ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we discussed a position associated with what we called the prehistory of Cultural Studies. In the current chapter we move on to consider sport in relation to what are generally regarded as the foundational texts of Cultural Studies and the related work of their authors, Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams. As we have identified in our introduction, The Uses of Literacy (1958 [1957]) by Hoggart and Culture and Society (1958) and The Long Revolution (1961) by Williams inspired the emergence of Cultural Studies within the academy. In this chapter we examine the writings of these authors with a view to looking at how sport might be accounted for culturally, once culture has been dislodged from the elitist moorings of the foregoing tradition of commentary and criticism.As indicated in the previous chapter, Hoggart and Williams present a left culturalist position that remains sympathetic to the Kulturkritik sensitivity to culture being aloof from civilisation but explicitly locates culture within the context of class. At this early point it is important to note that we are not proposing a conflation of the ideas of Hoggart and Williams.1 Although sharing the view that culture needs to be understood through its expression within class relations, Hoggart and Williams differed in their political orientations to the working class and in their attitudes to working class engagement with popular culture. Our task is to discern how sport might be accounted for within the respective visions of these key figures within the left culturalist strand of Cultural Studies.
