the majority win hands down: win easily go to the dogs: start to leadanaimless
and self-destructive life in the final .straight/on the last lap: in the
last stage of some process a safe pair of hands: a reliableperson
19421 Sport and competition
> Notes on cricket
• Eleven players in each team.
• Test matches between nationalteamscan last up to five days of six hours each. Top club teams play matches lasting between two and four days. There are also one-day matcheslasting about seven hours.
• Played at top level in Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the West Indies (those places in the Caribbean which once belonged to the British empire). Can be considered the 'national sport' in the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies.
English players but more of the very English associations that it carries with it. Cricket is much more than just a sport; it symbolizes a way of life - a slow and peaceful rural way of life. Cricket is associated with long sunny summer afternoons, the smell of new-mown grass and the sound of leather (the ball) connecting with willow (the wood from which cricket bats are made). Cricket is special because it combines competition with the British dream of rural life. Cricket is what the village green is for! As if to emphasize the rural connection, 'first class' cricket teams in England, unlike teams in other sports, do not bear the names of towns but of counties (Essex and Yorkshire, for example).
Cricket is, therefore, the national English game in a symbolic sense. However, to some people cricket is more than just a symbol. The comparatively low attendance at top class matches does not give a true picture of the level of interest in the country. One game of cricket takes a terribly long time (i> Notes on cricket), which a lot of people simply don't have to spare. In fact there are millions of people in the country who don't just enjoy cricket but are passionate about it! These people spend up to thirty days each summer tuned to the live radio commentary of'Test' ( = international) Matches. When they get the chance, they watch a bit of the live television coverage. Some people even do both at the same time (they turn the sound down on the television and listen to the radio). To these people, the commentators become well-loved figures. When, in 1994, one famous commentator died, the Prime Minister lamented that 'summers will never be the same again'. And if cricket fans are too busy to listen to the radio commentary, they can always phone a special number to be given the latest score!
Football
The full official name of'soccer' (as it is called in the USA and sometimes in Britain) is 'association football'. This distinguishes it from other kinds such as rugby football (almost always called simply 'rugby'), Gaelic football, Australian football and American football. However, most people in Britain call it simply 'football'. This is indicative of its dominant role. Everywhere in the country except south Wales, it is easily the most popular spectator sport, the most-played sport in the country's state schools and one of the most popular participatory sports for adults. In terms of numbers, football, not cricket, is the national sport, just as it is everywhere else in Europe.
British football has traditionally drawn its main following from the working class. In general, the intelligentsia ignored it. But in the last two decades of the twentieth century, it started to attract wider interest. The appearance of fanzines is an indication of this. Fanzines are magazines written in an informal but often highly intelligent and witty style, published by the fans of some of the clubs. One or two books of literary merit have been written which focus not only on players, teams and tactics but also on the wider social aspects of the game. Light-hearted football programmes have appeared on television which similarly give attention to 'off-the-field' matters. There has also been much academic interest. At the 1990 World Cup there was a joke among English fans that it was impossible to find a hotel room because they had all been taken by sociologists!
Many team sports in Britain, but especially football, tend to be men-only, 'tribal' affairs. In the USA, the whole family goes to watch the baseball. Similarly, the whole family goes along to cheer the Irish national football team. But in Britain, only a handful of children or women go to football matches. Perhaps this is why active support for local teams has had a tendency to become violent. During the 1970s and 1980s football hooliganism was a major problem in England. In the 1990s, however, it seemed to be on the decline. English fans visiting Europe are now no worse in their behaviour than the fans of many other countries.
Attendances at British club matches have been falling for several decades (> Spectator attendance at major sports). Many stadiums are very old, uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous. Accidents at professional football matches led to the decision to turn the grounds of first division and premiership clubs into 'all-seater' stadiums. Fans can no longer stand, jump, shout and sway on the cheap 'terraces' behind the goals (there have been emotional farewells at many grounds to this traditional 'way of life'). It is assumed that being seated makes fans more well-behaved. It remains to be seen whether this development will turn football matches into events for the whole family.
196 21 Sport and competition
> Notes on rugby
• Similar to American football in the ball it uses (egg-shaped) and its aim (to carry the ball over the opposing team's line). But very different in details - most notably, you cannot interfere with a player who does not have the ball. Also different in that, like all British sports, there are no 'time-outs' and players do not wear body armour.
• Fifteen players per team in rugby union and thirteen in rugby league.
• Playing time is eighty minutes.
• Rugby union is played at top level in the British Isles, France, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Also to a high level in North America, Argentina, Romania and some Pacific islands. Can be considered the 'national sport' of Wales, New Zealand, Fiji, Western Samoa and Tonga, and of South African whites. The teams most frequently regarded as the best are from the southern hemisphere.
• Rugby league is played at top level in Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
Rugby
There are two versions of this fast and aggressive ball game: rugby union and rugby league. They are so similar that somebody who is good at one of them can quickly learn to become good at the other. The real difference between them is a matter of social history. Rugby union is the older of the two. In the nineteenth century it was enthusiastically taken up by most of Britain's public schools. Rugby league split off from rugby union at the end of the century. Although it has now spread to many of the same places in the world where rugby union is played (> Notes on rugby), its traditional home is among the working class of the north of England, where it was a way for miners and factory workers to make a little bit of extra money from their sporting talents. Unlike rugby union, it has always been a professional sport.
Because of these social origins, rugby league in Britain is seen as a working class sport, while rugby union is mainly for the middle classes. Except in south Wales. There, rugby union is a sport for all classes, and more popular than football. In Wales, the phrase 'international day' means only one thing - that the national rugby team are playing. In the 1970s and 1980s some of the best Welsh players were persuaded to 'change codes'. They were 'bought' by one of the big rugby league clubs, where they could make a lot of money. Whenever this happened it was seen as a national disaster among the Welsh.
Rugby union has had some success in recent years in selling itself to a wider audience. As a result, just as football has become less
Animals in sport 197
exclusively working class in character, rugby union has become less exclusively middle class. In 1995 it finally abandoned amateurism. In fact, the amateur status of top rugby union players had already become meaningless. They didn't get paid a salary or fee for playing, but they received large 'expenses' as well as various publicity contracts and paid speaking engagements.
Animals in sport
Traditionally, the favourite sports of the British upper class are hunting, shooting and fishing. The most widespread form of hunting is foxhunting — indeed, that is what the word 'hunting' usually means in Britain (> Foxhunting). This is a popular pastime among some members of the higher social classes and a few people from lower social classes, who often see their participation as a mark of newly won status.
Killing birds with guns is known as 'shooting' in Britain. It is a minority pastime confined largely to the higher social classes; there are more than three times as many licensed guns for this purpose in France as there are in Britain. The birds which people try to shoot (such as grouse) may only be shot during certain specified times of the year. The upper classes often organize 'shooting parties' during the 'season'.
The only kind of hunting which is associated with the working class is hare-coursing, in which greyhound dogs chase hares. However, because the vast majority of people in Britain are urban dwellers, this too is a minority activity.
The one kind of'hunting' which is popular among all social classes is fishing. In fact, this is the most popular participatory sport of all in Britain. Between four and five million people go fishing regularly. When fishing is done competitively, it is called 'angling'.
Apart from being hunted, another way in which animals are used in sport is when they race. Horse-racing is a long-established and popular sport in Britain, both 'flat racing' and 'national hunt' racing (where there are jumps for the horses), sometimes known as 'steeplechase'. The former became known as 'the sport of kings' in the seventeenth century, and modern British royalty has close connections with sport involving horses. Some members of the royal family own racehorses and attend certain annual race meetings (Ascot, for example); some are also active participants in the sports of polo and show-jumping (both of which involve riding a horse).
The chief attraction of horse-racing for most people is the opportunity it provides for gambling (see below). Greyhound racing, although declining, is still popular for the same reason. In this sport, the dogs chase a mechanical hare round a racetrack. It is easier to organize than horse-racing and 'the dogs' has the reputation of being the ' poor man s racing'.
> Foxhunting
Foxhunting works like this. A group of people on horses, dressed in eighteenth century riding clothes, ride around with a pack of dogs. When the dogs pick up the scent of a fox, somebody blows a horn and then dogs, horses and riders all chase the fox. Often the fox gets away, but if not, the dogs get to it before the hunters and tear it to pieces. As you might guess in a country of animal-lovers, where most people have little experience of the harsher realities of nature, foxhunting is strongly opposed by some people. The League Against Cruel Sports wants it made illegal and the campaign has been steadily intensifying. There are sometimes violent encounters between foxhunters and protestors (whom the hunters call 'saboteurs').
198 21 Sport and competition
> Rounders
This sport is rather similar to American baseball, but it certainly does not have the same image. It has a long history in England as something that people (young and old, male and female) can play together at village fetes. It is often seen as not being a proper 'sport'.
However, despite this image, it has recently become the second most popular sport for state schools in Britain. More traditional sports such as cricket and rugby are being abandoned in favour of rounders, which is much easier to organize. Rounders requires less special equipment, less money and boys and girls can play it together. It also takes up less time. It is especially attractive for state schools with little money and time to spare. More than a quarter of all state-school sports fields are now used for rounders. Only football, which is played on nearly half of all state-school fields, is more popular.
> A nation of gamblers
In 1993 a total of £ 12.7 billion was wagered by the British - that's £ 289 for every adult in the country. £ 9,.5 billion was won. The government took just over £ i billion in taxes. The rest was kept by the bookmakers. About half of all the money bet in 1993 was on horses or greyhounds. 74% of all adults gambled at least once during the year.
At least once every two weeks:
• 39% did the football pools;
• 20% played on gaming and fruit machines;
•18% played bingo;
•14% put money on the horses.
In Britain in 1993, there was one
betting shop for every 3,000 adults.
There were also:
* 120 casinos;
* 120,000 fruitmachines;
* 1,000 bingo clubs;
*1,000 lotteries;
*59 racetracks;
*37 greyhound stadiums.
Other sports
Almost every sport which exists is played in Britain. As well as the sports already mentioned, hockey (mostly on a field but also on ice) is quite popular, and both basketball (for men) and netball (for women) are growing in popularity. So too is the ancient game of rounders (> Rounders).
The British have a preference for team games. Individual sports such as athletics, cycling, gymnastics and swimming have comparatively small followings. Large numbers of people become interested in them only when British competitors do well in international events. The more popular individual sports are those in which socializing is an important aspect (such as tennis, golf, sailing and snooker). It is notable in this context that, apart from international competitions, the only athletics event which generates a lot of enthusiasm is the annual London Marathon. Most of the tens of thousands of participants in this race are 'fun runners' who are merely trying to complete it, sometimes in outrageous costumes, and so collect money for charity.
There seem to be two main exceptions to this tendency to prefer team games. One is boxing, where some of the attraction lies in the opportunity for gambling. But while boxing is declining in popularity, the other exception, motor sports, is becoming more popular.
Gambling
Even if they are not taking part or watching, British people like to be involved in sport. They can do this by placing bets on future results. Gambling is widespread throughout all social classes. It is so basic to sport that the word 'sportsman' used to be a synonym for 'gambler'.
When, in 1993, the starting procedure for the Grand National did not work properly, so that the race could not take place, it was widely regarded as a national disaster. The £70 million which had been gambled on the result (that's more than a pound for each man, woman and child in the country!) all had to be given back.
Every year, billions of pounds are bet on horse races. So well-known is this activity that everybody in the country, even those with no interest in horse-racing, would understand the meaning of a question such as 'who won the 2.30 at Chester?' (Which horse won the race that was scheduled to take place at half past two today at the Chester racecourse? The questioner probably wants to know because he or she has gambled some money on the result.) The central role of horse-racing in gambling is also shown by one of the names used to denote companies and individuals whose business it is to take bets. Although these are generally known as 'bookmakers', they sometimes call themselves 'turf accountants' ('turf is a word for ground where grass grows).
Lramblmg 199
> The sporting calendar
This chart shows the seasons for Britain's most popular spectator sports and some of the most important sporting events which take place every year. There are other, less regular, events which can be very important and other annual events in particular sports which are more important for followers of those sports. However, these are the ones that are well-known to the general public.
200 21 Sport and competition
Apart from the horses and the dogs, the most popular form of gambling connected with sports is the football pools. Every week, more than ten million people stake a small sum on the results of Saturday's professional matches. Another popular type of gambling, sterotypically for middle-aged working class women, is bingo.
Nonconformist religious groups (see chapter 13) traditionally frown upon gambling and their disapproval has had some influence. Perhaps this is why Britain did not have a national lottery until 1994. But if people want to gamble, then they will. For instance, before the national lottery started, the British gambled £ 250,000 on which company would be given the licence to run it! The country's big bookmakers are willing to offer odds on almost anything at all if asked. Who will be the next Labour party leader? Will it rain during the Wimbledon tennis tournament? Will it snow on Christmas Day? All of these offer opportunities for ‘a flutter'.
QUESTIONS
1 The manager of Liverpool Football Club during the 1970s once said: 'Football is not a matter of life and death to me - it's more important than that!' Do you think his comment is typical of the British attitude to sport (the traditional one, the modern one, both or neither)?
2 Cricket's great drawback is that it cannot be played during or immediately after rain because the grass is too wet. In the early 1990s it was suggested that first-class cricket should be played on plastic surfaces so that play could begin again as soon as the rain had stopped. English cricket enthusiasts were horrified by this suggestion. One member of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club, the club which partly controls the sport in England) commented, "The man must have been drunk when he thought of it'. How do you explain this extreme reaction?
3 In 1993 Roddy Doyle, a winner of the literary Booker Prize (see chapter 22) made regular appearances on a television football programme. In terms of the history of football in Britain, how was this significant? Are the sociological associations of football in your country different from those in Britain?
4 For about three months each year, the British spend millions of pounds betting on the results of Australian football - a sport which the vast majority have no interest in (and no understanding of)! Why do you think they do this? What does it tell us about British attitudes to sport and gambling? Are the chief forms of gambling in Britain the same as those in your country?
SUGGESTIONS
• Copies of football club fanzines can be bought from Sports Pages, CaxtonWalk, 94-96 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0JG. There is a general football fanzine called When Saturday Comes which is available from the same address or from 4th Floor, 2 Pear Tree Court, London EC1R 0DS. This includes details of most of the individual club fanzines available.
The arts
> What are'the arts'?
The arts is an 'umbrella' term for literature, music, painting, sculpture, crafts, theatre, opera, ballet, film etc. It usually implies seriousness, so that particular examples of these activities which are regarded as
'light' may be referred to simply as
'entertainment' instead.
Art, or fine arts, is often used to refer to those arts which use space, but not time, for their appreciation (such as painting and sculpture). This, for example, is what is covered by the subject 'art' in schools.
The word artist can sometimes refer to a person working in the fine arts, and sometimes to a person working in any field of the arts. In this chapter, it is used in this latter sense.
> What is'culture'?
The word culture has two meanings.
In this book, it is used in its anthropological sense to mean 'way of life'. But many people also use it as a synonym for 'the arts'. When it is used this way in this chapter, it has inverted commas around it.
The arts in society
Interest in the arts in Britain used to be largely confined to a small elite. Compared with fifty years ago, far more people today read books, visit art galleries, go to the theatre and attend concerts. Nevertheless, the fact remains that most British people prefer their sport, their television and videos (> Videos), and their other free-time activities to anything 'cultural'.
The arts in Britain are met with a mixture of public apathy and private enthusiasm. Publicly, the arts are accepted and tolerated but not actively encouraged. As a proportion of its total expenditure, government financial support for the arts is one of the lowest of any western country. During the 1980os it was the lowest of all. One of the principles of Thatcherism was that the arts should be driven by 'market forces'. The government reduced the money it gave to the Arts Council, the organization which allocates funds to projects in the arts. It was politically acceptable to do this because of the widespread view that 'culture* is of interest to a small section of the rich only. Therefore, the government's action was seen as democratic—it was refusing to subsidize the tastes of the wealthy. The counterargument, that such an attitude is undemocratic because it makes 'culture' too expensive for the ordinary person, is not one that carries much weight in Britain. In schools, subjects such as art and music, though always available, tend to be pushed to the sidelines. In the national curriculum (see chapter 14), they are the only two 'core' subjects which pupils at the age of fourteen are allowed to drop completely.
In addition, the arts are not normally given a very high level of publicity. Television programmes on 'cultural' subjects are usually shown late at night. Each summer, many high-quality arts festivals take place around the country (t> Annual arts festivals), but the vast majority of people do not even know of their existence. London has some of the finest collections of painting and sculpture in the world, but tourist brochures give little space to this aspect of the city. Except for the most famous, artists themselves have comparatively little public recognition. Some British artists have international reputations, and yet most people in Britain don't even know their names.
20222 The arts
> Videos
Every year, more than £ i billion •worth of videos are sold or rented in Britain. More than 60% of all households in the country own a video cassette recorder. Every year, these households hire an average of about twenty-five videos each and buy an average of about five videos each. Here is a graph showing the types of video that people watched in 1993.
It is very rare, for example, for any British artist to use his or her fame in the arts as a springboard onto the political stage. If you were to ask
the average person to name some famous painters, composers, opera singers and ballet dancers, you would probably be given very few British names - or even none at all.
It is almost as if the British are keen to present themselves as a nation of philistines. And yet, hundreds of thousands of people are enthusiastically involved in one or other of the arts, but (in typically British fashion) with a more-or-less amateur or part-time status. For example, every town in the country has at least one 'amateur dramatics' society, which regularly gives performances and charges no more than enough to cover its costs. All over the country, thousands of people learn handicrafts (such as pottery) in their free time, and sometimes sell their work in local craft shops. Similarly, there are thousands of musicians of every kind, performing around the country for very little money and making their own recordings in very difficult circumstances. Some amateur British choirs, such as the Bach Choir of London and King's College Chapel Choir in Cambridge, are well-known throughout the world.
The characteristics of British arts and letters
If there is one characteristic of British work in the arts that seems to stand out, it is its lack of identification with wider intellectual trends. It is not usually ideologically committed, nor associated with particular political movements. Playwrights and directors, for instance, can be left-wing in their political outlook, but the plays which they produce rarely convey a straightforward political message. The same is largely true of British novelists and poets. Their writing is typically naturalistic and is not connected with particular intellectual movements. They tend to be individualistic, exploring emotions rather
Theatre and cinema 203
than ideas, the personal rather than the political. Whatever the critics say, it is quite common for British playwrights and novelists to claim that they just record 'what they see' and that they do not consciously intend any social or symbolic message. Similarly, British work in the arts also tends to be individualistic within its own field. That is, artists do not usually consider themselves to belong to this or that 'movement’. In any field of the arts, even those in which British artists have strong international reputations, it is difficult to identify a 'British school'.
The style of the arts also tends to be conventional. The avant-garde exists, of course, but, with the possible exception of painting and sculpture, it is not through such work that British artists become famous. In the 1980s, Peter Brook was a highly successful theatre director. But when he occasionally directed avant-garde productions, he staged them in Paris!
In these features of the work of British artists (lonely individualism expressing itself within conventional formats), it is perhaps possible to find an explanation for the apparent contradiction between, on the one hand, the low level of public support for the arts and, on the other hand, the high level of enthusiasm on the part of individuals. There appears to be a general assumption in Britain that artistic creation is a personal affair, not a social one, and that therefore the flowering of artistic talent cannot be engineered. Either it happens, or it doesn't. It is not something for which society should feel responsible.
Theatre and cinema
The theatre has always been very strong in Britain. Its centre is, of course, London, where successful plays can sometimes run without a break for many years (>They ran and ran!). But every large town in the country has its theatres. Even small towns often have 'repertory' theatres, where different plays are performed for short periods by the same group of professional actors (a repertory company).
It seems that the conventional format of the theatrical play gives the undemonstrative British people a safe opportunity to look behind the mask of accepted social behaviour. The country's most successful and respected playwrights are usually those who explore the darker side of the personality and of personal relationships (albeit often through comedy).
British theatre has such a fine acting tradition that Hollywood is forever raiding its talent for people to star in films. British television does the same thing. Moreover, Broadway, when looking for its next blockbuster musical, pays close attention to London productions. In short, British theatre is much admired. As a consequence, it is something that British actors are proud of. Many of the most well-known television actors, though they might make most of their money in this latter medium, continue to see themselves as first and foremost theatre actors.
> Annual arts festivals
There are many festivals throughout
Britain during the year, but these are perhaps the most well-known.
Aldeburgh
June. East Anglia. Classical music. Relatively informal atmosphere.
Edinburgh International Festival
August. All the performing arts, including avant-garde. More than ten different performances every day around the city. World famous.
The Proms
July-September. London. Classical music. 'Proms' is short for 'promenades', so-called because most of the seats are taken out of the Albert Hall, where the concerts take place, and the audience stands or walks around instead.
Glyndebourne
All summer. In the grounds of a large country house in Sussex. Opera.
Royal National Eisteddfod
July. Wales. Music, poetry and dance from many different countries. Mostly in the form of competitions, with special categories for Welsh performing arts.
Glastonbury and Reading
Probably the two most well-established rock music festivals. The Bradford andCambridge festivals emphasize folk music.
> They ran and ran!
In the second half of the twentieth century, the two longest-running theatrical productions have been The Mousetrap (from a novel by Agatha Christie) and the comedy No Sex Please, We're British. Both played continuously for more than fifteen years.
