ABSTRACT
Neil Macfarlane, Conservative Minister for Sport from 1981 to 1985, opened his memoirs of his time in office with the following observation on the relationship between sport and politics:
In the 1933 edition of the Shorter English Dictionary I keep on my bookshelf, politics are described as being ‘the science and art of government’, and sport as ‘participation in games or exercises, especially those pursued in the open air’.
I have no doubt that when the dictionary was being prepared by a Fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford, he would have claimed with some justification that there was and should be no relation between politics and sport. 1
