ABSTRACT
This contribution is an attempt to reconstruct, to interpret and explain the processes that led to the foundation of the International Committee for Sport History (ICOSH) in 1967, followed by the creation of the International Association for the History of Physical Education and Sport (HISPA) in 1973 as a separate international sport history organisation. The making of international sport history institutions depended thus on the personal initiative of some pioneers and as often encountered with pioneers they all had their own personal ambitions and tried to claim their own territories. The International Committee for Sport History (ICOSH) started off as a Working Group for the History of Sport and Physical Culture within the Research Committee of ICSPE. The Glasgow congress confronted many of the continental Europeans with the rich but somewhat insular Anglo-Saxon sport history tradition. Through the HISPAICOSH merger in 1989, sport history now appears on the international scientific scene as a unified organisation.
