Sport: A Very Short Introduction

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Abstract

This admirable book is the latest in OUP’s well-established Very Short Introduction series, now containing over 350 volumes. Lying between Socrates and the Soviet Union, this is the first volume to venture into leisure where the author has set himself the almost impossible task of covering world sport, historical and contemporary, in a matter of 123 text pages. Nevertheless, it is an excellent introduction to those wishing to appreciate the background to a major cultural phenomenon. The first chapter deals with the origins of sport, focusing on classical Greece and Rome and Medieval England. Then comes modernization from the mid nineteenth century with an emphasis on the development of rules and urban-based sport. Modernization stimulated a rift, and subsequent accommodation, between amateur and professional participants, the latter ultimately becoming the preserve of elite performers, whilst the majority of sportspersons played only for intrinsic rewards and indeed often actually paid to play in the form of club subscriptions and equipment costs. The chapter on internationalization notes the diffusion of sport round the globe but focuses on the two largest governing bodies, the International Olympic Committee and FIFA. The business chapter concentrates on stadia, spectators, and sporting goods. Finally, Cronin turns to the dark side of sport looking at discrimination, doping, and violence on and off the field of play: a telling comment is that of the eight 100 metres finalists at the 1988 Olympics all but two were subsequently found guilty of taking performance enhancing drugs. In such a short work specialists will always be able to find errors and misinterpretations. In my own area of study on rules Cronin predates the power of the Jockey Club over horse racing and that of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club over golf by a century (23–5). [Stylistically too I could do without sport being ‘regulated by regulations’ (4)]! In horse racing, Queen Anne, despite all she did for the turf, did not import the famous racehorse, the Darley Arabian (22). The clue is in the name: it was shipped to England by Thomas Darley, as a present for his brother. There are some inconsistencies and statements requiring clarity. Cronin notes that the competitors at Greek funeral games ‘were comprised of the wealthy and powerful’ but further down the same page (9) states they were ‘the preserve of the military’. When he claims that in the late nineteenth century it was the ‘professional, or at least commercialized, sport that emerged stronger than the unpaid amateur version’ (49) much depends on how the term ‘stronger’ is interpreted: in terms of numbers amateur sport still held sway. Similarly, there is no evidence supplied that a ‘growing majority’ in ‘society’ (28) accepted a moral evangelizing code in the early nineteenth century; that 1496 Book Reviews