(Bairner) Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization
(Bairner) Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization
(Bairner) Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization
and Globalization
SUNY N ATIONAL I DENTITIES
SERIES IN
Thomas M. Wilson, editor
Alan Bairner
Sport, Nationalism,
and Globalization
EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES
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In memory of my parents
Introduction xi
vii
viii CONTENTS
Bibliography 179
Index 193
introduction
xi
xii INTRODUCTION
their places of ethnic origin, particularly India, Pakistan, and the West
Indies? The implication of Tebbit’s claim was obvious. One way of
becoming a true citizen of the nation would be to support the national
sports teams. This presupposes, of course, that the identity and territorial
integrity of the nation are uncontested. However, relations between sport
and national identity, as this book reveals, vary markedly according to
the status of particular nations.
Tebbit and Major are by no means the only modern politicians to have
seen a link between sport and national identity. Similar issues arose con-
cerning the soccer team selected by France to compete on home soil in the
World Cup Finals of 1998. Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National
Front, had complained that it was artificial to choose players from abroad
and seek to present them as making up an authentically French team
(Economist, 18 July 1998). The reference was to players such as Zinedine
Zidane (born in Marseilles of Algerian parentage), Lilian Thuram (from
Guadeloupe), Christian Karembeu (a Kanak from New Caledonia), Mar-
cel Desailly (born in Ghana), and so on. Ironically two of these players,
Zidane and Desailly, were the star performers in the final against Brazil,
which resulted in France’s first-ever World Cup triumph. Although this
was never likely to eradicate racism overnight, or weaken Le Pen’s elec-
toral support base, it did raise questions about what it means to be
French—questions that might be answered eventually in such a way as to
raise the status of ethnic minority groups within France. Conversely, the
performance of a player such as Zidane was clearly a source of pride for
young North Africans who used the World Cup Finals to promote their
own separate identity. As a result, cultural diversity rather than assimila-
tion is likely to be the long-term achievement of the multiracial harmony
demonstrated by the French team. Few commentators pointed out that
ethnic diversity in the French national team is nothing new. As Marks
(1999) observes, “The main difference is that this diversity of origin is
now embraced in the positive light of multicultural integration” (55).
Also in the summer of 1998, the British press made much of the fact
that Muttiah Muralitharan, the spin bowler who effectively won the test
match for Sri Lanka against England, is a Tamil (Guardian, 1 September
1998). But what point was being made? Was he a Tamil who had deserted
his people to play for the enemy? Was he seeking to use his undoubted
cricketing prowess to promote Tamil political demands? Does he think of
himself as Sri Lankan first and Tamil second? Or maybe he simply wants
to ply his trade at the highest possible level, which in this instance means
playing test match cricket for Sri Lanka irrespective either of his identity
or his political beliefs. If one could ask Murali about these things no
doubt the truth might even unfold to reveal a complex amalgam of all of
these feelings. The point is that we must always delve deeper if we are to
Introduction xiii
A Boy’s Story
Having grown up in central Scotland in the 1950s, some of my most vivid
memories revolve around two of the world’s most popular sports, soccer
and golf. In regard to the former, two fixtures were of particular signifi-
cance. The first was the twice yearly meeting of Glasgow’s great rivals—
Celtic and Rangers, the so-called Old Firm—and the second was the
annual match between the national sides of Scotland and England. My
own hometown soccer team was Dunfermline Athletic and, in a sense,
the Old Firm rivalry need not have concerned me at all. Yet I was con-
scious from an early age that this was about more than soccer. The games
played between these two clubs were bound up with questions of iden-
tity, and it seemed as if everyone in Scotland had to take a side even if
they usually supported another, smaller club. In this regard, I chose, not
for the last time in my life it has to be said, to be perverse.
Although I was being brought up as a Protestant and Rangers were
the “Protestant” team, I always found myself siding with their tradi-
tional rivals. Celtic was the team that carried with them the hopes of
Scotland’s Catholic underdogs, most of whom traced their ancestry back
to Irish immigrants. Naturally, I was not fully aware of this political
dimension at the time. Almost certainly, the Celtic colors and the green
and white hoops of their shirts had simply caught the eye of a young boy.
But gradually I became aware that other members of my family disliked
Rangers too and, in particular, the type of Protestantism that so many of
the club’s fans appeared to represent. As a result, I was introduced as a
child to the complexities of the relationship between sport and identity.
The rivalry between Scotland and England, on the other hand, created no
such difficulties.
Each year, the soccer season reached its climax when the two oldest
rivals in the international game met at either Hampden Park in Glasgow
or London’s Wembley Stadium. Seldom did any of my young friends or
I attend these matches but, from an early age, we were acutely aware of
their significance. Special editions of the Saturday sports newspapers,
which normally did not appear until the early evening, were available on
the morning of the big match between Scotland and the “Auld Enemy.” I
can still see the pink or green pages on which appeared photographs of
the players who would represent their respective countries later that day.
I had seen some of them in the flesh playing for Celtic or Rangers or even
some of Scotland’s less internationally renowned clubs. Others, of course,
including nearly all of the English team, were unfamiliar faces who con-
xiv INTRODUCTION
sequently looked different from our players. In this way the idea of dif-
ference became entangled with feelings of animosity and conflict. In
addition, the match itself became interwoven in the popular imagination
with stories, both real and invented, about the historical relationship
between the two competing nations.
We were the underdogs, the plucky fighters, one of whose national
heroes, Robert Bruce, had derived inspiration from a spider and had
taught us all that we should try, try, and try again. The English, on the
other hand, were arrogant. Their country was larger and more powerful
than ours and they deserved to be taken down a peg or two. We also
knew that the Wembley game was particularly important. Thousands of
Scots made the biennial pilgrimage to the British (but not in this case the
nation’s) capital to see their sporting representatives take on the mighty
English in their own lair and seek revenge for English military incursions
north of the border in years gone by. Scottish fans had traditionally saved
money so that they could attend this fixture, even at a time when it was
still relatively unusual to go to away games. Victory allowed Scots to feel
good about themselves. Defeat meant a period of introspection and low
self-esteem as the nation wallowed in collective despair.
It was only when I went to live in England many years later that I
came to realize that the English did not see the rivalry in anything like the
same light that the Scots did. I had to listen to English friends tell me that
in their national team’s absence from World Cup Finals, they would be
supporting Scotland. It was unthinkable that Scots would behave as char-
itably if the roles were reversed. On one occasion, when England won the
Wembley game by five goals to one, I was almost afraid to go out for fear
of the ritual humiliation that lay ahead of me. When I finally did summon
the courage to go into a local bar, the game was not mentioned and I
gradually realized that hardly any of my fellow drinkers had even
watched the live television coverage. Of course, had England been play-
ing Germany, Brazil, or Italy, they would have watched. But Scotland was
a different proposition. This was a game they expected to win and upon
the final result of which, in any case, very little depended. In this way, I
came to realize something else about sporting nationalism, above all the
extent to which it is inextricably linked to broader political and cultural
power relations. As junior partners in the United Kingdom, Scots needed
the sporting contest with England as an element in a constant struggle to
maintain a separate identity. The English, on the other hand, as the main
exponents of Britishness, were more interested in contests with the out-
side world as opposed to those within the boundaries of the United
Kingdom.
When the summer came, of course, soccer was set to one side. For
most Scots, this presented problems as, unlike the English, we did not
Introduction xv
have a strong cricketing tradition to fall back on. Golf, however, has
always had a special place in the affections of Scottish sports lovers not
least because of the, admittedly unauthenticated, claim that the game was
first played in Scotland. In my own family, interest in golf was consider-
able. My father had grown up in St. Andrews and had played the game
to a high level from an early age. Uncles and aunts were also golfers.
Furthermore, as my grandparents still lived in the traditional home of
golf, I often spent summer holidays close to the famous Old Course and
the Royal and Ancient clubhouse.
Looking back on these years, I now realize that I was being exposed
to very different ideas about the links between sport and identity than
those sustained by soccer. The big annual occasion was the Open Cham-
pionship. We would never have called it the British Open for the simple
reason that it was the true Open. It was played on a Scottish links course
more regularly than on English soil, and this we regarded as natural since
we had invented the game and continued to regard it as belonging to all
Scots and not merely to the privileged few. Yet this was the extent of the
sporting nationalism that surrounded the Open. I do not recall being con-
cerned by the fact that Scots did not do particularly well in the competi-
tion. In this instance, our self-esteem was adequately fuelled by the sight
of the world’s greatest golfers coming to our country. At some stage dur-
ing the 1950s, I met the Open champion, A. D. (Bobby) Locke, perhaps the
best putter to have played the game, at the home of my aunt and uncle.
At the time, I was unaware of the significance of this event and more or
less took it for granted that such things happen in life. Now I recognize
that I had been given an insight into the globalization of sport and its
implications. Not only was Locke sitting in a small apartment on the east
coast of Scotland rather that at home in South Africa, he was also a hero
figure. Meeting one of Scotland’s leading golfers would not have meant
as much to my family as none of them had acquired a status comparable
with Locke’s. We were learning something about sport’s place in the
global village and also about the fact that our sporting heroes need not
always be from our own nation. When winter returned, of course, the old
identities reasserted themselves, which, in my case at least, meant being
contrary on the question of the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers and
unashamedly and unquestionably Scottish with regard to the ongoing
struggle against the Auld Enemy.
Naturally, as I was growing up I did not interpret any of these sport-
ing experiences in terms of globalization or the construction and repro-
duction of national identities. Sport in those days was all about having
fun and it was only much later that I began to realize the importance of
understanding its social, cultural, and political implications. The main
catalyst for this growing awareness of sport’s wider significance was
xvi INTRODUCTION
Kevin Young. John Hoberman, Bill Morgan and Don Sabo, among others,
have influenced my thinking about sport in the United States. Jan
Lindroth has been my main mentor in terms of Swedish sport, and
evenings spent discussing sport and life with him and his wife, Karin, in
their Stockholm apartment have been a consistent source of happy and
instructive memories. From fans of AIK I have acquired very different
perspectives on sport in Sweden. Closer to home, Pete Shirlow has given
me great encouragement together with new academic insights while John
Sugden has continued to share ideas with me about sport and much else
besides. Grant Jarvie and Graham Walker first gave me an opportunity to
write about Scottish sport and have subsequently helped me to further
develop my ideas. I have also been given useful advice at different times
by Lincoln Allison, Paul Darby, Eric Dunning, John Horne, Alan Tomlin-
son, and Jennifer Hargreaves. At the University of Ulster, many of my
closest colleagues, both in the Faculty of Humanities and in the School of
Leisure and Tourism, have at different times influenced my thinking
about sport. We have not always agreed but I trust that they have found
the exchanges as helpful and stimulating as I have. I should also acknow-
ledge the insights provided by my students over many years as well as
by the many sports players and fans whom I count among my friends.
For financial support, I owe a debt of gratitude to the British Academy
for funding two research visits to Sweden and to the Research Committee
of the Faculty of Humanities in the University of Ulster for consistently
supporting my work over a number of years.
With particular reference to this project, I wish to thank Tom Wilson
both for suggesting that this study might be an appropriate addition to
the State University of New York Press’s National Identities series and
also for his subsequent advice which was invaluable. My gratitude is also
owed to Zina Lawrence and Nancy Ellegate at SUNY Press for their
encouragement and forbearance during this project’s long gestation
period, to Kristin Milavec for her guidance at the production stage and to
Alan V. Hewat for his copyediting skills.
Finally, I must acknowledge the influence of my parents, to whose
memory this book is dedicated. My father instilled in me from an early
age a love of sport that has remained a constant part of my life. He him-
self played a number of sports to a relatively high standard. Unable to
emulate his achievements, I have joined the ranks of those who talk about
sport and hopefully thereby have carried on a family tradition, albeit by
a different route. Although my words may contribute to sexist stereotyp-
ing, I would have to say that my mother’s role was largely to tolerate and
at times to acquiesce in my enthusiasm for sport. To that extent, and
because of her love of reading, she would have been pleased to see the
publication of this work. That its central subject matter is sport would
xviii INTRODUCTION
probably not have surprised her although she might have thought to her-
self that it is surely about time that I grew up.
Content
The book begins with a discussion of national identity. There is also some
exploration of the concept of globalization since it has been regarded by
some as posing a threat to the nation and to nationalism. There follows a
discussion of these ideas as they relate specifically to the academic study
of sport. Subsequent chapters consist of a range of case studies of specific
nations and/or nationalities. Given the restricted number of examples
that are discussed in the book, it is impossible to do full justice to the
range of experiences that are linked to the relationship between sport and
national identity. Instead, these chapters should be read as a collection of
essays, each of which highlights particular facets of the relationship as it
manifests itself in a specific nationality and thereby seeks to shed light on
the relationship more generally.
One national identity that is not the subject of a case study here
although it is intimately bound up with sport and is clearly relevant to
the book’s major concerns is that of the English. However, the modern
sporting revolution that began in England provides a large part of the
context in which the sporting nationalisms that form the main subject
matter of this book can best be understood. In particular, the analysis of
the relationship between sport and the construction of Ulster unionist
identities is dependent on an understanding of the emergence of a British
(or English) sporting culture (Hargreaves 1986; Holt 1989; Mason 1988).
In addition, each of the other sporting nationalities that are discussed are
formed, to varying degrees, in response to or as a consequence of foun-
dations laid in England.
The chapters conform to a uniform pattern inasmuch as each attempts
to explain the precise relationship between sport and a particular
national identity. Some consideration is also given in all the chapters to
the question of whether or not globalization has had any measurable
impact on that relationship. The research approach is eclectic. It makes
use of direct observation, participant observation, and historical study in
much the same way as has been advocated by figurational sociologists
(Dunning 1999). Some of the case studies are more historically based than
others. Some rely more heavily than others on firsthand experience espe-
cially where secondary literature is relatively sparse. Regardless of the
approach, however, two concerns always take center stage. First, there is
the role sport has played in the construction and reproduction of the rel-
evant national identity. Attention is paid to the ways in which the search
for a sporting nationalism either succeeds in disguising fundamental
Introduction xix
National Identity,
Globalization, and Sport
1
2 NATIONAL IDENTITY, GLOBALIZATION , AND SPORT
thus the pop music accented with reggae and Latino rhythms in the
Los Angeles barrio, Big Macs served with French wine in Paris or made
with Bulgarian beef in eastern Europe, Mickey speaking French at
Euro Disney. (Independent, 29 August 1998)
But, according to Barber, “in the end, MTV and McDonald’s are US cul-
tural icons, seemingly innocent Trojan-American horses nosing their way
into other nations’ cultures.” The result is “a global consumer society
composed not of tribesmen—too commercially challenged to shop; nor of
citizens—too civically engaged—but of consumers.”
Now, of course, it is undeniable that American commodities have an
international appeal. Despite long-term protectionist habits, however, the
Americans have also been increasingly exposed to the habits and cultural
preferences of other countries. Indeed, given the domestic history of the
United States, it would be difficult to argue that the Big Mac is more dis-
tinctively American than pizza, chow mein, fajitas, or kebabs. One recog-
nizes also that the cross-fertilization of musical styles is an increasingly
international phenomenon and that, while fashion has become more and
more global, there is no indication that this has involved only the adop-
tion of an American dress sense in the rest of the world. Westernization
as opposed to Americanization might seem a more appropriate descrip-
tion of what has been taking place but even this would be to overlook the
influence of non-Western societies on social and cultural developments in
the United States itself as well as in other Western countries.
According to Robertson (1995), therefore, “There is no good reason,
other than recently established convention in some quarters, to define
globalization largely in terms of homogenization” (34). He suggests that
“it makes no sense to define the global as if the global excludes the local”
(34). Indeed, for Robertson (1995), “The debate about global homoge-
nization versus heterogenization should be transcended” (27). As a con-
sequence, there can emerge a more subtle analysis of what is often so
loosely described as the globalization process. For Robertson (1995), “It is
not a question of either homogenization or heterogenization, but rather of
the ways in which both of these two tendencies have become features of
life across much of the late twentieth-century world” (27). Thus, a more
sophisticated approach now tends to dominate the debate. There remains
some uncertainty, however, concerning the extent to which globalization
is ultimately a homogenizing project.
Appadurai (1990) argues that “the globalization of culture is not the
same as its homogenization, but globalization involves the use of a vari-
ety of instruments of homogenization” (307). As a result, he suggests that
“the central feature of global culture today is the politics of the mutual
effort of sameness and difference to cannibalize one another and thus to
proclaim their successful hijacking of the twin Enlightenment ideas of the
National Identity, Globalization, and Sport 11
Sporting nationalism
According to Hoberman (1993), “Sportive nationalism is not a single
generic phenomenon; on the contrary, it is a complicated sociopolitical
18 NATIONAL IDENTITY, GLOBALIZATION , AND SPORT
tion may still vary from one sport to another and the sport (or sports) that
attracts most widespread attention will commonly be linked to the idea of
a national sport. One criterion of a national sport might be that the sport
in question was actually invented in a particular nation. It may have
remained exclusive to its place of origin although it is more likely that it is
played in other countries but retains its cultural link to the parent nation.
However, a national sport may also be one with which a particular nation
and its people identify strongly even though it is played in many other
parts of the world, including countries that have been seen as enemies and
may still be conceived of in this way. The sport may also be regarded as
national inasmuch as the people of a particular nation have influenced its
development in a certain fashion or play in a unique way. The question of
what constitutes a national sport will be addressed in the chapters that fol-
low. But this is only a part of the overall objective of this study.
Ultimately, the book explores two related themes—the extent to
which sport has been implicated in the development of particular
national identities and the ways in which sporting nationalisms have
responded to the forces of globalization. The nations or nationalities that
have been chosen for examination were not selected on any scientific
basis but largely because of their own intrinsic interest together with the
author’s knowledge of them. That said, they do offer a range of different
nationalist experiences out of which, it is hoped, some valuable theoreti-
cal conclusions can be drawn. Despite their differences, however, all of
the nationalisms that are examined in the book are located in Western
societies either in Europe or North America. It is there that the modern
idea of nationalism first emerged. In addition, given the supposed rela-
tionship between material progress and globalization, it is in these devel-
oped societies of the West that one might expect to see the clearest evi-
dence of cultural convergence. As a result, they are good places in which
to conduct a study not only of links beween sport and national identity
but also the impact of global change.
Some of the discussion that follows deals with the idea of official
nationalism. More often, however, what is revealed is the degree to which
below the superficial veneer, in most social formations the relationship
between sport and nationality remains contested terrain. In some cases,
this refers to the existence of more than one national identity within the
same nation-state. Or it could be a matter of a specific national identity
being shared between two different political entities. Then again, it may
simply mean that there are divisions concerning how the nation is under-
stood and presented—in this particular instance, by way of sport. For
many people, none of this really matters. They remain oblivious to the
excitement of sport or disinterested in the idea of the nation or, in more
20 NATIONAL IDENTITY, GLOBALIZATION , AND SPORT
extreme cases, equally hostile to sport and nationhood. But for at least as
large a group, in every corner of the world, both sport and nationality
matter as, indeed, does the relationship between the two. It is the precise
nature of that relationship that forms the main subject matter of this
study.
chapter two
British Nationalism
or Ulster Nationalism?
SPORT AND THE PROTESTANTS OF NORTHERN IRELAND
21
22 BRITISH NATIONALISM OR ULSTER NATIONALISM ?
demia are, for the most part, similar to those that have been responsible
for the traditional lack of serious analysis of sport in numerous other
social formations. The tendency to either ignore totally the place of sport
in the development of modern society or at the very least to seriously
underestimate its importance resulted, as Allison (1986) suggests, from
two competing and equally erroneous assumptions, namely, “that sport
was both ‘above’ and ‘below’ the political dimensions of social life” (5).
According to the first misconception—that sport is “above” politics—the
world of sport is presented as an autonomous realm that is capable of
transcending social and political divisions; as for the notion that sport is
“below” politics, the misconception lies in the belief that sport is a trivial
element of human society and, thus, unworthy of serious academic atten-
tion. Fortunately for students of sport, both of these erroneous views
have been successfully challenged in recent years. In divided societies
such as Northern Ireland, however, obstacles are still in place. Since the
benign view of sport suggests that it can play a transcendent role, it is
almost regarded as bad form to address the divisive potentialities of
sport. This is particularly true in Northern Ireland where the sporting cul-
ture is so strong and those who speak on behalf of sport in general or
even individual sports are regarded as pillars of society. By pointing out
sport’s darker side, one is not necessarily questioning the integrity of
those people who are most involved in promoting sport. Yet that is often
how such critical analysis is regarded. As this chapter (and chapter 4)
reveal, sport does offer a window through which to look at the conflict in
Northern Ireland and, as one looks, one sees plenty of evidence of the
political significance of many elements of the Northern Irish sporting cul-
ture. The role of sport in the construction and reproduction of national
identity is but one such example.
The partition of Ireland, which created a newly independent Irish Free
State and left six counties, thereafter known as Northern Ireland, within
the United Kingdom, has remained a bone of contention for Irish nation-
alists and republicans. For Ulster unionists, on the other hand, the con-
tinued union of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland represents the
only way in which their British identity can be secured. The clash
between these two mutually exclusive ambitions lies at the heart of what
have become euphemistically known as the Northern Irish “troubles.”
Naturally neither community is monolithic, and there remains room for
political debate. Before examining the relationship between sport and the
protestants of Northern Ireland, therefore, it is worth spending a little
time discussing the ideology of Ulster unionism, particularly as it relates
to matters of national identity.
Sports and the Protestants of Northern Ireland 23
Ulster Unionism
Coulter (1994) rightly argues that there has been a general failure to
understand the diversity of Ulster unionism.
The preoccupation with the radical periphery of unionist politics—
coupled as it is with the unreasonable assumption that the intemperate
voices raised therein may be taken as representative of the unionist com-
munity as a whole—has inevitably ensured that many existing interpre-
tations have failed to acknowledge or accommodate the sheer diversity
of unionist sentiment and experience. (2)
varying hues who are themselves important political actors. The nation, as
we have seen, is still regarded as the main basis for political organization
in the world. Thus, the question—What is the nationality of Ulster union-
ists?—is a reasonable one. But, it is one that has been largely ignored by
the more serious analysts of unionist political culture.
In an influential article, Todd (1987) identifies two traditions in union-
ist political culture. On one hand, there is Ulster loyalism, which is defined
by a primary, imagined community of Northern Irish Protestants and a
secondary, conditional loyalty to the British state. According to Todd
(1987), “The ideological structure of Ulster loyalism is such that loyalists
see dominance as the only means of preserving their identity” (10). Thus,
they define themselves in opposition to the Other—Irish Catholicism. In
this instance, “religious affiliation is established as the primary demarca-
tor of the ‘collective other’” (Bairner and Shirlow 1998, 167). On the other
hand, there is an Ulster British ideology, which is defined by a primary
loyalty to the imagined community of Greater Britain and a secondary,
regional patriotism for Northern Ireland. The “collective other,” in this
example, is “the ‘Menace’ which can come from a range of social groups
or agencies but which is particularly constructed in terms of the
Republican-Nationalist communities of Ireland” (Bairner and Shirlow
1998, 167). According to Todd (1987), “Ulster British ideology . . . is not a
closed ideological system” (21). But one is entitled to assume that it is at
least closed to certain representations of Irishness. However, what Todd
fails to assess in sufficient detail are the national identities, if any, that may
be involved in these ideological positions. What is Britishness? How do
unionists specifically relate to Irish national identity?
There is also no discussion in Todd’s analysis of the curious weaken-
ing of British nationalist identity, particularly since the end of World War
II, in the other component parts of the United Kingdom. The Orange
Order (1998) makes reference to the “massive Orange population” in
Scotland. But as regards national identity, most modern Scots describe
themselves as Scottish first and British only second if at all. So to what
extent is it possible for Ulster unionists, Orangemen included, to define
themselves as both British and Irish? Todd (1987) refers to membership of
British institutions, civil as well as political, as an important element in the
construction of Ulster British ideology and, as an example, she cites trade
unions. What she fails to mention is that most trade unions that operate
within the six counties of Northern Ireland are affiliated to the Irish
Congress of Trade Unions and therefore contribute to a cross-border and
potentially Irish national civil society while simultaneously maintaining a
British connection. Todd (1987) notes that, even among the Ulster British,
let alone the Ulster loyalists, “there is no understanding of the value of
preserving the Irish language and little interest in historical traditions or
Sports and the Protestants of Northern Ireland 25
Gaelic games” (19). But as we shall see, members of this Ulster British tra-
dition represent Ireland in sports such as rugby union, field hockey, and
cricket, which suggests that at some level of their consciousness at least
there is an awareness of an Irish as opposed to a British or narrowly Ulster
identity. The Ulster British, according to Todd (1987), “may move from a
primary imagined community of Greater Britain to placing as much
importance on an Irish imagined community as on a British imagined
community—from Ulster British to British Irish” (22). Arguably, however,
many members of this community, as sporting examples reveal, may
always have possessed a multiplicity of national identities with political
expediency and everyday pragmatism obliging them from time to time to
highlight one of these at the expense of the other. Certainly, as Ruane and
Todd (1996) argue, “A British identity is usually seen as an addition to
rather than a replacement of more specific Northern Irish, Ulster or Irish
Protestant identities” (59). This point should be kept in mind when the
construction of Ulster unionist identity through sport is under discussion.
Despite its origins in the English public (private) schools, soccer rap-
idly became the favorite sport of industrial working-class men through-
out Britain. Significantly, one area in which the people’s game quickly
established secure roots was the west of Scotland. Many of the Protes-
tants who lived in the northeast corner of Ireland and were to constitute
the bulk of the unionist population in the years ahead had strong ances-
tral links with Scotland. Furthermore, the cities of Glasgow and Belfast
had close economic ties. Thus, it was no coincidence that interest in soc-
cer quickly crossed the Irish Sea and established a place in the affections
of the Protestant working class of Belfast and its immediate hinterland.
From Ulster the game spread to other parts of Ireland, reversing the
direction that had taken the British games north from Leinster, the most
anglophile area of what is now the Irish Republic. The subsequent devel-
opment of soccer throughout Ireland in general and in the north in par-
ticular has had major, albeit at times contradictory, effects on the rela-
tionship between sport and national identity. The political implications of
soccer in the Irish Republic and for Irish nationalism in general will be
discussed in due course. This chapter, however, offers a detailed consid-
eration of how the game has impacted upon the thinking of Ulster union-
ists. It is important in this respect to recognize that soccer belongs to a dif-
ferent category of sport than games such as rugby union and cricket.
Protestant majority are, in the first instance, historical. These were the areas
in which industrialization, a major catalyst for the development of soccer
worldwide, was most advanced. In addition, the ties between Protestant
workers and their Scottish counterparts were well developed. It is scarcely
surprising, therefore, that soccer clubs were established in the Protestant
districts of Belfast and in towns with a majority Protestant population such
as Portadown and Ballymena. But this does not tell the whole story.
Given soccer’s almost universal appeal it would have been curious
had it made no impact on an emerging Catholic working class in cities
such as Belfast and Derry and, indeed, with the emergence of Belfast
Celtic and Derry City, nationalists acquired a strong interest in Irish
League football. Yet, these clubs did not survive difficulties linked to
ethno-sectarian conflict. Their departures from the league, which shall be
discussed at greater length in chapter 4, reduced considerably the level of
involvement by nationalists, at least as fans, and this has never been
recaptured. Moreover, in towns such as Lurgan, with a significant nation-
alist population, the character of support for the local team, Glenavon,
has been so symbolically Protestant and loyalist as to dissuade all but the
most thick-skinned nationalist to follow his or her local club. Attempts
have been made in the 1990s to rekindle Catholic interest in domestic soc-
cer with Omagh Town, located in a predominantly nationalist town,
being admitted to the Irish League, and substantial sums of money being
invested in Newry Town which is situated on the border between
Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and has a potentially large
nationalist following. Cliftonville has provided Belfast nationalists (as
well as a few nationalists from other parts of the six counties) with a team
to support, but there is no senior club in west Belfast, which is home to
the biggest nationalist community in the north of Ireland. Indeed,
attempts by Donegal Celtic to bring senior soccer to the area have been
consistently frustrated by a combination of forces including the IFA, the
RUC, and Sinn Fein. As a consequence of all of this (and it is difficult to
believe that the situation has unfolded accidentally without conscious
sectarian decisions having played their part) senior soccer in Northern
Ireland is symbolically Protestant, unionist, loyalist.
Soccer in Northern Ireland is characterized by the same patterns of
male working-class culture as elsewhere in the United Kingdom—heavy
drinking, sexism, and profanity (Bairner 1997; Bairner 1999). The addi-
tional feature, however, is sectarianism, which afflicts some games in
Britain, specifically in Scotland, but is scarcely a major issue when crowd
trouble in England is being discussed. There are muted warnings both
from the ruling bodies and from club officials about the behavior of cer-
tain fans at Irish League and international matches, but the widespread
34 BRITISH NATIONALISM OR ULSTER NATIONALISM ?
and, as such, more likely to have grown up in areas less affected by polit-
ical violence and the more extreme ideologies that have flourished in
more deprived areas and helped to prolong the conflict. This is not to
suggest that the people involved are apolitical or that they successfully
eschew sectarian attitudes in their entirety. It is arguable, however, that,
in most cases, they are more able than working-class soccer fans to keep
their sporting and political interests separate. The sports they play,
administer, and watch are organized on an all-Ireland basis and
“national” teams represent the whole of Ireland. This explains why
northern unionists finish up representing an entity they would not wish
to see being given constitutional legitimacy. Their background and
upbringing explain why this is not a problem for most of them and also
why their unionism remains unaffected by their sporting allegiance just
as the latter is revealed despite their political views. If the only way to
play international rugby or cricket is to play for an all-Ireland team, then
so be it. But sporting expediency need not be taken as evidence of politi-
cal uncertainty. In any case, as was suggested earlier, there is a kind of
unionism that takes on board the Irishness of Ulster Protestants but
which nevertheless stops short of supporting moves toward the estab-
lishment of a thirty-two-county Irish Republic. This is the unionism of
those who are British in political terms but are willing to admit to an Irish
dimension to their lives. This joint identity is perfectly consistent with
playing rugby for Ireland and defending the union between Great Britain
and Northern Ireland. It is ironic that British sports are part of the process
through which a limited degree of dual identity has been maintained
within the unionist population. One might have expected that this would
be a more appropriate role for universal games, which are played by
members of both major traditions, but this is only partially true.
Sports such as golf and tennis are organized on an all-Ireland basis
and attract participants from both the unionist and nationalist communi-
ties. It would be reasonable to assume that most of those who are
involved in these universal games belong to the middle classes and, thus,
have much in common with the rugby fraternity. In addition, individual
sports tend to be less contentious in terms of identity formation that team
games, particularly those that attract fans as well as players. There is
some anecdotal evidence of sectarian attitudes in golf clubs although less
than that which would indicate gender discrimination. Membership of
such clubs, moreover, will clearly be heavily influenced by their location.
In general, however, these primarily middle-class, individual sports
either fail completely to get involved in the politics of identity or are such
as to encourage unionists to identify with their Irishness, albeit not at the
expense of being British. For example, most Protestant golf enthusiasts
are supportive of most if not all Irish professionals on the European tour
Sports and the Protestants of Northern Ireland 37
logical. Not only was Carruth not from the city of Belfast, he actually
came from a foreign state—and one that, worse still, continued to lay
claim to Northern Irish territory. McCullough’s father put Carruth’s
name at an empty place setting during the celebration meal, which itself
did little to lessen the disquiet felt by some loyalists about his son’s rep-
resentation of Ireland.
Loyalist prisoners in the Maze Prison have frequently expressed the
view to the author that McCullough, a young man when he first repre-
sented Ireland, had been consistently manipulated during this period of
his boxing career. He had mistakenly put sport ahead of political loyalty,
something that he, along with certain unionist rugby players for exam-
ple, has subsequently regretted. The fact of the matter is, however, that
McCullough has progressed to a successful professional boxing career in
which the concept of representing one’s country becomes virtually
meaningless. That said, there are many in Northern Ireland, and one
suspects that a disproportionately large percentage of them are union-
ists, who have continued to follow his career with interest and support
rather than skepticism about his loyalty to the crown or, indeed, the
shamrock. In any case, by choosing to live and work in the United States,
McCullough has managed to put some distance between himself and the
politics of mistrust that have tended to dominate Northern Ireland since
its formation.
In McCullough’s story there are echoes of what happened a few years
earlier to Barry McGuigan, who was born in Clones, Co. Monaghan, and
went on to become flyweight champion of the world. Having represented
Ireland at amateur level, McGuigan turned professional under the mana-
gerial guidance of Northern Ireland turf accountant, B. J. (Barney) East-
wood, and fought for British titles in preparation for a highly successful
career. McGuigan chose to enter the ring under the flag of the United
Nations rather than the tricolour, the union flag or the flag of Northern
Ireland. As a prelude to his fights, however, “Danny Boy,” the “anthem”
used by the Northern Ireland Commonwealth games team was played or,
more often, sung by his father. His refusal to identify fully with his roots
in the twenty-six counties led some northern nationalists to regard him as
a traitor, and, despite claims that he managed to transcend sectarian divi-
sion and gain support from fight fans in both communities, some loyal-
ists continued to view him with suspicion. It is undeniable, however, that
when McGuigan took part in some of his most important bouts in
Belfast’s King’s Hall, he enjoyed considerable cross-community support
in Northern Ireland. Certainly, in their different ways, both McCullough
and McGuigan were able to some extent to usurp traditional sporting
identities. That they were able to do so in the sport of boxing is not
wholly coincidental.
Sports and the Protestants of Northern Ireland 39
ing into the spotlight, a by-product of sporting life here [in Ireland] that
most officials and administrators would prefer to ignore—the issue of
dual nationality for Northern Ireland–born competitors.” In part, this is a
matter of political principle and relates to the bigger question concerning
the political legitimacy or otherwise of Northern Ireland. But it is also an
issue that involves both sporting pragmatism and an advanced level of
self-interest among everyone concerned.
Sports people, as we have seen, frequently make decisions on the basis
of what will enhance their own career prospects as opposed to what can
best complement their sense of political identity. Sports associations, for
their part, are at times less than scrupulous about selecting people whose
national identity is indisputable. The IFA, for example, has increasingly
widened its net, following the example of their southern counterparts, it
must be added, and have chosen players whose links to the six counties
are tenuous to say the least. Sports administrators, however, are not only
concerned with putting out the best available representative teams. They
are also concerned to ensure the future of their own particular bodies and,
by implication, their own jobs. The choices made by McIlroy and Donnelly,
for example, raise questions about the national affiliation of Irish athletes
and, in the long run and on the back of cross-border initiatives linked to
the peace process, may serve to undermine Northern Ireland as a separate
sporting, or, at least, athletics, nation. Such a development, just like the
emergence of an all-Ireland soccer team, would have serious implications
for sports officials. As Fahy (Irish Times, 29 September 1998) suggests, for
example, “If Northern Ireland’s athletics autonomy disappears, so too do
all the little perks that international competition brings.”
According to Fahy, “The equation is a straightforward one—no more
Northern Ireland teams, no more all-expenses paid foreign junkets.” With
reference to soccer, one can add that if the two separate associations
became one, not only the lives of the game’s administrators would be
affected. Half the number of Irish clubs would be allowed to play in
European competitions. Fifty percent fewer Irish referees and referees’
assistants would have the opportunity to officiate at European and world
levels. Only one national team would represent Ireland in international
competitions. In purely self-interested terms, there would be an awful lot
at stake. There remains, in addition, the small matter of political princi-
ple. Many Ulster unionists, for example, if faced with the threat of losing
Northern Irish national teams would prefer to see a merger with British
teams rather than ones representing the Irish Republic (Sugden and
Bairner 1993a).
It is no surprise, for example, that Protestant soccer fans have been
heard to cheer the news that the Irish rugby team has lost to one of the
other “home” nations. This practice is particularly widespread when
Sports and the Protestants of Northern Ireland 41
Ireland’s opponents are Scotland. Others have gone further and argued
that sports, in addition to soccer, should encourage the idea of Northern
Irish national representation. Loyalist prisoners, for example, have sug-
gested to the author that the Ulster rugby authorities should follow soc-
cer’s example and enter a Northern Ireland team in international compe-
titions. Whilst the team would be potentially weaker than that which
represents the whole of Ireland, given the fact that selection would be
made from a considerably smaller pool of players, it is argued that the
team spirit engendered by a greater sense of shared identity would more
than compensate. There is little likelihood that such a development will
occur, not least because the present national squads in the northern hemi-
sphere already appear very weak in comparison with their major south-
ern hemisphere opponents. In addition, the people who run rugby in the
north of Ireland tend to belong to that section of the Protestant commu-
nity that is able to square playing for Ireland with being politically union-
ist. But the fact that the idea is even canvassed reveals the degree to
which some Ulster Protestants believe that sport can play a crucial role in
the construction of a distinctive national identity especially if that iden-
tity is related to a feeling of being from Ulster rather than from the United
Kingdom in general. It is likely, however, that this sentiment is more
strongly felt amongst the loyalist working class whose favored game is
soccer. Indeed, it may well be that the idea of an independent Ulster has
been strengthened by the existence of a separate national soccer team.
Thus, rather than claim that political attitudes determine sporting identi-
ties, we may be forced to conclude that, in this instance at least, sporting
attitudes play a vital role in influencing political opinions.
45
46 “WE ARE THE ENGLAND HATERS !”
1975 and that two other England captains, Douglas Jardine and Tony
Greig, each had a strong Scottish connection. Any analysis of Scottish
sport and its relationship to national identity should be prefaced by two
simple observations. First, there exists a separate Scottish approach to
sport but only to a limited extent and, second, being Scottish, however
that is to be defined, does not mean sharing or having access to a com-
mon sporting experience. Despite these words of caution, however, there
is no shortage of commentators ready and willing to present the cause for
a close and unproblematic relationship between sport and Scottishness. A
central element of this chapter is a critique of the simplistic nature of their
arguments, which lead inevitably to equally naive assumptions concern-
ing Scottish national identity.
As Walker (1994) observes, “Sport and nationalist feeling in relation to
Scotland have been linked promiscuously by commentators both lay and
scholarly.” Yet, although some sort of linkage certainly exists, “it is sel-
dom made clear precisely what the nature of the nationalism expressed
through the medium of sport is” (142). This is not to suggest that sport
might be better ignored in discussions about Scottish nationality. As
Walker and co-author Jarvie (1994) argue, “No dialogue on Scotland or
Scottish civil society is complete without acknowledging the social space
occupied by sport” (8). Conversely, one might add, no analysis of sport in
Scotland would be complete without some reference to Scottish society
and politics in general and specifically to the question of national iden-
tity. The problem is that this can often lead to large, unsubstantiated
claims concerning sport and Scottish nationality which do little to deepen
our understanding of either of these phenomena.
According to sportswriter Roddy Forsyth (1992), “Sport can claim not
only to have been the most popular manifestation of Scottishness within
Scotland, but actually to have been its distinct assertion of nationality”
(334). There is certainly no denying sport’s popularity in Scotland, par-
ticularly with Scottish men. Golf can claim 260,000 active participants,
while the two biggest team sports, soccer and rugby union, have 134,000
and 15,000 adult players respectively. Even larger numbers of Scots are
involved in sport as administrators, coaches, and, above all, as spectators.
We can assume, moreover, that the involvement of these Scots in sport is
bound to impact, to some degree, on their understanding of what it
means to be Scottish. But, as Jarvie and Walker (1994) point out, “While
Scottish sport has both contributed to a sense of nation, class and even
community it is important to ask the question whose nation? whose com-
munity? and during what time period?” (3). However, in much of the
writing on Scottish sport, and particularly on the symbolic importance of
soccer, such considerations are simply ignored.
Sport and National Identity in Scotland 47
what unites those people who say they are Scots and, perhaps more
importantly, what may divide them, either today or at some point in the
future. Scottishness, as we shall see, consists of a multiplicity of identities,
any one of which may on occasion threaten to undermine the claims of a
unifying and transcendent national identity.
Paterson (1993) writes that “the core of the problem is that debate
about Scottish culture has little room for the idea that there might be sev-
eral and deeply contradictory cultures coexisting, all of them with an
equally valid claim to being truly Scottish” (1). Most commentators, how-
ever, while recognizing what Paterson calls “the multifariousness of
Scottish cultures,” have argued that this does not negate the possibility of
a transcendent national identity. Smout (1994), for example, recognizes
that “there are, of course, those who would deny there is any common
identity possible in Scotland, a small country of quite exceptional
regional and cultural diversity” but that, he claims, is “to misunderstand
the point, and to assume that we have but one identity (102). In a similar
vein, McCrone (1992) accepts that “if Scotland is a ‘society’ insofar as it
provides a set of meaningful frameworks through which to judge social
experiences, we need not deny that there are other levels of association—
being a Gael, a Shetlander, a Glaswegian, for example” (26). We could
add to this list the levels of association involved in being a man or a
woman, a Christian, of whatever denomination, or a Muslim, a factory
worker or a lawyer, and so on. McCrone’s response, however, is that
“none of these necessarily negate, are at odds with being ‘Scottish.’”
Perhaps not, but there is surely a possibility that some of the identities
that are formed at non-national levels of association in Scotland may be
sufficiently strong to offer substantial challenges to a transcendent sense
of Scottishness, unless the latter is formulated in a particular way. As
O’Hagan (1994) puts it, “Behind many an apparent Scottish unity, within
each togetherness I can think of, runs a bickering stream of segregation-
ist delight.”
The evidence provided by an analysis of sport in Scotland supports
O’Hagan’s view. As we shall see, it is frequently only to the extent that
sport can be recruited to the traditional anti-English cause that it truly
unites the Scottish people, or, to be more precise, the overwhelming
majority of those who live in Scotland together with numerous exiles
who would continue to describe themselves as Scottish. More commonly,
however, Scottish sport highlights the differences between Scots and pro-
vides an important vehicle for the perpetuation of these differences even
in a world in which globalization is thought by some to threaten to engulf
all sorts of particularism. The irony is that any superficial account of
Scottish sport would lead inevitably to the conclusion that its main polit-
ical achievement has been to contribute massively to the autonomy or
52 “WE ARE THE ENGLAND HATERS !”
ianism, not least because the best-known rivalry in the domestic game
can be defined almost totally in sectarian terms, with Catholics from all
over Scotland giving their support to Celtic and Protestants from
throughout the country supporting Rangers. Furthermore, the sectarian
affiliations of these two clubs, which constitute what is known as “The
Old Firm,” have been instrumental in helping to make them the richest
and most successful teams in the country.
The history of the Old Firm is woven into the very fabric of the story
of Scottish soccer (Murray 1984). The fact that this rivalry is rooted in sec-
tarian tensions between Scottish Protestants and Catholic immigrants
from Ireland is undeniable. Contemporary debate, however, has centered
around the question of whether or not the sectarianism that formerly
fuelled the rivalry is now on the wane with all that remains being a sport-
ing engagement, albeit one that is surrounded by sectarian trappings as
one group of fans celebrate the deeds of the IRA and the other celebrates
their loyalty to orangeism and to the British Crown.
According to Moorhouse (1991), some commentators have over-
emphasized the role played by sectarianism in modern Scotland.
Of course, “identities” are situationally relevant, and people can move
through levels speedily in certain eventualities, but talking of Glasgow
as “a divided city” with “simmering hostilities” and so on has been
pretty dubious for at least twenty years and now Rangers have suddenly
exploded a lot of the old verities about this matter in relation to Scottish
football. (205)
such as “God Save the Queen” and “Rule Britannia” are sung, along with
a variety of battle hymns borrowed from Ulster Loyalism.
From time to time, Rangers and, to a lesser extent, Celtic threaten to
leave Scottish domestic competition for British or European league. The
result might be fatal damage to Scotland’s separate sporting identity. But,
for many supporters of the Old Firm, that would be a price worth paying
in exchange for the elevation of their respective clubs to even greater
international status.
Moorhouse (1994) argues that the study of Scottish soccer and society
“would benefit if academics and journalists would put a moratorium on
the use of a whole bundle of terms like ’sectarianism,’ ’sectarian hatred,’
’bigotry,’ ’tribalism’ . . . protestant/catholic/Irish ‘community,’ ‘religious
tensions,’ and the like . . .” (192). As Purdie (1991) indicates, however, for
generations sectarianism “has been part of the culture of some of the
most heavily industrialised and densely populated areas of Scotland”
(78). Certainly it was not gloomy academics who created the hate-ridden
atmosphere at Celtic Park on 2 May 1999 when Rangers defeated Celtic
and thereby won the Scottish Premier League or who fought in the streets
of Glasgow into the early hours of the following morning. The fact that
Celtic and Rangers are by far the best-supported clubs in Scotland is not
solely attributable to their longstanding supremacy in the Scottish game.
Indeed, the latter owes much to the clubs’ financial strength, which is
based in turn on the size of the support each receives from fans who con-
tinue to celebrate deep-seated sectarian differences within the context of
Scottish soccer. Thus, as Bradley (1995) puts it, “Football is a crucial ele-
ment of religious identity in Scotland” (178). Furthermore, rival religious
identities have manifest implications for the construction of a Scottish
national identity as long as Celtic fans prefer to celebrate the Irishness of
their forebears and Rangers supporters proclaim a conception of
Britishness that is virtually unknown in the remainder of the United
Kingdom with the exception of Loyalist areas of Northern Ireland. One
can look to the supporters of other Scottish clubs to find a definite corre-
lation between soccer enthusiasm and Scottish national identity. But as
one casts one’s eye more widely over the Scottish scene other sources of
division begin to emerge.
As Forsyth (1992) admits, “Not everyone likes sport and it is often
said that more people visit museums in Scotland annually than attend
Scottish league matches” (337). Among those Scots who dislike soccer or
are, at best, apathetic towards it are large numbers of Scottish women.
Time and again, the masculinity of Scotland’s soccer culture is men-
tioned. For many women, the main significance of the televised results
service on a Saturday night is to allow them to anticipate the mood of a
58 “WE ARE THE ENGLAND HATERS !”
season did teams from the Scottish Highlands, Ross County and Inverness
Caledonian Thistle, take their places in the Scottish League. Other teams
from the region continue to compete in their own separate Highland
League. Moreover, the applications for Scottish League membership made
by Ross County and Caley Thistle succeeded at the expense of hopeful
applicants from the Border region of the country, which still remains woe-
fully underrepresented in national League competition. Overall, the
Scottish League continues to be rooted in central Scotland, although soccer
is played and watched throughout the country and on the occasion of
Scottish international matches the support from the Highlands and the
Borders is likely to be no less passionate and arguably even more so than
in those parts of the Central Belt where sectarian rivalries have a stronger
pull on many soccer fans than do the fortunes of the national team.
Localism, of course, can be transcended and even incorporated into
the idea of the nation. Commenting on popular pastimes in nineteenth-
century Scotland, Telfer (1994) writes, “The point that needs to be made
here is that it is not necessary to see recreational customs or sporting tra-
ditions at the local level as not contributing to any sense of community or
nation” (119). The fact that someone supports Dunfermline Athletic and
someone else supports Raith Rovers need be no barrier to their sharing a
national identity. However, to the extent that these soccer allegiances are
linked to strong local attachments, a potential for more serious divisions,
concerning political decisions, for example, or the allocation of scarce
resources, clearly exists. While the claim is made that Scottishness can
transcend other identities, one cannot discount the possibility that even
local or regional identities may possess the power to transcend
Scottishness. In terms of answering the question, “Who are the Scots?,”
however, more serious problems arguably emerge as a result of ethnic
rather than local differences.
As regards the relationship between ethnic groups in Scotland and the
game of soccer, it can be stated at once that only the Irish and to a lesser
extent the Italians have contributed significantly to the game’s develop-
ment. Asians and Jews have found it far more difficult to integrate into
Scottish society by way of involvement in soccer. In part this has been the
result of overt racism in the world of Scottish soccer (Dimeo and Finn
1998; Horne 1994; Spiers 1994). Often, however, it has been due simply to
a feeling of not fully belonging to the society in general and specifically
to a sports culture in which soccer plays such a dominant role. This feel-
ing is heightened by the prominence of Christian religious sectarianism
within the Scottish game. Arnold Brown’s witty but at the same time
deeply serious recollection of growing up Jewish in Glasgow and having
to respond to the Celtic-Rangers rivalry illustrates the difficulties faced
by some ethnic minority groups.
60 “WE ARE THE ENGLAND HATERS !”
to be used would have been shinty, which can best be described as a cross
between the Irish sport of hurling and field hockey and which, it is said,
has been played in Scotland for 1,500 years (McCarra 1993). Shinty’s
potential to become a national game, however, was seriously weakened
by the fact that it was played primarily in Scotland’s western highlands
and islands. During the nineteenth century, as Burnett (1995) reports, “It
was wiped out in the Lowlands because the police stopped it being
played in its usual venue, the streets, thinking it was dangerous” (56).
Inasmuch as it has returned to the densely populated Central Belt at all,
it has done so only in Glasgow, which has traditionally become home for
generations of Highland immigrants. Thus, it was always unlikely that
shinty could find a place in the hearts of most Scottish people in the way
that hurling and Gaelic football, as we shall see, were embraced by Irish
Catholics (Jarvie 1993). Shinty has certainly contributed to a sense of
Highland identity (Telfer 1994), but there was never the political impulse
that existed in Ireland to turn this indigenous sport into a vehicle for the
promotion of political nationalism (Harvie 1994). For a time, moreover, it
seemed as if the future existence of the game was in doubt. As recently as
1990 and 1992, however, there were new winners of the game’s major tro-
phy, the Camanachd Cup, in the shape of Skye and Fort William respec-
tively, suggesting that shinty is capable, for the time being at least, of
resisting national and global pressures that demand its marginalization.
Even with its future secured, however, shinty is unlikely to provide a
sporting basis for a unifying national identity.
The evidence is that the leaders of shinty in the Camanachd Associa-
tion will continue to be obdurate in the face of attempts by nationalists to
politicize their game (Hutchinson 1989). This is not to deny that the game
of shinty can be used by nationalists to underline Scotland’s distinctive-
ness. Highland Games, although of considerably shorter lineage and far
more contrived in their relationship to Scottishness, can also serve this
purpose (Jarvie 1991). As Jarvie (1993) argues, “Highland Games and
shinty may arguably represent various visions of Gaelic culture, visions
and identities which are often drawn upon to fuel the oxygen tanks of
Scottish nationalism” (66). This indeed is part of a broader process
whereby the Highlands and the history of the Highland people have been
subsumed within a general history of Scotland that disregards inconven-
ient facts about the ways in which lowland Scots joined forces with the
English to undermine the religion, language, and customs of their
Highland compatriots. As Webb (1978) remarks, “The cultural schizo-
phrenia of Scotland has only been resolved in modern times with the
popular acceptance of a mythical Celtic version of Scottish history” (29).
According to Nairn, writing in Scotland on Sunday (11 November 1990),
furthermore, “to ‘borrow’ the geist of Gaeldom in this way was, inevita-
62 “WE ARE THE ENGLAND HATERS !”
bly, to travesty it; the penalty of such ethnic misuse and overstretching
was nationalised kitsch.” The image projected by soccer’s Tartan Army is
a good example. In sum, therefore, the attitudes toward shinty offer
important insights into the complex ways in which attempts to construct
a Scottish identity have been made. But there is no reason to think of
shinty as Scotland’s national game in any meaningful sense.
who are unlikely ever to play the game. National myths, of course, need
not necessarily be dangerous (Archard 1995). As McCrone (1995) and his
fellow researchers point out, “Using the term ‘myth’ might seem to imply
a value judgement, as if the whole thing was a fraud, but myths provide
guides to the interpretation of social reality . . .” (52). On the other hand,
it is doubtful whether the myths that surround Scottish golf can provide
the basis for a national identity centered around sport. Nor do they per-
mit golf to be accurately described as Scotland’s national sport. In a par-
ticularly acute analysis of the relationship between golf and Scottishness,
Lowerson (1994) argues that “Scotland may not have invented golf, but it
has refined it and encouraged its development along lines which have
exploited ascribed national identity to such an extent that it has distorted
much of what really happens in the homeland.” “In so doing,” Lowerson
claims, “it reflects an ambivalence in Scottish society as to what Scotland
and its people really are” (89). Golf makes an input into the idea of
Scottishness but that conception, as a consequence, ignores the realities of
Scottish society and the various divisions it contains. The identity that
results cannot, therefore, serve to unify the Scottish people.
such as to highlight all the same divisions as afflict soccer, albeit to dif-
fering degrees.
It can be argued that rugby is even more of a male preserve than soc-
cer, in spite of the contribution of women to the social life of clubs and the
slow emergence of women’s teams. In terms of class, rugby is also divi-
sive, reflecting even more clearly than soccer the stark social divisions in
modern Scotland. Whereas middle-class Scots are involved with soccer at
a variety of levels, few working-class people participate in rugby
although it is unfortunate that critics of rugby’s apparent exclusiveness
choose to ignore the ones who do. Rugby also reflects the continuing
importance of local and regional identities in Scotland, with the Borders
being the only region of the country in which rugby can be regarded as
the main team sport (Drysdale 1995a). Very little rugby by contrast is
played in the Central Belt, with the notable exceptions of the cities of
Edinburgh and, to a much lesser extent, Glasgow (Drysdale 1994).
Rugby has also had difficulties in attracting the support of ethnic and
religious minorities. Again to select an example from the experiences of
Scotland’s Jewish community, David Daiches (1987) remembers the prob-
lem of not being able to participate in the game at the Edinburgh school
he attended, where playing rugby was an important mechanism for
establishing oneself.
[T]hat way was completely closed to me, not because I was naturally in-
competent at sport . . . but because games were played on Saturday, the
Jewish Sabbath, and my playing them was quite out of the question. (46)
Impressionistic evidence would also suggest that few Asians have been
attracted to rugby and arguably more significantly in terms of the rela-
tively greater size of Scotland’s Catholic population the sectarian divi-
sions that blight Scottish soccer also impact on the world of Scottish
rugby. This does not mean that there is a rugby equivalent of the Celtic-
Rangers rivalry. But far from implying integration through rugby, the
absence of such a rivalry is in large part attributable to the fact that until
quite recently few Catholics learned the game in their schools (Drysdale,
1995b; Drysdale, 1995c).
69
70 NATIONAL IDENTITY AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
senting the powerful Catholic church and Charles Stewart Parnell, leader
of the Irish Home Rule Party and, therefore, of constitutional nationalism
in Ireland. Thus, the key elements of Irish nationalism—the church, the
physical force movement, and constitutionalism—were brought together
in the establishment and early activity of the GAA. Moreover, the associ-
ation’s first president, Maurice Davin, is arguably better remembered as
a superb athlete than as an exponent of any political ideology (Ó Riain
1994). Despite its primary concern with sporting activity, however, as the
GAA grew, “like a prairie fire” to use Cusack’s own words (Healey 1998,
19), perhaps inevitably, as we shall see, a battle for its soul between the
various shades of Irish nationalist opinion unfolded and, it can be
argued, remains influential to the present day.
The specifically Gaelic games that are played in Ireland and further
afield today are hurling, Gaelic football, handball, and camogie. Of these,
hurling has the purest lineage although there are two distinct traditions
of the game (Maolfabhail 1973). One of these, the northern version,
iomaín, survives today in Scotland and is known in English as shinty. The
other, southern version, camanácht, has become the modern game of hurl-
ing (West 1991). Stick and ball games, such as shinty and hurling, have
been played by different peoples since primitive times and, despite
claims that there is something typically Gaelic and, therefore, typically
Celtic about hurling, according to Maolfabhail, “There exists no evidence
to show that hurling in any form ever belonged particularly, or at all, to
the ancient continental Celts” (Maolfabhail 1973, 2). In fact, a similar
game was known in Britain in ancient times, which militates against any
suggestion that hurling might possess some ethnically pure character.
Nevertheless, according to one historian, a game resembling hurling has
been played in Ireland for more than two thousand years (Mandle 1987).
The first recorded reference traces hurling to a battle fought at Moytura
in County Mayo between the native Fir Bolg and the invading Tuatha Dé
Danaan who engaged in a hurling contest while preparing for the conflict
(King 1998). Whether this is an accurate account of the true origins of the
modern game is open to question. However, it is suggested that evidence
exists that embryonic forms of hurling were certainly being played in
Ireland from around 1600 A.D. onward, which clearly indicates a sporting
tradition with well-established roots (Maolfabhail 1973). Certainly the
Brehon Laws, Ireland’s first legal system, declared that there should be
compensation in cases where people died as a result of hurling accidents.
Moreover, hurling is accorded a prominent place in Irish folklore and leg-
end where it is depicted as an aristocratic or even a royal game. Indeed,
many of the main legendary heroes, including King Labhraidh Loinsech,
Diarmuid, Cahir the Great, Cuchulain, and Fionn Mac Cumhaill, are
associated with hurling exploits. These legends of hurling, as Mandle
Sport and Irish Nationalism 75
(1987) points out, have played a crucial role in surrounding the game
with nationalist mystique.
Hurling’s popularity grew markedly during the Middle Ages to the
extent that it was proscribed by the authorities in the Statutes of Kilkenny
(1366) and the Galway Statutes (1527) (Dagg 1944). The seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries witnessed another marked upsurge in interest with
members of the gentry and landowners fielding teams consisting of ten-
ants (King 1998; Mandle 1987). Games began to attract large audiences
and significant amounts of wagering occurred. However, from the begin-
ning of the nineteenth century this expansion was arrested temporarily.
In part, this was due to the fact that the Irish nobility, like their European
counterparts, ended their patronage of popular culture (King 1998).
Social and political developments were also influential. According to
Mandle (1987), “As with English cricket the Napoleonic wars and, in the
case of Ireland, the consequences of the 1798 rising, caused a noticeable
lull in the development of hurling in the early years of the nineteenth cen-
tury” (16). In addition, the Famine and emigration each had a detrimen-
tal effect not only on hurling but also on numerous other games and pas-
times. So serious was this situation that some actually began to lament
the passing of hurling (Mandle 1987).
Ironically, in the ensuing period it was kept alive above all by the
efforts of students at Trinity College, Dublin, albeit in the northern form,
which was to be transformed into the modern game of shinty and in spite
of the fact that Trinity was a key center for the promotion of the British
games tradition. As West (1991) observes, “Trinity had made a major con-
tribution to Gaelic games by keeping a form of hurling alive when it was
virtually extinct in the rest of the country” (57). As the hurlers of Trinity
grew closer to their English (and Irish) hockey-playing counterparts,
however, it was to be left to Michael Cusack to build upon their efforts
and on the traditions of Irish hurling to revitalize the “national” game,
first in the Dublin (later Metropolitan) Hurling Club, which he set up in
1882 and, thereafter, under the auspices of the GAA, formed in 1884.
Since the formation of the GAA, hurling has remained a popular sport
throughout Ireland albeit with obvious strongholds, including Cork,
Kilkenny, and Tipperary in the south and Antrim and Down in Northern
Ireland. The future of the sport, however, is uncertain. It is generally
agreed that there are fewer players, not least because the game has to
compete with countless other forms of physical exercise. The influence in
Irish education of the Christian Brothers, among the most passionate
advocates of hurling, has waned (King 1998). In addition, Ireland itself
has changed, becoming more urbanized, to such a degree that the rural
communities in which hurling was traditionally most supported have
become increasingly depopulated. There are also suggestions that the
76 NATIONAL IDENTITY AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
GAA has done less in recent times to promote hurling not least because it
is largely restricted to certain core areas (King 1998). Instead the empha-
sis has been on Gaelic football, more easily understood, more widely dis-
persed throughout Ireland, and arguably more modern in style.
Early forms of football played in Ireland were never accorded the
same legendary status as hurling. Their pedigree, however, was almost as
long, the oldest recorded form, caid, having first been played at least one
thousand years ago (Sugden and Bairner 1993a). There are historical ref-
erences to a form of Irish or Gaelic football being played as early as the
fourteenth century (Healey 1998). The original game resembled the rough
and tumble exchanges that were currently being played throughout
Europe and no doubt farther afield as well. Indeed it closely resembled
football played in England and had tended to become established prima-
rily in the area of the medieval English settlement in north Dublin
(Garvin 1981). In areas where it was popular, moreover, it posed a threat
to the more traditionally Irish game of hurling. Rough and tumble foot-
ball persisted in Ireland up to the nineteenth century. As Healey (1998)
records, “As recently as the mid-1880s a typical game of football in
Ireland involved hundreds of people playing across miles of open coun-
tryside, with the obligatory frequent pauses for bouts of wrestling and
fist-fighting” (11). However, as with hurling, more organized versions of
the game had begun to grow in popularity during the eighteenth century,
and, although frowned upon by the aristocracy, football was played reg-
ularly at College Park by students of Trinity College. As in Britain, it
gradually assumed the rival forms of association football (soccer) and
rugby football and, with the direction of the GAA, an additional form,
Gaelic football. What is apparent, however, is that when the GAA came
into existence, the two major team games for which it would have
responsibility were in a disorganized condition. As Healey (1998) com-
ments, “With violence rampant and organization virtually non-existent
as recently as one hundred and fifty years ago, all that could be said for
Ireland’s native games was that they were being handed on from gener-
ation to generation—surviving, despite their coarseness, because they
offered the people brief prospects of happiness, and a respite from every-
day problems” (13). Under the aegis of the GAA, however, they were
quickly to become major elements in the movement to promote Irish
national identity as part of the struggle to overthrow British rule in
Ireland. Other games, although less visible, were also brought under the
control of the GAA. These included activities that were by no means
exclusive to Ireland, such as track and field and cycling, but also camo-
gie, a form of hurling played by women, and handball.
Camogie was invented and formally established in 1904, some twenty
years after the formation of the GAA, and is now administered by an
Sport and Irish Nationalism 77
Parnell were prominent in the GAA during those years. Indeed, it is often
argued that the association was to suffer for this in the wake of the
O’Shea scandal in 1890, which ended Parnell’s political career and
severely damaged the work of his followers. In fact, according to Garvin
(1981), the association was already in a period of temporary decline in
any case. There is no denying, however, the GAA’s support for Parnell.
So highly was he regarded by members of the GAA that, when he died in
1891, six of them carried his coffin and thousands more, bearing black
draped hurley sticks, marched with his cortege. However, during the last
decade of the nineteenth century, it was the physical force nationalists as
opposed to Parnell’s successors in the constitutionalist tradition who
assumed a growing role in the leadership of the GAA, and by the 1890s
the IRB was still recruiting from its ranks (Garvin 1981).
However, despite the dominant position of IRB men within the GAA
during the last years of the nineteenth century, the association continued
to encompass all strands of Irish nationalist opinion. Indeed, according to
Mandle (1987), “It is arguable that no organization had done more for
Irish nationalism than the GAA” (69). As we shall see, the importance of
the GAA to Irish nationalism is disputed in revisionist Irish historiogra-
phy (Cronin 1996). But it was perhaps inevitable that when the Easter
Rising of 1916 took place some Gaels would be intimately involved in the
events as they unfolded while others would be just as taken aback as
were most of their fellow citizens. Similarly in the Civil War that followed
the rising and ended only with the signing of a treaty that brought
twenty-six Irish counties under the authority of a newly established Irish
Free State and left six of Ulster’s nine counties under British jurisdiction,
members of the GAA found themselves on both sides of the conflict.
The GAA had succeeded in uniting its membership around a shared
love of Gaelic games and a general acceptance of what was involved in
being an Irish nationalist. In order to do so, as we shall see, it had en-
forced fairly exclusivist rules, including a ban on playing and watching
foreign games and a rule that stipulated that members of the crown
(British) security forces could not join the GAA. Although these restric-
tions clearly had the effect of driving away most of the already small
numbers of Protestant supporters of Gaelic games, they may well have
helped to forge a sense of national affiliation that was able to transcend
power struggles within the association and serious political schism
beyond. However, the consequences of the treaty that had followed civil
war presented new and far more formidable obstacles to the maintenance
of this united front.
According to O’Halloran (1987), “Partition provided nationalist ideol-
ogy with its greatest challenge” (xi). For many, it represented an attack on
the Irish nationalist vision of Ireland. Somehow nationalists, both north
Sport and Irish Nationalism 79
and south, had to make sense of what had happened. In the newly estab-
lished Irish Free State, this involved stereotyping the north and its inhab-
itants. As O’Halloran (1987) relates, “The depiction of Northern Ireland
as a British colony of garrison enabled southern nationalists to respond in
a traditional way to partition by diagnosing it as a problem of British ori-
gin, rather than the outcome of irreconcilable differences between the
inhabitants of the island” (26) With this in mind, the new state’s consti-
tution asserted its territorial claim on the six counties of Northern Ireland
and proclaimed an ongoing aspiration for a united and independent
thirty-two county Irish republic. On the other hand, Northern Ireland,
with its industrial and commercial infrastructure, was also seen as the
antithesis of the nationalist vision of Ireland that was being projected by
the Free State’s president, Eamon de Valera. This contributed to the image
of Northern Ireland as “a place apart” that, regardless of territorial claims
and expressed nationalist aspirations, helped to secure the foundations of
twenty-six-county nationalism. In turn, this inevitably impacted upon
relations between northern and southern nationalists.
move from a sense of nationality to a desire for national unity and inde-
pendence is by no means automatic” (33). Indeed, she argues, “Com-
munalist identity and the desire for justice have always been important,
and are especially so in the reconstituted forms of nationalism which
emerged in the 1970s” (41). Despite having previously examined cleav-
ages within Ulster unionism, Todd (1987) fails to address the divisions
that exist within Irish nationalism in the north. For some nationalists, bol-
stered by a sense of communal identity, the pursuit of justice may appear
to be able to stand alone. For others, it is necessarily contingent upon the
struggle for national unification. Purer still is the nationalist vision that,
in the short term at least, places the cause of Irish freedom above all other
considerations. These divisions soon become apparent, as does the gen-
eral distinction between northern and southern nationalism, when we
come to consider further the role of the GAA in post-partition Ireland.
It is generally accepted that the attitudes of northern nationalists
toward the Irish Republic are ambivalent to say the least. In general, there
remains some sense that it is a kind of metaphorical “home” whereas the
north, which is truly home, is tainted by unionism and is, therefore, at
some level a hostile environment. On the other hand, with the declaration
of an Irish Republic in 1945, it appeared to many northern nationalists
that their southern compatriots had abandoned them, regardless of the
retention of a constitutional claim on the six counties. This view has been
strengthened over the years as increasing numbers of southerners lose
interest in the ultimate nationalist vision of a united Ireland and content
themselves instead with the twenty-six-county state. This affects some
northern nationalists more than others. As O’Connor (1993) reports,
“Northerners from the most troubled areas who have grown up with the
Troubles are not disposed to make allowances for the South” (251).
Developing the point, she quotes a woman from Ardoyne, in north
Belfast, whose husband had been a republican prisoner.
They can’t get away from the fact that we are a part of this island—that
I’m Irish and nobody’s going to tell me anyway otherwise. We invested
too much, I think, as a people, individually and collectively in this coun-
try, to be told that we’re not part of the nation, not part of Ireland as a
nation. (252)
statement that only sports supported by the general council of the asso-
ciation could be permitted on GAA premises. It was interesting to note
that such permission had been granted in the past to American football
but soccer was clearly still perceived as an “English” game rather than
simply a foreign one. Strong reactions to these GAA decisions could have
been anticipated particularly given the optimism that surrounded the
peace process and Good Friday agreement in certain quarters. But they
are also given intellectual substance by revisionist interpretations of Irish
history in general and the history of the GAA in particular.
Cronin (1996) identifies what he regards as “the GAA’s self-perceived
belief that it forms a central part of the force of Irish nationalism, and has
operated both North and South of the border along these lines” (1).
According to Cronin’s revisionist analysis, it is a myth that, in the period
1884–1921, the association was central to the cause of Irish nationalism.
Citing evidence from Rouse (1993), Cronin argues that the activities of the
GAA in those formative years had more to do with ensuring its success
as a sporting body than with the promotion of a particular political ide-
ology. However, the belief in its own contribution to the nationalist cause
“has meant that the GAA has been unable to move forward in the general
spirit of the peace process” (Cronin 1996, 1). Instead, according to Cronin,
“It has clung onto old dogmas and past history and has not attempted to
create the new relationships needed to perpetuate peace” (1). Com-
menting specifically on developments in Northern Ireland generally and
within the northern nationalist community in particular, Cronin asserts
that “the GAA is existing in an historical backwater and is not prepared
to deal with the current realities of the changing situation in Northern
Ireland” (18). Specifically, “The nationalist community in the North, from
which the GAA draws its members and its goodwill, no longer needs any
advice about making the first move towards reconciliation” (18). Yet
members of that northern nationalist community, not people who live
outside that community on some republican fantasy island, have them-
selves instructed the GAA to retain Rule 21. While it may be unfortunate
that they have chosen to do so, to claim that their decision was taken
solely on the basis of some mythical reconstruction of the GAA’s history
is unhelpful.
Furthermore, to suggest that the GAA was relatively unimportant in
the Irish nationalist struggle is to take a very narrow definition of the
political. To offer as evidence the fact that only a minority of members
were actively involved in politics is to miss the point. The GAA was (and
is) important in terms of the politics of cultural resistance. Far from less-
ening its political importance, by becoming a successful sporting body, the
GAA enhanced the counterhegemonic role it had been able to play in the
past and that arguably it has continued to perform in Northern Ireland.
84 NATIONAL IDENTITY AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
music, and just as the Government considers itself duty bound to pre-
serve them and to expend money in doing so, any help or subsidization
required for the preservation of hurling should be forthcoming from the
same source. (King 1998, 265)
October 1998). So why are compromise rules games played? The expla-
nation, according to Browne, lies in the fact that those who run the AFL,
like their GAA counterparts, believe their game can be internationalized.
Browne states that “what the AFL doesn’t seem to understand is that the
average football supporter doesn’t care that it is not an international
sport.” Thus, there is no concern that a national sport must involve inter-
national competition. Browne is happy to see Australian Rules go it
alone.
We have a great game in Australia, one we think is the best in the world.
It doesn’t need an international compromise to make it any better, which
is why the interest back here is lukewarm at best. (Sunday Tribune,
11 October 1998)
So why then does the GAA persevere with such contests when the
very same arguments could be made in favor of Gaelic games? One rea-
son is clearly financial. But there is obviously a feeling within the Gaelic
fraternity that international links in some way enhance the status of
Gaelic games and of Ireland more generally. It may be that this owes
something to feelings of inadequacy when confronted with Britain’s
achievements in terms of the export of games and, through this, its estab-
lishment of sporting contact with the far corners of the globe. The GAA
wishes to show that it has overseas friends too and does not simply
occupy a small and parochial sporting space. But Irish sport does not
need the GAA, any more than Australian sport needs the AFL, to provide
opportunities for international sporting contacts. Indeed, it has long been
apparent that to be Irish, in the world of sport, does not require partici-
pation in Gaelic games. What may be at issue, however, is the matter of
what it means to be Irish.
fully cosmopolitan simply because they have turned their back on Gaelic
games. In addition, they may well choose to compete at the highest level
in a particular sport but that need not mean that they have no interest in
watching or even playing other games. Throughout Ireland there are
examples of people playing Gaelic games and soccer and there is even a
well-established transfer between Gaelic and rugby, although not in the
north, where the educational system and the resultant image of the game
as belonging to the unionist tradition make it off limits to all but a hand-
ful of nationalists. In an area of the Irish Republic such as Limerick where
rugby is the most popular team sport it would be nonsensical to regard the
local population as being less Irish than those who live in the counties
most associated with Gaelic games. Indeed, since rugby, like most other
sports in Ireland, is organized on a thirty-two-county basis, regardless of
its origins, it endorses what for most republicans can be described as Irish
territorial integrity (something that, as has been seen, makes it contentious
in the eyes of some Ulster unionists). More problematic is the role of soc-
cer in the construction and reproduction of Irish national identity for the
simple reason that here is a foreign game that has actually reflected, at
organizational level, the partition of Ireland. This raises the question of
how nationalists should view the two “national” soccer teams.
As was revealed earlier, the continued existence of a separate
Northern Ireland team is of considerable symbolic importance to Ulster
unionists. Here is one clear piece of evidence that Northern Ireland does,
in fact, exist as a distinct entity rather than a community merely imagined
by them. Given that this leads to the unionist and loyalist trappings that
tend to surround the Northern Ireland team, it is hardly surprising that
few nationalists in the north lend their support irrespective of how many
Catholic players are actually in the national side. The fact that during the
1980s in particular the Republic of Ireland also had a more successful
team was an added incentive for northern nationalists to withdraw their
support from a team for which they had in the past shown greater enthu-
siasm. With a handful of exceptions, usually members of a slightly older
generation or those such as the republican prisoner who told the author
that he could support neither Northern Ireland nor the Republic as both
teams were the product of partition, northern nationalists support the
Irish Republic. In so doing they join forces with soccer fans from the
south as well as from the Irish diaspora (Free 1998). What emerges is a far
from monolithic approach to the relationship between football and Irish
nationalism.
It has been suggested by Giulianotti (1996) that the essence of recent
support for the Irish Republic’s soccer team is carnivalesque and there
are certainly numerous examples of Irish fans conforming to this descrip-
tion. Moreover, many of the supporters who have helped to add this ele-
88 NATIONAL IDENTITY AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
Isolation or Expansion?
NATIONALISM AND SPORT IN THE UNITED STATES
91
92 ISOLATION OR EXPANSION ?
1880s, Story (1995) reports, “baseball became what can only be described
as a mass cultural movement, a large-scale, passionate American affair on
the scale and intensity of other mass movements such as revivalism or
temperance, and capable, therefore, of creating a bedrock of players and
‘cranks’ on which promoters and sponsors would build” (121). Certainly
at this stage the level of public interest shown in professional baseball
was unprecedented (Rader 1996). Certain factors involved in the growth
of baseball have been identified—specific working-class occupations,
Irish ethnicity, masculinity, the development of a railroad-based enter-
tainment industry, and increased sponsorship (Story 1995). But the ques-
tion remains: Why baseball? The answer, according to Story (1995), is
obvious. Men loved it for the simple reason that it satisfied their need for
comradeship, recognition, and order.
There is a legend that the rules of modern baseball were first set out
in Cooperstown in 1839 by Abner Doubleday, a student at a military
school and later to become a general in the Civil War. According to Pope
(1997), “The myth about baseball’s U.S. birth began to materialize in 1889
at New York’s Delmonico’s Restaurant, where a celebrity crowd gathered
to honor a group of baseball players who had just returned from a well-
publicized world tour . . .” (69). Since then, the Doubleday myth con-
cerning baseball’s origins has remained a key feature of the game’s attrac-
tion. It provides baseball with purely American origins. The suggestion
that it was merely a development of the English game, rounders, was
unacceptable both in terms of establishing the credentials of a distinctive
American sports culture and also, more generally, as regards the broader
issue of what it meant to be an American. As Pope (1997) expresses it,
“While true, the idea that baseball had evolved from a wide variety of
British stick-and-ball games, did not suit the mythology of a phenome-
non that had become so quintessentially American” (71). The Doubleday
myth, on the other hand, links the game to the youth of America. It con-
nects baseball to a military figure and provides it with rural origins
(Crepeau 1980). As a result it helps to establish the link between baseball
and core values of an older way of American life. It is an invented tradi-
tion but no less significant for that. Indeed, it was not until the 1920s and
1930s that the rural mystique that surrounds the game began to lose some
of its importance. By then, according to Mrozek (1983), baseball’s claim as
a national sport “did not depend upon its rural associations, which in any
case were much more myth than fact” (172).
Rather, baseball thrived because it had the same scientific and social
inclusiveness that promoters saw in football and thus matched as well as
molded the purported national character. (172)
Nationalism and Sport in the United States 97
The hope was, however, that baseball itself would help to “Americanize”
these immigrants. In fact, baseball was able both to strengthen group iden-
tities (for example, that of the Irish Americans or those of German extrac-
tion) while simultaneously promoting Americanism (Gorn and Goldstein
1993). According to Pope (1997), “Baseball provided second-generation
immigrants acceptance and identity as Americans” (73). Certainly, as Pope
(1997) notes, “In an increasingly heterogeneous society, many Americans
found it difficult to define the precise nature of national identity” (9).
“Paradoxically,” he continues, “the United States, one of the most clearly
defined modern nations, faced a perplexing problem of national identity”
(10). Undoubtedly, sport generally and baseball in particular were of con-
siderable help in answering questions about what it meant to be an
American, but only for certain sections of the population. For many years,
for example, other groups were excluded from major league baseball. As
Crepeau describes it, “Baseball was portrayed as a force for democracy,
opportunity, and Americanization; it was a microcosm of the great
American melting pot” (163). Yet, the Ku Klux Klan were active in the
National Pastime and “if American baseball was a melting pot, the Jew
had difficulty melting and the black American never got into the pot”
(Crepeau 1980, 165), or at least not until after World War II. Up to that
point, as Riess (1988) argues, “baseball’s democratic ideology did not
extend to Black Americans, who were completely excluded from profes-
sional baseball because of racial prejudice” (262).
Informally baseball’s National League had enforced a “color ban”
aimed at both players and clubs since its formation in 1876. But some
black players played for professional teams in other leagues. However,
one such organization, the International League, under pressure from
journalistic opinion and the protests of certain white players, decided, in
1887, to prohibit the admission of additional black players to its organi-
zation. In the course of that year, moreover, the situation worsened until
African Americans found themselves excluded from all “white” profes-
sional teams (Rader 1996). This situation was to persist until after World
War II. Indeed, it was not until the arrival of Jackie Robinson with the
100 ISOLATION OR EXPANSION ?
Similarly, the contest between Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardi-
nals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs to beat Roger Maris’s record
of home runs hit in a single season helped to bring the crowds back to
baseball in 1998. While this was a contest that was acted out in the pres-
ent, it also evoked memories of baseball in the past, particularly during
that period when the “homer” first became one of the game’s major sell-
ing points (Crepeau 1980). The race for the record number of home runs
in a season was somewhat clouded by the revelation that one of the front
runners, McGwire, had taken androstenedione which is directly con-
verted by the body into testosterone, elevated levels of which help ath-
letes to train harder, recover more quickly, and increase power and mus-
cle for quick-burst athletic activity (USA Today, 26 August 1998). To all
intents and purposes, however, McGwire’s admission of “guilt” could
scarcely compete in the battle for news time with the American passion
for record breaking in the National Pastime.
In any case, there was perhaps another issue involved, one that sheds
further light on the relationship between sport and being American.
Although McGwire and Sosa were inextricably linked in the contest to set
a record in the National Pastime, only one of them, McGwire, was truly
an American, at least in the eyes of many baseball fans. In 1998, Sosa was
one of eighty-five players from the Dominican Republic currently
involved in major league baseball in the United States. He was born in
San Pedro de Macoris, sold oranges and shone shoes on the streets as a
child, and grew up unaware of the history and tradition associated with
baseball in America. McGwire, on the other hand, epitomized the white,
working-class hero—“a hoe-down, home-town American slugger” (Ob-
server, 6 September 1998). When McGwire won the race to beat the Maris
record, therefore, it was a genuine American achievement as opposed to
simply an achievement in an American sport. He subsequently went on
to set a new record of seventy home runs for the season. Afterward
McGwire observed, “I’m glad I’ve been associated with Sammy Sosa. It’s
been a great year for everyone. I’m absolutely exhausted. I don’t think
you can use your mind any more playing baseball. I’ve amazed myself
that I’ve stayed in a tunnel for so long. It just proves to me I can overcome
anything with the strength of my mind” (Guardian, 29 September 1998).
Sosa’s assessment of the season had been rather more cryptic but no less
instructive. Speaking about his own personal achievement, he is on
record as saying, “My country is happy” (USA Today, 9 September 1998).
He did not mean the United States.
Baseball’s place in American hearts is also testified to by the number
of creative writers who have given the game prominence in their work.
Bernard Malamud’s The Natural (1952), Robert Coover’s The Universal
Baseball Association, inc. J. Henry Waugh, PROP. (1992), and Philip Roth’s
102 ISOLATION OR EXPANSION ?
The Great American Novel (1973), to name but a few, all feature baseball as
a central motif. According to Messenger (1990), “Baseball fiction has been
the most supple and imaginative of all sports fiction, allowing the
authors the greatest range of imaginative inter-play” (24). Certainly
through his central character, J. Henry Waugh, Coover offers us a range
of insights not only into Americans’ relationship with baseball but also
into the American psyche more generally (Bairner 1996c).
Moreover, not only writers of fiction but intellectuals more generally
have been captivated over the years by baseball’s central location in
American culture. As Pope (1997) observes, “To this day, baseball’s pre-
ferred ideology runs untrammeled throughout the nation’s cultural land-
scape.” Thus, “journalists, popular intellectuals, and filmmakers con-
tinue to stoke the flames of baseball’s ‘innocent,’ mythical past” (80).
Indeed, as Pope (1997) claims, “the search for an idealistic, pristine
national identity in the lexicon of baseball is a uniquely American tradi-
tion” (82).
The early 1990s was by no means the first time when baseball’s future
was thought to be threatened. Indeed, despite its popularity in the inter-
war years, its demise was already being predicted. This was based on a
belief that “a slow and dull game could never sustain itself in a society
that was increasing its speed and could ultimately find meaning only in
intense activity” (Crepeau 1980, 107). This ignored the fact that one of
baseball’s great charms had always been its timeless quality. However
mythic the idea of baseball’s origins and the portrayal of its links to a
rural idyll, the success of the game has not simply been the result of suc-
cessful marketing from Spalding onward. Indeed, as we know, myths are
of vital importance in the construction of links between cultural phe-
nomena and national identities. As Zingg (1988) points out, “Throughout
their history, Americans have appeared unusually eager to embrace fact
and fiction with equal enthusiasm—and often little discrimination—in
the name of national pride” (356). For that reason, “artificially conceived,
vigorously defended, ostentatiously celebrated, baseball is the quintes-
sential American game” (Zingg 1988, 356). Yet concerns about the its
future have remained.
The pessimistic prognosis, however, was premised, in part, on a feel-
ing that baseball was ill suited to the new economic order and its links to
sport. As Crepeau (1980) comments on one of baseball’s all time greats,
Babe Ruth, “He was a celebrated and endangered species in the emerg-
ing corporate America” (82). There was also a belief that, in terms of
sport’s entertainment value, speed and the clock had become the key
characteristics, as they were of modern American life in general, and that
these were more adequately reflected by both American football and bas-
ketball than by baseball. Nevertheless baseball’s influence on the devel-
Nationalism and Sport in the United States 103
“Indians,” the Washington “Redskins,” and the Kansas City “Chiefs” are
all names of major league franchises. Even college teams adopt similar
derivative names—for example, Florida State University “Seminoles”
and the University of Illinois “Fighting Illini.” The names are accompa-
nied by crowd gestures, including the “Indian Chant” and the “Toma-
hawk Chop.” So what is this all about in terms of the construction of an
American national identity? Many native Americans have argued that it
is part of a racist discourse that in general seriously undermines their sta-
tus in contemporary American society (Churchill 1993). The response by
the sports authorities has been to argue that, in fact, the use of such
names and practices honors native people and involves them more in
American national identity. But as Churchill (1993) has asked, how hon-
ored would African Americans be by a team called the “Niggers”? He
proceeds to conjure up numerous similar names, all of them “honoring”
some section of the American population—the Kansas City “Kikes,” the
San Leandro “Shylocks,” the Fresno “Faggots,” the San Diego “Spics,”
and the Baltimore “Beaners,” among others. Their very absurdity forces
us to consider why the “Redskins” is an appropriate title and the answer
is obvious. Native Americans are pre-Americans and count for far less in
terms of the construction of what it is to be American than do Italians,
Jews, and even Mexicans, all of whom have been in the melting pot how-
ever imperfectly that has been stirred. The native peoples, however, are
the true other and can be denigrated in this way without giving serious
offense to most American people. Some progress has been made in this
respect. Stanford University, for example, has dropped the name
“Indians” from its sports teams. But most Americans continue to see the
campaign to change the names of leading franchises as the result of an
excess of political correctness. Whether they would regard attempts to
marginalize their own particular group of ethnic origin is an entirely dif-
ferent matter.
ple Title IX (of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972), which out-
lawed sexual discrimination by school districts and institutions of higher
education in receipt of federal aid. Whatever the success of such resist-
ance to date, however, much remains to be achieved before one can claim
that the American people are truly united by sport. For the time being,
the control of sport is still in the hands of capital in general and of rich,
white men specifically. To the extent to which this remains equally true of
American society as a whole, of course, it is appropriate to speak of sport
as being a fair reflection of the nation’s identity as a whole. Furthermore,
this does not mean that sport simply reflects the nature of American soci-
ety. Rather, it has consistently been implicated in making America the
sort of place that it is. Commenting on the formative years of modern
sport in America, Mrozek (1983) argues, “More than a microcosm of other
elements, sport was a new pattern in the social fabric, novel as an insti-
tution, with so many open ends, and so many raw edges that it could
grasp hold of the double-faced entity that was the American experience
and the American mentality” (235).
During the Cold War, sport clearly had a part to play in the promotion
of American values. International events, such as the Olympic Games,
acquired a new significance. For much of that period the contest between
the Americans and the Soviet bloc was unequal for two related reasons.
First, the representatives of the United States who travelled to the Olym-
pics remained truer to the amateur ideal than did their “communist”
opponents who were stigmatized by the Western media, not without evi-
dence, for their “shamateurism.” Indeed, despite the achievements of
countless American athletes, before, during, and after the Cold War, track
and field has consistently been something of a poor relation in the
nation’s sports culture in terms of spectator interest and, indeed, financial
incentives. In fact, the second reason why American Olympic teams were
often at a disadvantage when competing against Soviet or East German
teams is directly linked to both money and the American sporting cul-
ture. Games such as baseball and American football remained quintes-
sentially American. The former has now appeared at the Olympic Games,
but only since the cessation of Cold War hostilities. Furthermore, not only
are they American games, they also offer remarkably lucrative career
opportunities for the most successful players. Thus, whereas the Soviet
Union was traditionally in a position to call upon its very best sports peo-
ple to secure Olympic victories and, thereby, promote the communist sys-
tem, America’s Olympics teams were bereft of much of the nation’s ath-
letic talent.
Despite America’s difficulties in competing with the communist chal-
lenge, however, in the Olympics, the World Athletics Championships, the
Pan-American Games, and so on, track and field stars became (and
Nationalism and Sport in the United States 113
115
116 MAPLE LEAF AMERICANS
are inspired by concerns with uniqueness and exclusion, then sports and
other cultural traditions that may have limited popular appeal can nev-
ertheless serve a useful political purpose.
The expansion of lacrosse beyond its native roots was largely inspired
by Dr. William George Beers, a considerable propagandist of all things
Canadian who sought in particular to take advantage of the nationalistic
fervor generated by the formation of the Canadian confederation in 1867.
During the 1860s, having learned the Mohawk game of tewaarathon, Beers
developed the modern form of lacrosse, providing it with a written set of
rules and standardized equipment. In 1867, he was also instrumental in
establishing a governing body—the National Lacrosse Association
(NLA)—the first such institution to be formed in Canada (Kidd 1996).
During that year, lacrosse was an event at many Dominion Day celebra-
tions and the NLA banner proclaimed, “Our Country and Our Game”
(Morrow et al. 1989). According to Morrow (1989), “The years between
1868 and 1885 were pivotal in the development and growth of lacrosse in
Canada” (55). During that period, Beers organized three tours of
Britain—in 1867, 1876, and 1883. In part, he was eager to sell the game of
lacrosse to the people of a country in which the modern sporting revolu-
tion had first taken place and which, therefore, had been influential in the
process whereby lacrosse was codified and structured despite its dis-
tinctly non-British roots. The tours, however, were also a showcase for
Canada itself, with lacrosse performing the function of a national-popu-
lar activity and, as such, underlining the distinctive character of the new
Canadian nation (Morrow et al. 1989). To further illustrate the point, it
was during these tours that Canadian sportsmen first wore the maple leaf
symbol on their jerseys. By the 1880s, lacrosse had reached its pinnacle as
a national sporting symbol of Canada. But it had already played an
important role in allowing a certain section of the population to turn their
backs on the sports that had been exported to Canada from Britain and,
therefore, to develop a specifically Canadian sporting nationalism. For
the most part, however, it was now left to other sports to carry on the
work begun by the pioneers of modern lacrosse. Whether they would be
able to mount a successful challenge to the next phase of sporting impe-
rialism, which was to come from an entirely different direction, remained
to be seen.
or anywhere else in the United States for that matter. In fact, a game using
rules very similar to those that were to be adopted for baseball in New
York in 1845 is recorded to have been played in Brockville, Ontario, as
early as 1838 (Morrow et al. 1989). It is certainly undeniable that
“between 1900 and 1920 baseball was Canada’s most popular sport”
(Morrow et al. 1989, 126) and had taken over from lacrosse as the nation’s
summer game. In addition, as Metcalfe (1987) records, it was “the only
game played by all Canadian social classes” (93).
It can be argued, however, that baseball today plays more of a part in
the process through which Canada is being Americanized than in helping
to maintain a separate sense of Canadian identity. There is no denying that
when the Toronto Blue Jays won baseball’s World Series in successive years
the achievement brought a sense of pride to many Canadians, particularly
in the city of Toronto itself. Nevertheless, the victory was secured in what
is universally regarded as an American sport, that is, one that “belongs” to
the United States, and without the assistance of native-born Canadian
players. Indeed, with the Montreal Expos as the country’s only other pres-
ence in big-time baseball, Canada’s participation at the highest level of
competition is seriously at odds with the game’s grassroots popularity.
It is a similar story with basketball, a game that was actually invented
by a Canadian, James Naismith, but which has come to be regarded as the
most successful example of an American sport that has become globally
popular. Certainly it is a widely played sport in Canada. However,
despite the game’s popularity as a serious sport as well as a recreational
pastime throughout the country, top level professional basketball is
played in only two Canadian cities—Toronto and Vancouver—and again
normally with teams made up predominantly of players born in the
United States. Because neither franchise has enjoyed any marked success
since entering the National Basketball Association, it is too early to say
whether or not their achievements would impact greatly on Canadian
sporting nationalism. But it is safe to postulate that these would have neg-
ligible repercussions beyond the host cities. Indeed, the immediate effect
of the quest by Canadian cities to attract “world class” entertainment,
NBA and professional baseball franchises included, has been to replicate
the American pattern whereby jingoism in sport is more likely to involve
devotion to particular teams than to representative national sides.
Canada Is Hockey?
Hockey is a sport Canadians invented. As a result, according to Gruneau
and Whitson (1993), “It is hardly surprising that of all the sports played
in Canada hockey has long been celebrated as something unique” (3).
Hockey, according to another group of Canadian sports sociologists, is
“part of our image of ourselves” (Hall et al. 1991, 41). Simpson (1989)
describes “the development of longstanding rivalries that cemented, in
the minds of Canadians, the close relationship of hockey to the sense of
Canadian identity” (195). Hockey did not attain its current status over-
night. But, as Metcalfe (1987) reveals, “By the early twentieth century, [it]
had become recognized as Canada’s national winter sport and its roots
ran deep into small-town community life” (168).
124 MAPLE LEAF AMERICANS
don’t know this really bothers them) a Canadian game. And in a way, the
game is beneath them” (45). There is certainly a perceived Canadian way
of playing the game that is celebrated as being in some manner indicative
of a national character—rugged, honest, utilitarian. We have also noticed
how the establishment in Canadian cities of “world class” baseball and
basketball franchises help to create a form of civic jingoism that is at odds
with the concept of sporting nationalism. This is equally true of hockey
although, in a perverse manner, by endorsing the importance of local
community in an increasingly small world, the game continues to pre-
serve a certain element of Canadian national identity. In other ways,
however, hockey’s relationship to place raises serious concerns about its
ability both to transcend divisions and to aid cultural resistance. Indeed,
there are numerous indications that hockey is implicated in processes
through which cultural divisions in Canada are maintained and even
exacerbated. In addition, there is a serious question mark surrounding
the sport’s capacity to facilitate resistance to Americanization.
it was revealed how the new Canadians have not only refused to be as-
similated into Canada’s sporting culture but are also unhappy with
aspects of the prevailing political culture as well.
However, Canada has proved to be an attractive destination for immi-
grants, many of whom have arrived in recent decades from the Carib-
bean. On occasion, sport has played a significant part in their integration,
not, of course, if they have clung to the parental culture and continued to
play cricket, but certainly when they have turned their attention to activ-
ities such as track and field and boxing. This integrative process, how-
ever, has not been without its difficulties. These became particularly
acute in the wake of the revelation that Canadian athlete Ben Johnson had
used steroids in his preparation for the Seoul Olympics in 1988 when he
was initially awarded a gold medal for his world record–setting per-
formance in the 100 meters final. As Jackson (1998) claims, “The tarnished
legacy of Ben Johnson continues to influence the lives of Canadians, espe-
cially those black athletes who are following in the former sprinter’s foot-
steps” (23).
In part, the Johnson scandal is tied into a range of considerations
about sporting ethics and the demands of elite performance. If Canadians
are to compete successfully on the world stage, how should they respond
to the allure of performance-enhancing drugs? At this level, Canadian
athletes have been drawn into a debate that also occupies the attention of
their fellow competitors worldwide. But, because of its racial ramifica-
tions, the Ben Johnson saga extends beyond that general concern. As
Jackson (1998) observes, “Johnson’s mediated representation during his
reign as world champion, an achievement which brought Canada inter-
national recognition and prestige, reveals a temporary displacement of
his racial identity” (27). Johnson had become “Canadian,” not “Jamaican-
Canadian” far less “Jamaican.” He was presented as being in possession
of a “Canadian” work ethic and achievement orientation. In addition, his
successes on the track had provided a basis for the strengthening of
Canadian self-esteem and, hence, national identity. This changed imme-
diately with the disclosure of Johnson’s guilty secret. As Jackson (1998)
describes it, “Following the initial shock, disbelief, denial, and shame,
there appeared to be a wave of abandonment and resentment” (29). This
led to an outbreak of serial racial stereotyping, which ultimately raised
doubts about the entire basis of Johnson’s Canadian identity (Jackson
1998). For example, according to Jackson (1998), “Media discourses that
define Johnson as a Jamaican immigrant, represent him as an animal, and
imply that he lacks intelligence are all ways in which his Canadian iden-
tity is called into question” (35). It can be argued that, in the intervening
years, a number of black athletes, many of them sprinters, have not only
served to rehabilitate Canadian track and field after the Ben Johnson
Sport and Canadian National Identity 131
gests, “The ‘loss’ of Wayne Gretzky came to embody for many Canadians
their worst fears regarding this American influence and domination”
(435). If the greatest hockey player of all time, himself a native of Toronto,
could not be persuaded to spend his entire professional career in Canada,
then serious questions had to be asked about Canadian “ownership” of
the game. As Jackson (1994) reveals, the Gretzky affair is only one ele-
ment in a more general crisis of Canadian identity, which can be traced
back to 1988. “Conceptualized as a ‘conjunctural moment,’” he writes,
“the intersection of a specific set of political, economic, and cultural
events led some people to label 1988 as a year of crisis in Canadian iden-
tity” (431). Apart from Gretzky’s departure to the United States and his
no less significant marriage to an American actress, Janet Jones, there was
the major political issue of the Canada-United States Free Trade
Agreement which was regarded by its opponents as having the potential
to lead to American domination of the Canadian economy. In both sport
and beyond, the threat of total Americanization seemed all the more
imminent. The prevailing intellectual discourse was one that was charac-
terized by crisis.
In terms of ice hockey, this fear is given added poignancy each time a
Canadian NHL franchise is lost. Apart from Quebec City losing out to
Denver, the Winnipeg franchise has subsequently gone to Phoenix,
Arizona, and the prognosis for the Edmonton franchise is not good. The
NHL itself is based in the United States and during the industrial dis-
putes of recent years the impression frequently given has been that of
American business and capital at loggerheads with decent young Cana-
dian men. For example, criticism of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman
has frequently been couched in anti-American terms, despite Bettman’s
consistent assertion that the game needs the Canadians. Writing in the
Hockey News, Stan Fischler (1996), for example, drew his readers’ atten-
tion to Bettman’s involvement in “the de-hockeying of Canada.” Certain-
ly future expansion plans for the NHL are all about increasing the num-
ber of American franchises at a time when even even some of those
currently operating in Canada are under threat. It is already planned that
the NHL will have expanded to consist of thirty teams in the near future,
with new franchises having been granted to the cities of Nashville, Atlan-
ta, Columbus, and Minneapolis-St Paul (Hockey News, 31 July 1997). This
would mean that there would be twenty-five NHL teams operating in the
United States and only five in Canada, with the Edmonton Oilers having
been relocated to the United States.
Furthermore, those business interests that exercise ultimate control
over the NHL are determined that professional ice hockey should expand
beyond North America into the potentially lucrative markets of Europe
and Japan. The first tentative steps to conquer the Asian market were
Sport and Canadian National Identity 135
taken on 3 and 4 October 1997 when the NHL’s Mighty Ducks of Ana-
heim (whose connections with the Disney industry further underline the
extent to which the game has been penetrated by global and/or Ameri-
can influences) and the Vancouver Canucks played a two-game series in
Japan. This was the first occasion when NHL regular season games had
taken place outside of North America and coincided with claims that an
Asian super league would be established within the next ten years
(Hockey News, 24 October 1997). Ensuring that the leading players would
compete in Nagano was also part of a strategy to widen the appeal of
hockey (Hockey News, 13 September 1996).
It is inevitable that Canadian-born players will play a major role in
this process of expansion just as they have already helped to improve
standards in Europe. According to Gruneau and Whitson (1993), one
effect of NHL expansion would be to make hockey appear even less dis-
tinctively Canadian. On the other hand, they recognize that the fact that
Danish and Irish soccer professionals ply their trade beyond their native
shores has not necessarily weakened the national identity of their respec-
tive countries. Indeed, hockey players could actually help to increase
international awareness of Canadian distinctiveness. Moreover, the glob-
alization of soccer has done little to diminish its popularity in those coun-
tries, most notably of the United Kingdom, in which it was first played.
To what extent then, if at all, can hockey play a part in helping Cana-
dians to resist globalization, which in this instance at least can be charac-
terized as Americanization although one should not overlook the degree
to which cultural flows have impacted in a variety of ways on the coun-
try’s sports culture? Steve Dryden (1996), as editor in chief of the Hockey
News, has sought to offer a realistic appraisal of the likely relationship
between hockey and Canadians in the future. Dryden notes that “hockey
is a Canadian birthright and it will never be anything else.” It cannot
acquire the same standing in the United States. On the other hand,
Dryden recognizes that playing standards in the United States and else-
where will continue to rise. But Canada will still be able to compete suc-
cessfully at international level and, as a direct result of the growing
strength of the game internationally, victories will be all the more com-
mendable and will, thus, strengthen national self-esteem. Moreover, it is
possible that hockey’s capacity to reproduce a specifically Canadian iden-
tity will increasingly spring from its status within popular imagination. It
will continue to remind Canadians of a simpler age as yet unfamiliar with
the global pressure to conform. As Gruneau and Whitson record, “Hoc-
key continues to have a powerful grip on the imaginations and collective
memories of Canadians” (3). Furthermore, “Reminders of hockey’s sig-
nificant presence in Canadians’ collective memories help to keep alive the
idea of a national common culture” (Gruneau and Whitson 1993, 277).
136 MAPLE LEAF AMERICANS
Ironically, to this extent the game itself starts to pale into insignificance
when compared with a variety of spurs to the imagination, including col-
lectables, commemorative stamps, art galleries, advertising campaigns,
that use hockey as a central motif and, of course, Halls of Fame. Nostalgia
is also a key element in terms of the sales of books about hockey. One
publisher is quoted as claiming that “the sentiment behind the nostalgia
in Canada—still the heart of hockey readership and publishing—is the
belief the NHL is abandoning the game’s birthplace for the U.S.” (Hockey
News, 19 December 1997).
“The mystique of Canadian hockey,” according to Gruneau and Whit-
son (1993), “threatens to be reduced—like so much of the heritage indus-
try itself—to the marketing of nostalgia” (280). On the ice itself, the best
hope may yet lie in small town hockey where community and tradition
can still be celebrated around real hockey games as opposed to the hyper-
real productions of the NHL, which, in any case, are priced out of the
reach of many ordinary Canadians. The problem is that this is only one
aspect of hockey in Canada. In the cities of Toronto, Montreal, and
Vancouver the aim of corporate interests is to attract world-class enter-
tainment, and if that involves breaking Canada’s traditional link with
hockey so be it. Civic boosterism has scant interest in traditional values
and a historical sense of the Canadian virtues. Consumption and com-
modification become the key determinants and to that extent at least it
would appear that the United States leads and big-city Canada follows.
In many ways, therefore, and not least in the world of sport, it is
apparent that Canada has found the pressures of Americanization diffi-
cult to withstand. Hall et al. (1991) claim, however, that “organized sport
is different in Canada because Canadian society is unique” (13). Despite
its difficulties, it has managed to maintain a separate sporting identity.
Furthermore, with the CFL’s brief excursion into the American market
and, above all, by virtue of the fact that without Canadian players and the
national passion for the game of hockey, it would have been simply
impossible for the NHL to expand to such an extent in the United States,
Canada has even managed to exert its influence on American sports cul-
ture. The fact that it has been able to do so against such difficult odds is
further proof of the degree to which globalization, if it is to have any
explanatory value, must always be seen as a multidirectional process and
never unilinear. We shall consider, in the next chapter, whether this is
equally apparent in a society in which until relatively recently there has
been little obvious threat to a well-established and secure sense of
national identity. The example of Canada, however, also provides us with
clear evidence that, during the process of so-called globalization, as
Maguire (1999) suggests, space is opened up for the increased articulation
Sport and Canadian National Identity 137
Sporting Nationalism
for Beginners
SPORT AND NATIONALISM IN SWEDEN
139
140 SPORTING NATIONALISM FOR BEGINNERS
impacted on sport in the 1980s and 1990s. One reason for the obvious
sporting nationalism of the Norwegians may reside in the fact that Nor-
way’s history, so much of it spent under foreign rule, has simply made its
people more nationalistic in general and this sentiment has simply been
transported into the world of sport. Certainly the sporting rivalry with
their larger and historically more powerful neighbor, Sweden, has tradi-
tionally been far more keenly felt by Norwegians than by the Swedes. But
as this chapter reveals, it would be foolish to presume that Sweden has
somehow been isolated from nationalism through a specific set of histor-
ical circumstances.
Goksøyr (1998) points out that two different styles of nationalism may
be involved. “Historically,” he writes, “the most aggressive Norwegian
nationalism has been left-wing oriented and relatively democratic, while
the most aggressive Swedish nationalism has been strongly right-wing
oriented and authoritarian” (102). This description of Swedish national-
ism is arguably too general to do justice to its complexities. It is undeni-
able, however, that the national identity of the Swedes has tended to be
closer to that of other major powers, as has befitted its status as the
biggest nation-state in the Nordic region, whereas Norwegian national-
ism is rooted in ideas about small countries taking on the mighty.
According to Goksøyr (1998), modern Swedes have developed a peculiar
attitude toward nationalism and nationality. He argues that “in the for-
mer Nordic Great Power, Sweden, until about 1990 there was a self-con-
ception of being Nordic in Europe and a diminution in the importance of
a national identity” (102). He refers to the saying, “to be Swedish is
unSwedish.” As this chapter reveals, however, comments such as this
actually offer an insight into Swedish national identity. Far from being
linked solely to a conservative vision that is either inward looking or
looks at the rest of the world as virtually untouchable, Swedish national
consciousness in the twentieth century has been inextricably linked to a
desire to be internationalist in certain clearly defined ways. Elitist ideas
about being Swedish have remained and, indeed, been merged with
social democratic internationalism. In addition, the modern period has
witnessed the emergence of a type of right-wing nationalism that owes
more to small-nation thinking than to ideas about national superiority.
But this merely serves to emphasize that there is such a thing as Swedish
nationalism and that this phenomenon cannot simply be categorized as
belonging on a certain point of the ideological spectrum.
This chapter addresses the unwarranted neglect of Swedish national-
ism in general and sporting nationalism specifically by arguing not only
that Sweden is a sporting nation but also that sport has reflected and con-
tributed to shifts in Swedish national identity and has played an impor-
tant role in the way in which the Swedish nation has been presented on
Sport and Nationalism in Sweden 141
sporting reputation up until quite recently was based mainly on the feats
of their footballers and winter sportsmen and women, plus occasional and
unexpected contributions such as that of heavyweight boxer Ingemar
Johansson.” More recently, however, there has been a dramatic upturn in
the fortunes, first, of Swedish male tennis players and, then, by men and
women golfers. As Henderson reminds us, “Sweden’s rise as a golfing
nation followed the tennis revolution, but has been no less inexorable.”
A third reason for describing Sweden as a sporting nation relates to
the involvement of Swedes in the organization of international sport, to
attempts to export the Swedish approach to sport to other countries, and
to a constant willingness to play host to international sporting events.
Swedes have represented their country on countless international sport-
ing bodies, with Lennart Johansson, the president of the European foot-
ball union (UEFA) being the best-known current example (Johansson
1998). Also in an internationalist spirit, the Swedish sports movement has
sought to influence sports policy in countries as far apart as Tanzania and
Latvia (Feldreich 1993; Hedlund 1984; Johansson 1986). In addition, since
the Olympic Games were held in Stockholm in 1912, Sweden has hosted
numerous international sporting events, including the World Cup Finals
in football in 1958 and the world championships in athletics, ice hockey,
and women’s football in 1995 alone. But it is not only elite international
competition that is welcomed to Sweden. Thus, youth football tourna-
ments bring hundreds of boys and girls to the cities of Gothenburg and
Stockholm every summer. For these young visitors, the image of Sweden
as a sporting nation leaves a definite lasting impression.
A final reason for associating Sweden with sport is prompted by the
close relationship that has existed for most of the twentieth century
between sports policy and the general organization of Swedish society at
the height of the so-called Swedish model. Sport has been prized for
many years in Sweden because of the contribution that it is believed to
make not merely to the physical well-being of the population (although
that would be important enough) but also to the fabric of Swedish soci-
ety. The extent to which this has implicated sport in the construction of a
particular version of Swedish national identity shall be examined later in
this chapter. It is already apparent, however, that sport is important in
Sweden and that Swedes themselves take the role of sport in their society
very seriously indeed (Andersson 1991). But the nuances of Swedish
sport remain largely unknown to English-speaking audiences.
Indeed, he suggests that “in Sweden there is scarcely another field where
love of fatherland is expressed so strongly in unison by so many” (206).
Despite the accuracy of these observations, however, when the relation-
ship between sport and national identity is explored, Sweden has seldom
figured in the discussions. There may be sound historic reasons for this
neglect. Changes in Swedish society and the relationship between Swe-
den and the outside world have been such as to make earlier explana-
tions for ignoring the issue of national identity unsustainable. In any case,
they have simply helped to obscure important aspects of Swedish history.
It was not until 1905 and the dissolution of the Union with Norway
that the modern boundaries of Sweden were established. Moreover, late-
nineteenth-century Swedes were conscious of the importance of devel-
oping a distinctive national identity. Second, although the Social Demo-
crats who have governed Sweden for most of the twentieth century were
highly successful in their attempts to avoid involvement in the major
international disputes that directly affected much of the rest of the world
while simultaneously developing a significant international status by
virtue of neutrality, it can be argued that their policies were instrumental
in the reshaping of Swedish national identity. Indeed, these resulted in a
particular representation of Swedishness that was apparent in the affairs
of the sports movement as well as in other areas of life, and which may
well remain dominant today. But, thirdly, although it is undeniable that,
for most of this century, Sweden has managed to avoid both ethnic divi-
sion and also the worst excesses of chauvinistic nationalism, it is worth
asking if it can continue to do so into the next century. The end of the
Cold War rendered Sweden’s neutrality a less important characteristic in
terms of the construction of national identity. In addition, challenges to a
cohesive sense of Swedishness have arisen as a result of the country’s
membership in the European Union and high levels of immigration,
which have weakened substantially the relative homogeneity of the Swe-
dish population. These changed circumstances are at the root of the
growth of more chauvinistic nationalist rhetoric in Sweden. Among other
things, this chapter considers the extent to which sport is likely to be
involved if a more exclusive version of what it is to be Swedish becomes
a significant political trend.
According to Eichberg (1989), “The history of Scandinavian sport sug-
gests the presence of a specific identity, which is not merely a copy or
variation of international ‘normality’” (1). Indeed, he suggests that Scan-
dinavian sport has contributed to the construction of a “Nordic regional
identity.” There is certainly some truth in this insofar as winter sports and
a variety of outdoor activities, such as orienteering, are evocative of a
Nordic way of life. Physical activity in the Nordic region has a long and
diverse history, spanning the Viking era, the early Middle Ages, and the
144 SPORTING NATIONALISM FOR BEGINNERS
Renaissance. Only some of this activity, however, was in any way pecu-
liar to the Nordic peoples. For example, many of the games that were
played by the Vikings had been adopted as a result of contact with the
Celtic peoples of Scotland and Ireland. In addition, the aristocratic sports
played in Scandinavia in the Middle Ages were largely indistinguishable
from those enjoyed in other parts of Europe. Some attempts were made,
however, to associate sporting prowess with the Norse gods, although
even these can be likened to the linking of mythology and physical activ-
ity that is apparent in the construction of Irish sporting nationalism (Blom
and Lindroth 1995). One form of physical activity, however, did have
very real roots in the Nordic region and was to assume critical impor-
tance in the construction of Nordic identities.
In each of these periods, sport not only reflected the contemporary artic-
ulation of Swedish national identity but also played an important part in
the construction and consolidation of the particular sense of identity
being expressed.
As Sandblad (1985) suggests, “In Sweden, one way of compensating
for the political defeat of 1809, involving the loss of Finland, was the
dream of reviving the ancient Norse spirit and strength” (394). Not sur-
prisingly, therefore, physical activity in early-nineteenth-century Sweden
was closely linked to nationalism and militarism (Patriksson 1973).
Indeed, virtually all physical education in Sweden from the mid-nine-
teenth century until the time of World War I was intended, first and fore-
most, to serve the interests of the military (Meinander 1992). Given these
objectives, it was perhaps inevitable that Swedish physical exercise
would be dominated by gymnastics. But there was an added nationalis-
tic dimension to this preference inasmuch as the particular form of gym-
nastics that dominated Swedish physical education had been devised by
a Swede, Per Henrik Ling (1776–1839). As Sandblad (1985) observes, “In
Sweden, as in most other Scandinavian countries, modern sport was in
part an outgrowth of Ling’s system of gymnastics” (397). To begin with,
146 SPORTING NATIONALISM FOR BEGINNERS
at a time when Norway was caught up in the travails of World War II and
Sweden was continuing to declare its neutrality.
Gradually, however, the emphasis placed by Swedes on the Nordic
Games and indeed on romanticized Gotian ideals began to wane. On the
political front, the union with Norway was dissolved in 1905 and the two
countries became more serious sporting rivals than ever before (Lindroth
1977). In fact, three years after the dissolution of the Union, the principal
concern of Sweden’s sports leaders was that Norway’s representatives
should not perform better than Swedish athletes at the 1908 Olympic
Games in London (Holmäng 1988). As their concern would indicate,
another important change had taken place in the early years of the twen-
tieth century, with Sweden becoming far more involved in the modern
international sports movement.
According to Holmäng (1988), “Right from the start Sweden took part
in international sports interchanges to a prominent degree both through
competition and leadership” (5). But this does not tell the whole story. In
fact, Sweden was relatively slow to develop a modern sports movement,
with a national federation (the Central Association for the Promotion of
Sports) not being established until 1897 and the prototype of the present
ruling body of Swedish sport, Riksidrottsförbundet or RF (the Swedish
Sports Confederation) only being instituted in 1903. Early examples of
modern athletic competitions had been held in Sweden in 1882 (Sand-
blad). But the emergence of a national sports movement was delayed as a
result of continuing support for the Lingian tradition and also rivalry
between the cities of Stockholm and Gothenburg, with support for the tra-
ditional approach to physical education remaining strong in the former
whereas the ideas of the modernizers had come to dominate discussions
about sport in the latter. Liberals were particularly keen to take control of
sport out of the hands of military and commercial interests (Meinander
1998). There were also generational differences in terms of attitudes
toward sport and the way was open for Swedish sport to be taken in inter-
esting new directions. The one man most directly responsible for altering
the trajectory of Swedish physical activity at that time was Viktor Balck.
Opinions remain divided as to how progressive Balck himself actually
was. He became president of Sweden’s national sports federation at its
inception in 1903. According to Sandblad (1985), he was influenced by
Gotian ideas and made frequent references to the physical prowess of the
norsemen. As Meinander (1998) points out, Balck learned much from the
ideas of his friend Frithiof Holmgren who was Professor of Physiology at
the University of Uppsala. Holmgren’s two main themes were those of
the Vikings as role models and Darwinism as reality and these he applied
to an understanding of sport as being necessarily competitive. Under-
lying all of this was an essentially conservative view of human society.
148 SPORTING NATIONALISM FOR BEGINNERS
Indeed, Sandblad (1985) suggests that Balck and his supporters “used
sport for political purposes, in a conservative direction, even though they
did not themselves conceive of it as anything but pure patriotism” (405).
In Sandblad’s view, little actually changed as a consequence of Balck’s
assuming control of the national sports movement. He argues that “in
Swedish national politics, the sports movement was given its most vig-
orous support by the Right, with its commitment to a strong military
defence” (405). Yttergren (1994) also refers to Balck as a nationalist and a
conservative. But there are other very different views on Balck.
Patriksson (1973), for example, is in no doubt that, at least in terms of
sport, Balck was a modernizer. To understand how such wildly differing
assessments have come about, one turns to Lindroth, one of the leading
historians of Swedish sport. Lindroth (1981) does not deny Balck’s patri-
otism nor his conservative ideas about the relationship between sport and
moral development. Indeed, he suggests that Balck’s high estimation of
sport related to the beneficial effects he believed it to have on the mind
and character of each participant. He paid little attention to any physical
benefits playing sport might have. However, Lindroth also points out that
at a fairly early stage Balck had become an admirer of English sportsman-
ship and he was certainly opposed to the dogmatic and narrow views
about physical exercise that were exhibited in the gymnastics system
developed by P. H. Ling’s son, Hjalmar. Sandblad (1985), too, admits that
not only Gotian ideas but also principles drawn from neoclassicism
affected Balck’s views on sport and these may well have influenced him
to play a modernizing role, in spite of his political conservatism.
There is certainly no denying Balck’s commitment to Olympism and
through that to international sporting competition. Others were adopting
a view of sport which owed more to arguments about the liberation of
human potential (Meinander, 1998). But it is clear that while Balck may
have successfully distanced himself from the cultural conservatism in-
herent in the defense of Ling gymnastics, he nevertheless advocated the
idea of competition and, thereby, stood opposed to theories of sport and
recreation that focus primarily on the intrinsic development of the indi-
vidual. He found it difficult, however, to win over his country’s sporting
establishment to this idea. As Jørgensen (1998) notes, “Even though Balck
was an enthusiastic advocate of the Olympic idea, he did not have imme-
diate success in obtaining the backing of his native country, and only one
sportsman from Sweden participated in 1896” (70). Lingian isolationism
was still a potent force.
It is important to recognise that, during the opening decades of the
twentieth century, Sweden itself, and not just Swedish sport, was under-
going major changes, which fundamentally altered the context within
Sport and Nationalism in Sweden 149
that they are ignored in their native Sweden whereas their contempo-
raries from other countries have been virtually deified (Bairner 1994b)
There is also a beneficial side, however, to the application of Jante’s Law
to Swedish soccer. In domestic competition, for example, teamwork is
something that almost appears to be second nature to Swedish foot-
ballers. There is also an advantage to the national team inasmuch as
highly paid professionals, plying their trade in some of the richest
leagues in the world, are expected to play alongside part-time players
from Swedish clubs. In some instances, this could be a recipe for disaster,
with the home-based players being either awestruck, resentful, or both
and the stars from overseas regarding it as being beneath their dignity to
have to perform on the same team as men who spend much of their
working week in banks or school classrooms. The informal application of
Jantelagen, however, at least partly explains why it is relatively easy for
players with such disparate experiences to bond together in the national
interest. None of the highly paid exports would scorn the opportunity to
represent their country regardless of the composition of the team and,
unlike some of the star performers in other countries, neither would they
dream of selling their stories to the press and thereby taking advantage
of their celebrity status. Egalitarianism, at least on a temporary basis, is
the essence of the national team and its players. The team in this regard
is meant to be like Swedish society as a whole. It is an organic entity in
which each element has a vital part to play and should be respected
accordingly. Indeed, this evokes yet another concept that is a constant
feature of discussions about Swedish social democracy—namely, folkhem-
met or, in English, the People’s Home.
The idea of the People’s Home has been central to the construction of
a social democratic society in Sweden. The Swedes have been invited to
behave in a socially responsible way toward their compatriots in pre-
cisely the same fashion as people are generally expected to fulfil their
obligations to their fellow family members. For the most part, the princi-
ple has worked well although there is extensive debate as to whether its
success is attributable to the ideological appeal of social democracy or to
a well-established Swedish political culture which is receptive to the val-
ues inscribed in folkhemmet. Whatever the past has revealed, however,
Sweden has changed sufficiently in recent times for doubts to emerge
concerning the long term relevance of lagom, Jantelagen, folkhemmet, and,
by implication, the Swedish Model.
Commenting on the current problems faced by the Swedish Model,
Lane (1993) highlights findings that suggest that “involvement in broad
citizens’ organizations was high in terms of formal membership (94 per-
cent of a national sample) but the real level of participation by ordinary
people was very low” (318). In this respect, the future of RF is arguably
154 SPORTING NATIONALISM FOR BEGINNERS
brighter than that of the Swedish Model as a whole. Not only are large
numbers of Swedes active members of the sports movement, some
500,000 of them participate on an unpaid basis as coaches and officials. As
Henderson (Observer, 4 October 1998) records, “There are virtually no
full-time professionals in any sport—those who want to earn a living,
kicking a football or slapping a puck, go abroad—while the national
sporting structure is supported by volunteers, an estimated half a million
of them.” These volunteers make an immense contribution to Swedish
sport, not least when one considers that, if they were to be paid at the
same rates as youth leaders in the public sector, the cost to taxpayers
would be in the region of £1,500 million per annum (Riksidrottsförbundet
1994a). Needless to say, however, even with the considerable efforts of
these volunteers together with increased levels of private investment in
sport and leisure, RF could not fulfil its various commitments were it not
for government support. In return, it has been expected to achieve certain
objectives in keeping with the broader aspirations of the Swedish Model.
In line with the aspirations of those who constructed the Swedish
Model, RF has tried to promote sporting efficiency, an aim that is testified
to by the existence of a number of elite sports schools. At the same time,
great emphasis has been placed on the need to maximize the number of
people having access to sporting activity so that the principle of “sport
for all” never becomes an empty slogan. The status of sport in welfare
democracies such as Sweden has clearly owed a great deal to the contri-
bution it is believed to make to the general well-being of the population.
As Norberg (1998) observes, “With its physical and moral enhancing
qualities sport became a matter of public politics and moved into the
public sphere of responsibility” (131). This resulted in both increased
financial support and growing political interest. As we shall see, the
extent to which “sport for all” has resulted in true sporting equality is
open to question (Schelin 1985). In general, however, Swedish sports pol-
icy throughout most of the twentieth century has clearly reflected the
ambitions of the Swedish Model as a whole. Indeed, arguably, sporting
organizations have been recruited to the effort to realize a wider political
project (Norberg 1998). Thus, sport has developed in ways that are con-
sistent with the political strategies underpinning that wider social exper-
iment—combining private and public and making the most of high lev-
els of cooperativeness and public-spiritedness. Furthermore, by seeking
to export ideas about sport as well as by organizing international tourna-
ments at home, RF has done much to complement the outward-looking
policies that have characterized Swedish politics for many decades. In
sum, therefore, during the period in which the Swedish Model can be
said to have been in existence, a particular form of Swedish national iden-
tity was constructed around the themes of equality, efficiency, coopera-
Sport and Nationalism in Sweden 155
tion, and internationalism and the sports movement can be seen not only
to have reflected developments in that direction but also to have played
a major role in constructing and consolidating that version of Swedish-
ness. As the twentieth century draws to a close, however, Swedish soci-
ety is confronted with new challenges and it is conceivable that an alto-
gether different national identity may be constructed, with sport again
playing its part.
women and girls, and the extent of female participation in sports may be
even greater than that figure indicates because many equestrian and aer-
obic clubs, which are particularly popular with women, have tended to
operate outside of RF’s sphere of influence (Riksidrottsförbundet 1994a).
In spite of these positive indicators, disquiet has been expressed concern-
ing the far lower level of female involvement in the actual running of
sport. This discrepancy between image and actuality can be traced right
back to the turn of the century when, as Meinander (1998) records,
“although the social emancipation of women had gone far further in the
Nordic countries than in central Europe, sport was still strongly male-
dominated” (62). It has been suggested that the fact that sport remains
heavily influenced by patriarchal power relations is reflective of more
general problems in a variety of sectors of Swedish society (Riksidrotts-
förbundet 1994b). It is undeniably a deficiency in terms of the sports
movement’s contribution to equality. But, even more seriously, it is now
being argued that, while it is unlikely that Swedish women, or indeed
most Swedish men, would agree to a reduction of women’s access to
sport, social developments may yet limit the opportunities open to
women in a whole range of activities, sport included (Hirdman 1994;
Jenson and Mahon 1993). For its part, RF continues to struggle for greater
female involvement in the organization and administration of Swedish
sport. But as with its quest for equal access to sport in general, its capac-
ity to promote change is necessarily constrained by developments in the
wider realm of economics and politics. However, even if the Swedish
sports movement and, indeed, the Swedish Model never quite managed
to achieve the levels of equality admirers of the Swedish way have
claimed, it is undeniable that much was achieved in that respect and that,
as a consequence, a predisposition toward equality became established as
one of the main characteristics of Swedish identity. But if, as some have
suggested, the Swedish Model is now in a state of terminal decline, what
new version of Swedishness might emerge? Furthermore, in what ways
might sport contribute to the construction of a new style of Swedish
nationalism for the twenty-first century?
For the first time in decades, Swedes have become directly concerned
with their national identity (Ehn 1993). Immigration, membership in the
European Union, and the process of globalization are all felt to threaten a
longstanding certainty about what it means to be Swedish. Given its
importance in Sweden, sport will inevitably play a part in offering
Swedes opportunities to respond to new challenges and to construct
identities that shall carry them into the next century.
Right-wing nationalists in Sweden, particularly a small but growing
body of neo-Nazis, are fearful that traditional Swedish national identity
Sport and Nationalism in Sweden 157
earlier periods discussed in this chapter, it appears to have been easier for
Swedes, or at least for Swedish opinion formers, to construct a coherent
national identity, and sport clearly played an integral part in underlining
their certainties. First, sport was used for the purposes of promoting
romantic, conservative nationalist ideas. Thereafter, it was part of the
process whereby a national identity based on social democratic princi-
ples, including, paradoxically, internationalism, was developed. The fact
that the sport-national identity nexus in the years to come may point in a
variety of directions—right-wing xenophobia, multiculturalism, region-
alism—illustrates the degree to which there is now far less certainty
about what it means to be Swedish. It would be premature and danger-
ous, however, to promote the idea that soccer fan culture in Sweden is
inevitably drawn to right-wing politics and that this, in turn, indicates a
dangerous development in terms of Swedish sporting nationalism as a
whole (Andersson and Radmann 1998a). Certainly members of the Black
Army appear less interested in reactionary politics than in the past.
According to Andersson and Radmann (1998b), “The Scandinavian sup-
porter culture is predominantly positive in its nature” (155). This claim is
predicated on the belief that fans in the Nordic countries have adopted
the carnival spirit that is also a feature of support for the national teams
of Scotland and the Republic of Ireland. As regards such behavior, it is a
matter of supreme irony that so many young Swedish fans chose to
attend a variety of international events wearing imitation Viking helmets
given the importance of “Gotian” ideas in the formative years of their
country’s sporting development. As has been argued in earlier chapters,
however, the paraphernalia of carnival can often simply conceal those
less positive aspects of the relationship between sport and nationalism
and it is perhaps too early to say that the neo-Nazi element of Swedish
soccer fandom has gone forever. The signs, however, are promising.
In any case, despite a serious weakening of support for the ruling
party in the 1998 general election, who is to say that the old social demo-
cratic identity is inevitably doomed? After all, a major beneficiary of the
social democrats’ loss of votes was the Left Party (formerly the Com-
munist Party), which was clearly helped by a nostalgic mood in certain
sections of the population for the good old days of the Swedish Model in
its prime. Perhaps a commitment to combining efficiency with equality,
both in sport and elsewhere, may yet sustain Swedish identity into the
next century. One thing is certain. Whichever option comes to dominate
debates about the nature of Swedishness, sport will continue to be an
important element in the construction of the identity that is chosen.
Writing in the Observer (4 October 1998), Jon Henderson comments that
“Sweden deserves recognition as the best [sporting nation on the planet]
Sport and Nationalism in Sweden 161
Sporting Nationalism
and National Identities
A THEORETICAL DISCUSSION
163
164 SPORTING NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES
national identity. Even as regards sport, the nation may simply not mat-
ter as much to some people as do other allegiances. I am in no doubt that
if faced with the choice between unparalleled achievement by Dun-
fermline Athletic Football Club on the one hand and by Scotland’s
national soccer team on the other, I would choose the former. This does
not make me any less Scottish and proud to be so. Rather, it serves to
illustrate just one aspect of a multidimensional structure of identity.
Furthermore, it is conceivable that a father could transfer his allegiance
from a soccer club he has supported all his life to one for which his son
has been signed to play even when the two teams are in opposition. In
this instance, a new sports-based identity centered around being a parent
transcends another, earlier sporting identity.
It should also be noted that team sports have tended to dominate
much of the foregoing discussion. One justification for this is the fact
that these activities enjoy high levels of participation. More important,
however, is their capacity to attract large audiences, for it is undeniable
that it is usually in the behavior and attitudes of fans rather than those
of participants that the relationship between sport and identity becomes
most apparent. Participants are frequently able to ignore rival pulls on
their emotions as they pursue a sporting career. This explains why pro-
fessional soccer players are able to move more easily from one team to
another than is the case for most fans. It also helps us to understand why
a francophone from Quebec can represent “federal” Canada in the
Olympic Games regardless of separatist sympathies and how a Catholic
from the north of Ireland can come to be playing for Northern Ireland’s
soccer team despite having no respect for the political entity that team
represents. Shortly before his death, the notorious Ulster loyalist pris-
oner, Billy Wright, told me that anyone who puts a sporting career ahead
of loyalty to his or her identity deserves no respect. But this again was to
make the mistake of assuming that each of us possesses a single identity.
In fact, Wright himself had problems with trying to reconcile his vio-
lence, which he regarded as politically necessary, with his Christian
faith, which taught him that killing is wrong. In the end, he allowed the
former to take precedence over the latter and, in so doing, he followed a
similar path, albeit one with more deadly ramifications, as those who
have put their sporting ambitions ahead of their feelings of loyalty to
other social constructions. Fans, however, are less likely to regard this as
a realistic choice.
National Sports
If each nation in the world possessed its own unique sporting culture, the
relationship between sport and national identity would be largely uncon-
A Theoretical Discussion 167
tentious. The fact is, however, that the concept of “the national sport” is
a slippery one. Most societies do have their own peculiar traditions as
regards sport and leisure activities. In general, however, these are
regarded as having little more than antiquarian interest. On the other
hand, in certain places, traditional pastimes have acquired much greater
contemporary resonance. Of the case studies examined in this book, for
example, Ireland provides the perfect illustration. Gaelic football, hurl-
ing, and the like are clearly national sports inasmuch as they are bound
up with a specific idea of Irishness. Moreover, they are played and
watched by large numbers of people throughout Ireland. To that extent
they differ markedly from shinty, which is peculiar to Scotland and,
thereby, evokes an idea of Scottishness but has limited popular appeal.
Similarly, lacrosse is a “Canadian” sport only if one adopts a rather
arcane definition of a national sport. However, despite the manifestly
stronger claims of Gaelic games in this respect, it should not be forgotten
that, although they are undeniably popular, unlike shinty in Scotland and
lacrosse in Canada, so too are other sports which are certainly not pecu-
liar to Ireland but which are arguably at least as important in terms of
national sporting pride.
The point is that national sports take different forms and, in so doing,
they provide us with important insights into the character of particular
nations. Some national sports are peculiar to specific nations. As such they
either confirm the exclusive character of the nation or, more commonly,
reflect a contest between ethnic and civic representations of the nation.
Ironically, however, those sports that are defined as national but are actu-
ally shared by countless other nations are arguably more successful at unit-
ing the people of particular nations. Thus, soccer in the Irish Republic or in
Scotland can be recognized as the national sport of the civic nation whereas
native Gaelic games are inevitably linked to narrower definitions of the
respective nations. The fact remains, however, that people are willing, in
varying degrees, to lend their support to their sporting representatives
regardless of which conception of nationhood a particular activity appears
to endorse. For most sports fans, the nation that deserves their support is
a given and in following their national teams they underline their sense of
identity while simultaneously reflecting its complex character.
world-class sporting action. In any case, given the sheer size of the nation
as a whole and of its great cities, contests between rival franchises assume
a quasi-international status. Americans do, of course, root for their
nation’s representatives in events such as the Olympic Games and golf’s
Ryder Cup but, while these events give competitors the opportunity to
fly the flag, for most sports fans domestic competition in “American”
games is what really counts.
In Ireland and Canada, the situation is slightly different. Although
both countries can claim that certain sporting activities support the idea
of national distinctiveness, they do not have sufficient prestige to permit
the belief that “playing with themselves” is adequate for the promotion
of the nation. Thus, producing a great many hockey players and seeing
the game promoted as something intrinsically Canadian is all well and
good, but it is as important, if not more so, to be able to beat other
nations, and not only at hockey. As a result, the Canadians in general
arguably take the Olympics more seriously than do most Americans and
they are even supportive of far less prestigious events such as the
Commonwealth Games. Similarly, Irish sporting nationalism, while
maintaining a strong interest in Gaelic games as the sporting guarantors
of a distinctive national identity, is equally, and in some instances more,
committed to those sports, such as soccer and rugby union, that provide
the Irish with opportunities to take on the world. Ironically, Ulster union-
ists have chosen to play “British” games as part of their national heritage,
yet frequently find themselves playing and watching these games not as
British nationals but as Irish men and women. In addition, those who
have sought a more precise sense of who they are by way of the exploits
of the Northern Ireland soccer team have been obliged to come to terms
with the twin paradox, namely of Irish nationalists playing for Northern
Ireland and of the English being regarded as detested opponents in the
eyes of people who regard themselves as loyal to the United Kingdom. In
another context, the relationship between Scotland and England has been
such that sporting nationalists have been more likely to choose playing
(and hopefully beating) the old enemy at their own games than to seek
comfort in native pastimes. More secure in themselves and their own
identity, on the other hand, the Swedes have combined the global and the
local quite successfully and thereby constructed a relatively mature
sporting nationalism.
along the way. In part, this tells us a lot about the omnipresence and
ready accessibility of information about sport in the contemporary world.
But this is not to deny that sport is accorded high levels of respect in the
societies discussed in this study.
Consider, for example, the T shirt legend—“Canada Is Hockey.” This
is only a figure of speech perhaps and not meant to be taken too seriously.
But that is doubtful. In fact, something very serious is being stated even
if tourists who buy the T shirts are largely unaware of their deep signifi-
cance. The meaning of this statement, however, is highly illuminating. On
one hand, it identifies who the true Canadians are, i.e., the hockey play-
ers and fans. On the other hand, by implication, it is also transmitting a
message about those who are not true Canadians, that is to say, those who
are less than captivated by hockey’s charms. Among the latter group are
many women. Are they less Canadian than their hockey-playing brothers
and sons? Moreover, what about the boy who has been sexually abused
by his coach? What does the linkage of hockey and identity mean to him
as he matures into adulthood? The other difficulty with the words—
“Canada Is Hockey,” is that it leaves open the questions, “whose Can-
ada?” “which Canada?,” for, as we have seen, the world of Canadian
hockey is by no means homogeneous. The “national” sport is played
throughout the “nation” but the nation itself remains contested terrain
and hockey reflects and contributes to this contestation. That sport is
important in the construction of Canadian national identity, however,
remains irrefutable and the same holds true, in varying degrees, as
regards national identity formation in Scotland, Sweden, and the United
States as well as among the divided peoples of Ireland. So what does a
study that includes these examples tell us more generally about the rela-
tionship between sport and national identity? Are sporting nationalism
and political nationalism simply two sides of the same coin? Or are we
speaking about two distinct phenomena?
It is crucial that any observations about sporting nationalism take full
account of the peculiarities of the situation in which specific nationalities
are operating. There is little point in simply stating that all nations cele-
brate the achievements of their sports people and, as a result, sport can be
said to play a vital role in the construction and reproduction of the
national identities involved. How people celebrate sporting perform-
ances will vary markedly from one situation to another and, indeed, from
one sports contest to another. To understand why this is so, a detailed
knowledge of the political context is required. What then are the salient
points concerning the nationalities examined in this book?
The national identity of the Ulster unionists is problematic. They are
British but in a peculiar way. Part of their Britishness, indeed, is simply
non-Irishness. But the Irish identity to which they stand opposed is only
172 SPORTING NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES
contribute to Irish sporting nationalism and this, in turn, reflects the dif-
ferent shades of political and cultural opinion that constitute Irish nation-
alism more broadly. In the case of Irish nationalism too, it is essential to
get beyond the homogeneous facade, and sport allows us to gain valu-
able insights into the complexities that will be revealed.
Unlike Ireland, the United States do not figure prominently in studies
of nationalism and nationality. But the analysis in this book indicates that
there are serious questions to be asked about the national identity of
Americans. Furthermore, sport has not only been in the forefront of
attempts to construct a cohesive national sentiment but has also per-
formed a prominent role in highlighting some of the main reasons why
such cohesion has proved difficult to attain. With the development of a
unique sporting culture, Americans from a multiplicity of different racial,
ethnic, and national backgrounds have become “Americanized” through
playing and watching sport. But this process has not been without its dif-
ficulties and, in any event, this basis for the creation of a national identity
excludes many for whom sport is of little importance. Moreover, just
because people become sporting Americans has never been a guarantee
that they come to be regarded as real Americans in other spheres of
human activity. Similarly, while sport has made the realization of the
American Dream a reality for many, it has also been involved in cruelly
dashing the hopes of many more.
Canadians, for their part, have been faced with similar problems—to
decide what it means to be Canadian and to confront divisions that
undermine the search for a unified national identity. Sport is deeply
implicated in both issues. Meanwhile, Canada has also been faced with
the additional problem that with the United States as a neighbor, a dis-
tinctive national identity in sport and more generally has been particu-
larly hard to maintain.
Finally the book examined the case of Sweden, where both political
and sporting nationalism have been relatively insignificant forces. The
weakness of the latter is a manifest product of the undeveloped state of
the former. Yet this is not to suggest that the Swedes are wholly without
a sense of sporting nationalism. Indeed, as was suggested earlier, because
it exists in an environment where political nationalism has traditionally
been of little importance, Swedish sporting nationalism is arguably the
only example of true (as opposed to quasi-political) sporting nationalism
discussed in this work.
Three general points emerge from all of this. First, sporting national-
ism is closely linked to political nationalism in each case. Second, neither
political nor sporting nationalisms are ever as homogeneous as superfi-
cial readings might suggest. Third, by examining the links between sport
and the formation of national identities, we are able to get a clearer
174 SPORTING NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES
Conclusion
Sport and national identity, no matter how complex the specific relation-
ships, are inextricably linked. Global forces have affected the nature of
their relationship to varying degrees from one place to the next. But
through sport, nationalism and nationalities have successfully resisted
globalization unless we adopt a very weak definition of the latter. It looks
as if national flags will be on show at sports stadia throughout the world
for a very long time to come. To understand what this means to the peo-
ple waving the flags, however, it will be essential that each particular con-
text is explored. It is hoped that when other researchers take up the baton,
some of the ideas explored in this book will help them on their way.
According to Cronin and Mayall (1998), “Sport cannot win territory or
destroy an opposing ideology or religion which the nation seeks to
demonise” (2). Perhaps not. But bearing in mind Hoberman’s (1984)
description of sports people as “proxy warriors,” the fact is that, through-
out the twentieth century, sport has been one of the most valuable
weapons at the disposal of nationalists, whatever their situation and
respective aspirations. This book has focused on societies that might
appear to be susceptible to a changing geopolitical environment in which
national identity is thought by some to be increasingly unimportant.
However, the evidence uncovered on the basis of a study of sport in a
selection of North American and European countries indicates that cul-
tural convergence is still some way off. Sport and nationalism will remain
intimately linked at least for the forseeable future. Their relationship,
however, will be considerably more complex than a superficial reading
might suggest. Certainly sport will play a part in allowing nations to
resist global homogenization. At the same time, however, it will also con-
tinue to reflect the fact that national identity is a contentious and con-
tested issue even in stable Western democracies.
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193
194 INDEX
caid, 76 citizenship, 23
Caledonian Clubs, 95 civic boosterism, 99, 136
Camanachd Cup, 61 civic nationalism, 2–4, 125, 128, 167,
camanácht, 74 172, 174–75
camogie, 74, 76–77, 85 class, 1, 163–64, 169, 175
Cumann Camógaíochta na nGael, 77 in Ireland, 88
Camp, W., 104 in Northern Ireland, 32–37, 41, 43,
Campbell, J., 77, 181 73
Campbell, K., 133, 181 in Scotland, 54, 58, 60, 64
Canada, xvi, 14, 18, 106, 113, 115–37, in United States, 96, 103, 106,
165–68, 173, 176 109–11
Canadianization, 14 Cleveland Indians, 106–7
Canadians, 14 Chief Wahoo, 175
and hockey, 89, 123–36, 166, 171 Cliftonville Football Club, 31, 33
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Clones, Co. Monaghan, 38
124 Coakley, J., 182
Canadian football, 116–17, 122, 123, Coca-Cola, 25
136 Cocacolonization, 9, 12, 14
Canadian Football League (CFL), cock fighting, 94
123, 136 Cold War, 112–13, 143
Canovan, M., 3, 5, 181 Colomiers, 35
Cardiff, 41 colonialism, 27, 164
Caribbean, 14, 130 Colorado Avalanche, 127
Carlos, J., 111 Columbus, 134
Carruth, M., 37–38 Commonwealth Games, 14, 37–39, 52,
Carter, G. L., 98, 181 118, 168
Catalonia, 164 Kuala Lumpur (1998), 39
Cathkin Park (Glasgow), 60 Community Relations Council
Catholicism, xiii, 21 (Northern Ireland), xvi
in Ireland, 24, 29–30, 33–35, 61, 69, Connaught Cup (soccer), 116
74, 77, 87–89, 165 consumerism, 100, 136
in Scotland, 55, 61, 64, 169 Cooperstown, 96, 121
Celtic Football Club, xiii, xv, 43, 55–59, Coover, R., 101–2, 181
64, 88, 166 The Universal Baseball Association,
Celts, 144 inc. J. Henry Waugh, PROP,
Central Association for the Promotion 101–2
of Sports (Sweden), 147 Cork, Co., 75
Charlton, J., 88 Cosentino, F., 123, 181, 188
Cheltenham Festival, 88 Cosgrove, S., 47, 181
Chicago, 39, 98, 109 Coulter, C., 23, 181
Chicago Bulls, 166 Coyle, P., 88, 181
Chicago Cubs, 100 creolization, 11
Chicago White Sox, 98 Crepeau, R. C., 93, 96–99, 101–2, 181
Christian Brothers, 75 cricket, xv, 13–14, 28, 164
Christianity, 26 in Canada, 116–17, 129–30, 176
Churchill, Ward, 107, 181 in England, xii, 28, 30, 45, 75, 169
196 INDEX
Montreal Curling Club, 117 in Ireland, 25, 30, 37, 56, 68, 70, 72,
Montreal Forum, 125 79, 85–86, 89
Montreal Maroons, 120 in Nordic region, 145
Montreal “Olympic” Games (1844), in Northern Ireland, 39–41, 43
117 in Norway, 139
Montreal Snow Shoe Club, 117 in Pakistan, 169
Montreal Canadiens, 119, 125–28, 166 in Scotland, 43, 45–50, 52–58, 60–63,
“Habs,” 126 65–68
Montreal Expos, 122 in Sweden, 137, 139–61
Moorhouse, H. F., 54–55, 57, 187 in United States, 90–113
Morgan, W. J., xvii National Lacrosse Association
Morrow, D., 117, 121–22, 181, 187–88, (Canada), 121
190 National League (baseball), 95, 99
motorcycling, 30 national sports (national games), 18–
motor sports, 30 19, 53, 60–61, 63, 66, 97, 166–67
Moytura, Co. Mayo, 74 in Canada, 120–25, 173
Mrozek, D. J., 93–96, 105, 112, 188 in Ireland, 72–79
MTV, 9 in Scotland, 53–64
Munster, 77 in Sweden, 144–45
Muralitharan, M., xii in United States, 91, 100–105
Murray, B., 54–55, 65, 67, 188 nationalism, 3, 4, 6, 23, 61, 69, 157, 161,
Murrayfield Stadium (Edinburgh), 67 171, 173
muscular Christianity, 106 and myths, 5, 53, 62–63, 102
Muslims (in Bosnia), 170 and sport, xviii, 17, 53, 61, 128, 141,
161
Nagano, 135 in Germany, 169
Nairn, T., 23, 50, 61, 188 in Ireland, 69–71
Naismith, 106, 122 in Norway, 140
Napoleonic Wars, 75 in Quebec, 125–28
Nashville, 134 in Scotland, 47–52, 61, 69
nation building, 4 in Sweden, 139–40, 143, 145–46,
nation state, 4, 48, 158, 169, 174 156–57, 161
National Basketball Association in United States, 95, 97–98, 105
(NBA), 14, 68, 106, 122 native Americans, 93, 106, 117, 120–21,
National Football League (NFL), 14, 124, 128–29, 169, 175
104, 123 Nauright, J., 17, 164, 188
National Front (France), xii neo-Nazis, in Sweden, 156–57, 160
national games. See national sports neutrality (Swedish), 139, 143, 147
National Hockey League (NHL), 14, New Zealand, 117
124–29, 132–36, 141, 159 New York, 9, 109
national identity (identities) xviii–xix, New York Rangers, 127
1–2, 5–7, 15–18, 21–24, 59, 91–92, Newry Town Football Club, 31, 33
136, 141, 161, 163–77 Nike, 25
and sport, 1, 18–19, 43, 52, 92, 139, Nilsson, T., 151, 188
163–77 Nolan, T., 129
in Canada, 95, 115–28, 132–37 Norberg, J. R., 149–50, 154, 188
in England, 42 Nordic Games, 146–47
Index 203
in Northern Ireland, 21, 23, 28, Ruane, J., 25, 81, 189
31–37, 40–42, 45, 71, 73, 172 rugby, 14, 67, 76
in Scotland, 55, 169 rugby league, 14, 67
public (private) schools, 26, 28, 53–54, in Australia, 14
71 in England, 14
Puirseal, P., 73, 189 in New Zealand, 14
Purdie, B., 57, 189 rugby union, 13, 63, 65, 164
Putnam, T., 182 in Canada, 123
in England, 42, 63, 89
Quebec, 115, 119, 125–29, 165 in France, 28
Quebec City, 127, 134 in Ireland, 25, 27–29, 31, 36, 40–41,
Quebec Nordiques, 125–27 72, 76, 86–87, 89–90
Queensberry, Marquis of, 39 in Scotland, 41, 46, 53, 63–65, 67, 89
in Ulster, 35, 41
race, xix, 95, 99, 112–13, 129–31, 163, Rugby School, 29
169, 173, 175 Russia, 14, 133
racism, 59, 66, 99, 107, 111, 129, 131, Ruth, Babe, 102
157, 170
Rader, B. G., 94–96, 99, 103, 107, 189 Sabo, D., xvii, 1, 185, 187–88
Radmann, A., 160, 179 Sage, G. H., 110–11, 189
Rafferty, J., 68 Salming, B., 141
Raith Rovers Football Club, 59 San Francisco 49ers, 166
Ranger, T., 5, 184 Sandblad, H., 145–49, 189
Rangers Football Club, xiii, xv, 42–43, Sännås, P. O., 157, 189
55–59, 64–65, 166 Scandinavia, 144–45, 158
Renson, R., 191 Schelin, B., 154–55, 189
Richards, D. A., 124, 132, 189 Scotland, xiii, xv–xvi, 24, 33, 41–68, 74,
Richler, M., 126–27, 189 88, 113, 116, 144, 152, 166–67, 171
Riess, S. A., 99, 189 Borders, 59, 64
Riksidrottsförbundet (RF). See Swedish Highlands, 45, 58, 61, 169
Sports Confederation and industrialization, 58
Robertson, G., 182 the Scots, 45, 51, 54, 64, 66–67, 172
Robertson, R., 7, 9–10, 182, 189 soccer fans, xiv, 60, 62, 66
Robinson, J., 99–100 soccer team, xiii, 47, 56, 59, 65
Robinson, L., xvi, 131–33, 189 universities, 43
Robitaille, L., 127 Scotland on Sunday, 61, 189
Roosevelt, T., 93 Scotsman, 49
Ross County Football Club, 59 Scott, D., 28, 180
Roth, P., 101, 189 Scott, P. H., 187, 190
The Great American Novel, 102 Scott R. H., 29
rounders, 96 Scottish Claymores, 67–68
Rouse, P., 83, 189 Scottish Football Association (SFA), 52
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 124 Scottish League (soccer), 52, 57–59, 88
Royal Irish Regiment, 82 Scottish National Party (SNP), 47
Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), 32– Scottish Rugby Union (SRU), 63, 67
33, 81–82, 85 Scottishness, xv, 45–46, 49–51, 54–55,
“B” Specials, 82 58–59, 60, 63, 65–66, 167
Index 205
sectarianism, 33–34, 36, 38–39, 43, 54– South Africa, xv, 13, 17, 164
55, 57–60, 64, 66, 88 Afrikaaners, 13
sexism, 33, 54, 66 Soviet bloc, 112
sexual abuse, 171 East Germany, 112
in Canadian hockey, 131–32 Soviet Union, 112, 132, 166
shinty, 53, 60–62, 74, 85, 167 Spalding, A. G., 97, 102
Shirlow, P., xvii, 24, 31, 42, 180 Spanish-American War, 93
Sillars, J., 47–48, 68 Spanish language, 118–19
Simon, C., 129 Spiers, G., 59, 190
Simpson, W., 123, 188, 190 Spirit of the West, 124, 190
Sinn Fein, 33 “Open Heart Symphony,” 124
skiing, in Sweden, 141–42, 144 sporting nationalism(s), xviii–xix, 17–
Skye, 61 19, 133, 163–77
Slack, T., 183 in Canada, 120–22, 125
Slovakia, 133 in Ireland, 72, 79, 84–85, 88, 144,
Small, R. B., 187–88 168, 172–73
Smith, A. D., 3–4, 6, 16, 190 in Northern Ireland, 172
Smith, G., 183 in Norway, 140
Smith, G. N., 183 in Quebec, 127–28
Smith, T., 111 in Scotland, 64, 168, 172
Smout, T. C., 51, 190 in Sweden, 139, 142, 144, 160–61,
soccer (association football), xiii–xiv, 168, 173
13–14, 29, 91, 135, 142, 152, 163, in United States, 91, 110, 167
165. See also European Cham- Springfield, 106
pionships; Women’s World Cup; squash, 77
World Cup Sri Lanka, xii
in Brazil, xiv, 151, 166 Standeven J., 15, 190
in Canada, 116, 123, 129 Stanford University, 107
in Denmark, 135 Stanley Cup (hockey), 116, 124, 127
in Germany, xiv, 169 Statutes of Kilkenny, 75
in Ireland, 27, 31, 40, 76, 82, 87–90, Stenmark, I., 141
135, 168 Stern, D. K., 132
in Irish Republic, 28, 40, 56, 70, 86, Stewart, A. T. Q., 42, 190
88, 160, 167 Stockholm, xvii, 142, 146–47, 151, 157
in Italy, xiv Stoddart, B., 26, 71, 164, 180, 190
in Northern Ireland, 27, 31–34, 37, Stormont, 32, 81
39, 41–43, 87, 168, 172 Story, R., 96, 98, 190
in Scotland, xiv, 28, 42–43, 46–47, St. Andrews, xv, 62
53–60, 64–65 St. Louis, 98, 109
in Sweden, 141–42, 151–53, 157, 160 St. Louis Blues, 125
in Turkey, 169 Sugden, J. P., xvi–xvii, 21, 28, 39–40,
in United States, 15, 103, 108–9, 176 76, 81, 108–10, 163, 179–80, 183,
sociology of sport, 11, 15, 174 190
“Soldier's Song, The” (Amhran na sumo, 14
bhFiann), 72, 86 Sunday Times, 68, 190
Sörlin, S., 139, 144, 190 Sunday Tribune, 85–86, 191
Sosa, S., 101 Sundin, M., 141
206 INDEX