History of sport

sumo-wrestling competition from the Japanese Heian or Kamakura period

(between 794 and 1333)

The history of sports extends back to the Ancient world in 7000 BCE. The physical activity that developed into sports had early links with

Study of the history of sport can teach lessons about social changes and about the nature of sport itself, as sport seems involved in the development of basic human skills (compare play).^{[citation needed]} As one delves further back in history, dwindling evidence makes theories of the origins and purposes of sport more and more difficult to support.

As far back as the beginnings of sport, it was related to

Sports in pre-history

cave of swimmers

Ancient Sumer

wrestlers in action^[8]

Various representations of wrestlers have been found on stone slabs attributed to the

The Sumerian king Shulgi (c. 21st century BCE) boasts of his prowess in sport in the Self-praise of Shulgi A, B, and C.^[15] Fishing hooks not unlike those made today have been found during excavations at Ur, suggesting some sort of angling activity in Sumer around 2600 BCE.^[16]

Ancient Egyptian

Delphi Museum

Monuments to the Pharaohs found at

Ancient Greece

The

, held in Olympia as early as the 6th century BCE, were the first recorded sporting competition for women.

Ancient sports elsewhere

Sports that are at least two and a half thousand years old include

Middle Ages

For at least 900 years, entire villages had competed with each other in rough, and sometimes violent, ballgames in England (

.

Long summer days provided predictable opportunities for free time, when peasants could engage in athletic activities. Swimming, wrestling, and racing were common among all ages and both genders, while organized ball games of various types can be found in every medieval society and culture.[26] The participation of sports (ball games to be exact) at the time loosened control the ruling class had over the peasants; this is not a rare trend throughout history. By the fourteenth century no fewer than thirty bans have been placed by English kings on ball games such as football, handball, and hurling.^[26]

The Middle Ages were not immediately devoid of sports from the Roman Empire after it collapsed. Gladiatorial bouts and chariot racing continued sporadically and intermittently well into the Middle Ages.^[26] They would eventually fade away and be replaced by local activities. Hawking, however, was the particular reserve of emperors and kings.^[26] This sport would be one of the few sports continued in the Middle Ages; Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor may have played a critical role in its persistence as he was an avid hawker who authored the first comprehensive book on falconry.^[26] Furthermore, kings may have followed the example of falconry as to mimic the status of an emperor.

During the Middle Ages, tournaments were not an uncommon occurrence; after all, war was a constant threat that could occur often. Thus, preparation (for war) is practice, practice is competition, and competition is sport; consequently, (before the establishment of sports history), the medieval hallmarks of upper-class sports (i.e. jousting, mock combat, and blood sports) were generally agreed upon as military training. Modern sports historians, however, debate that such sports were for entertainment purposes; one example considered were tournaments which offered little to prepare one for actual war and would likely have set any forms of real training back. Tournaments in the Middle Ages arose out of local festivals. ^[26] As a result, many tournaments had their own local characteristic but were uniform in habits and customs of the region the tournament was stationed in.

Medieval tournaments presents characteristics of modern sport as those (ex: professional knights) who were most successful and popular, perhaps the only medieval equivalent to today's sports stars, followed the money and fame of the tournament circuit. Those with political backing and social favor were able to accumulate property and goods to ensure a comfortable life after their competitive days were over. The tournament was a market and a social mixer.^[26] These tournaments consequently attracted many people to attend for various purposes such as marriages, and trade of livestock and land or wares provided by merchants and vendors.

Sébastien Nadot writes that sport already existed in the 15th century. He shows that the organization of the chivalry around European contests worked like a system in an elaborate network. He evokes an "chivalrous international", sharing the same codes, especially at tournaments and games. These sporting events went beyond borders and were accompanied by a common cultural base, including courtesy, fair play, honor, and loyalty.^[27] The Middle Ages also revealed the importance of owning a horse; common to the sports and amusements of the ruling class was the horse.^[26] If someone of the ruling class did not own a horse, it would represent that they did not have much wealth and leisure (since they would be unable to participate in certain activities like horse racing).

Renaissance

After the late middle ages, early modern sports became less of a violent or military training activity and more of an activity done for recreational benefit in Europe. During the Renaissance, educators, and medical surgeons promoted playing sports because of their numerous physical and psychological benefits to the human body. During this era, there was also support for moderating sports, as it was viewed as more for leisure than a strict procedure. Open-air sporting events became an attraction for many and people of all different social hierarchies were involved in this new culture. These new radical ideas about sports made their way into books, and films, and eventually became part of the social culture during the Renaissance. As mentioned by Mike Huggins, Gargantua written by François Rabelais was a well-known novel published in 1534 that mentioned sports and games as a unit, like many other renowned works of literature. All different types of sports became a functional unit in many people's routines and it brought refreshment into people's lives. As the popularity and involvement of sports increased, rules began to form and sports became more regulated so they could be fair. Sports clubs and associations which provided a sense of unity also became more common, especially for elite sports such as horse racing, cockfighting, hunting, and tennis during the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries. For example, Charles II formed 20 rules for horse racing in 1665. Sports were a form of entertainment for spectators who did not play themselves. There were stake-money contests and prizes in these sports and racing competitions. These modern advancements and developments made about sporting life in the Renaissance in Europe eventually made their way to Asia, Africa, and Latin America.^[28]

Development of modern sports

W.G. Grace

, 1891

Some historians – most notably Bernard Lewis – claim that team sports as we know them today are primarily an invention of Western culture. British Prime Minister John Major was more explicit in 1995:

We invented the majority of the world's great sports.... 19th century Britain was the cradle of a leisure revolution every bit as significant as the agricultural and industrial revolutions we launched in the century before.^[29]

The traditional team sports are seen as springing primarily from Britain, and subsequently exported across the vast

Regardless of game origins, the

became prevalent in sports, and this furthered sports popularity in general.

With the increasing values placed on those who won also came the increased desire to cheat. Some of the most common ways of cheating today involve the use of performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids. The use of these drugs has always been frowned on but in recent history there have also been agencies set up to monitor professional athletes and ensure fair play in the sport.

England

Writing about cricket in particular, John Leech has explained the role of

have played since 1739.

A number of the

". The industrial revolution also brought with it increasing mobility, and created the opportunity for universities in Britain and elsewhere to compete with one another. This sparked increasing attempts to unify and reconcile various games in England, leading to the establishment of the Football Association in London, the first official governing body in football.

For sports to become professionalized, coaching had to come first. It gradually professionalized in the Victorian Era and the role was well established by 1914. In the First World War, military units sought out the coaches to supervise physical conditioning and develop morale-building teams.[32] Sport became an important part of military life for British servicemen serving around the world.^[33][34][35]

The British Empire and post-colonial sports

The influence of British sports and their codified rules began to spread across the world in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly

European morals and views on empires were embedded in the structure of sports. Ideas of "social discipline" and "loyalty" were key factors in European empire ettiequte, which eventually transferred into sports ettiequte. Also ideas of "patient and methodical training", were enforced to make soldiers stronger, and athletes better. Diffusion helped with the process of connecting these two concepts and has helped shaped the values of sports as we know it today. Sports like baseball, football (soccer), and cricket all came from European influence, and all share the same values based on European empires. [39]

Baseball (closely related to English

, with baseball spreading to the south, and American football spreading to the north after the Civil War. There is documented evidence of baseball in England. An extract from an 18th-century diary containing the oldest known reference to baseball is among the items on display in a new exhibition in London exploring the English origins and cricketing connections of America's national sport.

While baseball was once claimed to have been invented in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, recent findings suggest a sport of the same name may have evolved decades earlier alongside cricket, crossing the Atlantic with English settlers to the American colonies. One notable discovery found in a shed in a village in Surrey, southern England, in 2008 was a handwritten 18th-century diary belonging to a local lawyer, William Bray. "Went to Stoke church this morn.," wrote Bray on Easter Monday in 1755. "After dinner, went to Miss Jeale's to play at base ball with her the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford and H. Parsons. Drank tea and stayed til 8." In the 1870s the game split between the professionals and amateurs; the professional game rapidly gained dominance, and marked a shift in the focus from the player to the club. The rise of baseball also helped squeeze out other sports such as cricket, which had been popular in Philadelphia prior to the rise of baseball.

American football (and gridiron football more generally) also has its origins in the English variants of the game, with the first set of intercollegiate football rules based directly on the rules of the Football Association in London. However, Harvard chose to play a game based on the rules of Rugby football. Walter Camp would then heavily modify this variant in the 1880s, with the modifications also heavily influencing the rules of Canadian football.

Worldwide, the British influence includes many different football codes, lawn bowls, lawn tennis and other sports. The major impetus for this was the patenting of the world's first lawn mower in 1830. This allowed for the preparation of modern ovals, playing fields, pitches, grass courts, etc.^[40]

United States

Most sports in the United States evolved out of European practices. However, basketball,volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are North American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries. However, Lacrosse and surfing in particular arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact.^[41][42]

Around the world

The 21st century has seen a move towards adventure sports as a form of individual

.

Women's sport history

Women's competition in sports has been frowned upon by many societies in the past. The English public-school background of organized sport in the 19th and early 20th century led to a paternalism that tended to discourage women's involvement in sports, with, for example, no women officially competing in the 1896 Olympic Games. The 20th century saw major advances in the participation of women in sports due to a growing women's sports movement in Europe and North America. This led to the initiation of the Women's Olympiad (held three times 1921, 1922 and 1923) and the Women's World Games (held four times (1922, 1926, 1930 and 1934. In 1924 the 1924 Women's Olympiad was held in London. The increase in girls' and women's participation in sport has been partly influenced by the women's rights and feminist movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, respectively. In the United States, female student participation in sports was significantly boosted by the Title IX Act in 1972, which forbade gender discrimination in all aspects of any educational environment that uses federal financial aid,^[43] leading to increased funding^[44] and support to develop female athletes.

Pressure from sports funding bodies has also improved gender equality in sports. For example, the

Sports Fund.

The 21st century has seen women's participation in sport at its all-time highest. At the

continue to grow.

Stadia through the ages

• 
  Phoenician Stadium north of Amrit, Syria
• 
  The Olympia stadium
• 
  Stadium at the sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi, Greece
• 
  The Colosseum in Rome, Italy
• 
  Reconstructed Roman amphitheatre in Xanten, Germany
• 
  Okinawa

  , Japan
• 
  The Huntington Avenue Grounds during the 1903 World Series, United States
• 
  Rogers Centre, the first functional retractable-roof stadium, Canada
• 
  London Olympic Stadium

  , United Kingdom
• 
  The Grand Ballcourt of Chichen Itza

See also

• Sport in the United Kingdom § History
• Sport in England
• History of physical training and fitness
• History of sport in Australia
• History of sports in Canada
• History of sport in the United States
• Nationalism and sport
• Sociology of sport

References

Further reading

• Crawford Scott, A. G. M. Serious Aport: J. A. Mangan's Contribution to the History of Sport, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass (2004)
• Guttmann, Allen [de; fr]. Women's Sports: A History, Columbia University Press (1992)
• Guttmann, Allen. Games and Empires: Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism, Columbia University Press, 1996
• Guttmann, Allen. The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games (2002)
• Holt, Richard. Sport and Society in Modern France (1981).
• Holt, Richard. Sport and the British: A Modern History (1990) excerpt
• Howell, Colin. Blood, Sweat, and Cheers: Sport and the Making of Modern Canada (2001)
• Mangan, J. A. (1996). Militarism, Sport, Europe: War Without Weapons. Routledge.
• Maurer, Michael. "Vom Mutterland des Sports zum Kontinent: Der Transfer des englischen Sports im 19. Jahrhundert", Mainz: European History Online (2011), retrieved: 25 February 2012.
• Morrow, Don; Wamsley, Kevin B. Sport in Canada: A History (2009)
• Murray, Bill. The World's Game: A History of Soccer (1998)
• Polley, Martin. Sports History: A Practical Guide, Palgrave, 2007.

Journals

• online article from The Sports Historian 1993-2001
• European Studies in Sport History [1]
• The International Journal of the History of Sport
• Journal of Sport History
• Sport History Journal
• Sport in History
• Stadion: International Journal of Sport History
• Sport History Review

External links

• European Committee for Sports History (
  CESH
  )