ABSTRACT
Modern sports have exhibited some core characteristics that make them specifically modern, and these can best be understood in contrast to earlier forms of sports. These earlier forms have been described and classified as popular recreations (Malcolmson, 1973), mediaeval sports (Guttmann, 1978), or folk sports (Dunning and Sheard, 1979). To clarify the differences between the older and modern forms of sports it is necessary also to understand the changing nature of the society of which those sports forms are a part. Therefore, in the first two chapters we review important elements of social change and their cultural implications; outline on a general level the primary features and characteristics of those sports forms, comparing the modern forms with older types of games; demonstrate the importance to the emergence of modern sports of athleticism in the British public schools, and its impact in spheres beyond the school, alongside the impact of reformers (Chapter 1); provide case studies of major team sports and individual sports to illustrate the tensions at the heart of the amateurprofessional dynamic in those sports, and the working through of these tensions into the late modern period; and review the principal features of and trends in the development of modern sports in contemporary Britain (Chapter 2).
