This episode Geoff is joined by the co-editors of a special isssue of the BSSH’s journal Sport in History on women’s sport. Fiona and Carol talk about the state of research into women’s sport now, and how it has developed since their previous special issue on the subject in 2010. They also give us a sneak preview of some of the articles that they have gathered together, including a ground-breaking collaboration between previous podcast guests Prof Matt Taylor and Dr Raf Nicholson on women’s sport and leisure during World War 2. It’s a feisty discussion with a lot of passion for the subject sho ..read more

This episode Conor Heffernan talks to Conor Murray about sport in Ireland in the twentieth century and the way in which the histories of soccer and rugby are entwined with political developments on the island of Ireland. How and why did soccer and rugby develop in such contrasting ways? And what effect did the troubled relationship between Britain and Ireland have on crowd behaviour north and south of the border? Conor Murray is an Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholar at the School of History and Geography at DCU. Conor is currently working on an all-island study of Irish football ..read more

And we’re back! After a break following the British Society of Sports History’s virtual Conference the Sport in History podcast returns with an interview with Professor Dilwyn Porter of De Montfort University, who talks about his latest book, English Gentlemen and World Soccer: Corinthians, Amateurism and the Global Game which he has co-authored with Dr Chris Bolsmann. He talks about the Corinthians, an amateur club whose reputation has been inflated over the years to epitomise the spirit of amateurism that informed the thinking of the English middle class sporting élite in the late ninete ..read more

The final podcast from the BSSH 2020 Conference with a round table discussion on the future of Sports History. On the panel are Dr Christienna Fryar of Goldsmiths, University of London, Dr Geoff Levett, editor of the Sport in History podcast, Dr Carol Osborne of Sporting Heritage and Prof Kay Schiller, the Editor-in-Chief of the BSSH’s journal Sport in History. The four panellists give brief opening remarks on future directions for research areas in British sports history, as well as thinking through how historians of sport can use new methodologies, and develop partnerships to increase their ..read more

Sporting Inequalities is the subject of the fifth instalment from the BSSH 2020 Conference with a panel chaired by Dr Lisa Taylor which features three young researchers looking into women’s sport, representations of women in manga, and disability sport. In Women’s Rugby: the relationship between women’s sport and the Women’s Liberation Movement in Britain Lydia Furse of De Montfort University provokes a debate about the nature of feminism and the complex interaction between researcher and subject when using oral history. Tom Weir, also of De Montfort University, in Disability Sport, opens with ..read more

It’s the keynote in the fourth instalment from the BSSH 2020 Conference as we hear previous podcast guest Dr Prashant Kidambi deliver a wide-ranging Sir Derek Birley Memorial lecture on the writing of sports history. Informed by CLR James’s classic text Beyond the Boundary Prashant discusses the boundary in sports history – both as a literal dividing line and as a metaphor for ways of thinking about sport’s relationship to wider events. He questions how the history of sport is premised on looking beyond the boundary to the world outside, which he argues leads practitioners into a neglect – wil ..read more

The Writing of HIstory is the subject of the third panel from the BSSH’s 2020 Conference, chaired by Dr Nick Piercey, with a wide ranging discussion between scholars researching in a variety of fields. In A ‘better attendance than usual’: Deconstructing the History of Sport and Recreation at Port Sunlight Samuel Clevenger of Towson University questions the benevolence of model communities and whether workers engaged in organised recreation as much as is assumed by conventional narratives. Dr Alex Jackson, in The uses of nostalgia and reminiscence in English football writing during WW1, interro ..read more

Boxing history in the second in a series of podcasts brought to you from the BSSH’s 2020 Conference, which was held online in the last week of August. The session is introduced by Matt McDowell of the University of Edinburgh and features Ben Duncan-Jones (De Montfort University) with a paper titled, ‘[T]he advantage of science, and of the affinity which exists between the natural and the artificial weapon.’ Digital methods and nineteenth century boxing. Ben has used quantitative digital techniques to do a comprehensive analysis of boxing journalism in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Journal ..read more

This is the first in a series of podcasts brought to you from the BSSH’s 2020 Conference, which was held online in the last week of August. The first panel is introduced by BSSH Chair Dr Raf Nicholson and chaired by Dr Conor Heffernan and features two papers by leading British sports historians, Professor Martin Polley of De Montfort University and Dr Luke Harris of the University of Birmingham talking about sport in Edwardian England. Martin talks about C.R. Ashbee, the Arts & Crafts Movement, and Sport in the Cotswolds, 1902-1908. He highlights the way in which sport and recreation were ..read more

Cricket this week with Nigel Hancock, who is the Chair of the Cricket Society. Nigel is the Chair of the Cricket Society, a well-regarded member organisation that exists to promote cricket in all its spheres – that is listening, reading, watching and playing. In particular, it has a regularly published Journal and bulletin; puts on live meetings with cricketers and the people who write about them; makes awards; runs Lunches and other events; and has its own cricket team. Nigel talked to me about an exciting new initiative which will bring together the BSSH and the Cricket Society, as well as m ..read more