The importance of sport

By the end of the nineteenth century, two sports, cricket and football, had become of great interest to the British public. Cricket, which had started as a "gentleman's" sport, had become an extremely popular village game. Although it had first developed in the eighteenth century, it was not until a century later that its rules were organised. From 1873 a county championship took place each year. Cricket was a game which encouraged both individual and team excellence and taught respect for fair play. As one Englishman said at the time, "We have a much greater love of cricket than of politics." Cricket was successfully exported to the empire: to the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Australia and New Zealand. But while it was popular in Wales, it never had the same popularity in Scotland.

Britain's other main game, football, was also organised with proper rules in the nineteenth century. As an organised game it was at first a middle-class or gentleman's sport, but it quickly became popular among all classes. Football soon drew huge crowds who came to watch the full-time professional footballers play the game. By the end of the nineteenth century almost every town between Portsmouth on the south coast of England and Aberdeen in northeast Scotland had its own football, or "soccer" team. These often encouraged local loyalties. Sometimes they symbolised something more. In Glasgow Celtic was supported by the thousands of Irish immigrants and other Catholics, while Rangers was supported by Protestants. But at this time there was no violence. Crowds were well behaved. Britain also exported football abroad, as young commercial travellers took the game with them, particularly to Europe and to South America.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1320