working people. A cycling craze began, which encompassed those whose forebears might never have left their home parish. “We forget nowadays, but it must have been an amazing invention because it was a cheap form of transport for the working classes,” says Tony Collins. “It also allowed women to travel alone for the first time, which obviously caused a great kerfuffle among the more morally minded Victorian middle classes.” One of those caught up in the craze was Tom Norton, a canny entrepreneur who set up a bike shop in Llandrindod Wells, then booming because of tourism. Later, the generally transport-mad Norton (who was friends with Herbert Austin, founder of the Austin Motor Company, and met Henry Ford in America) ran a car dealership at the art nouveau Automobile Palace, a building he commissioned, that now houses the National Cycle Collection. Norton’s first love remained cycling, though, and his internationally important collection of vintage bikes can now be viewed at his former premises in Llandrindod Wells. Croke Park, Dublin, Ireland Where 14 Gaelic football spectators were murdered Croke park, the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association, first hosted Irish sports such as Gaelic football and hurling in 1884. However, it’s a venue associated with the dark side of colonialism. On 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence, members of the Royal Irish Constabulary opened fire on the crowd gathered to watch a Gaelic football match at the stadium, in retaliation for an IRA operation. Fourteen people died in the incident after 114 rounds of rifle ammunition were discharged. It’s all a reminder, if any were needed, of the close link between sport and nationalism. On a far less extreme level, Scottish and Welsh sports teams have often been the focus of dissent. The successful Scottish national rugby team of the late 1980s/early 1990s, for example, came in some sense to embody Scottish resentment against the Thatcher government’s imposition of poll tax north of the border, a year before it was introduced in England and Wales. Stamford Bridge, London Where a black sports pioneer first found fame The home of Chelsea FC hasn’t always been a football venue. From 1877–1904, it was used almost exclusively for athletics and it was here, in 1886, that Arthur Wharton equalled the then world record of 10 seconds for the 100-yard sprint. However, it’s not for his track-and-field prowess that Wharton (1865–1930) is primarily remembered. He was also a goalkeeper, who played for Preston North End (a key member of the 1886–87 side that reached the FA Cup semi-final), Rotherham Town and Sheffield United, and is believed to have been the world’s first black professional footballer. Although he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2003, Wharton was a forgotten figure for many years and died penniless. “He has come to be a symbol of the important role that black players have played in the game, and he’s important to remember because he emphasises the role that black and other non-white players have always played in football, but also in British sport in general,” says Tony Collins. In 1997, the charity Football Unites, Racism Divides arranged for his final resting spot, at Edlington Cemetery in South Yorkshire, to be marked with a headstone. George Hotel, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire Where the roots of the Rugby Football League lie In 1895, choosing the venue because it was near equidistant between the west coast at Lancashire and the east coast at Yorkshire, the representatives of 21 northern rugby clubs met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield. Fearing they were about to be expelled from the game’s governing organisation, the Rugby Football Union (RFU), the clubs formed the Northern Rugby Football Union, later renamed the Rugby Football League. The split of league and union was a dispute that had its roots in class. The northern clubs wanted to be able to pay players six shillings in expenses to cover time off work from the factory. However, the RFU insisted the game should remain wholly amateur, and professionalism wasn’t officially allowed in union until 1995 – although stories of boots stuffed with notes down the years rather suggest that WG Grace’s double standards could be found in rugby too. It’s also important to remember that northern clubs were worried about losing spectators to association football and wanted rule changes to make the game more attractive to spectators. The George is now the site of the Rugby League Heritage Centre, a collection of rare memorabilia related to the game. Tony Collins is professor of history at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, Leicester You can watch archive footage of Roger Bannister breaking the 4 minute mile at http://youtu.be/wTXoTnp_5sI