ABSTRACT
Britain andBritish identity has been the subject of deep and sustained historiography.1 In the past two decades alone, Liberal and Conservative scholars have debated the historical underpinning of ‘Britishness’, its meanings and applications both at home and abroad in an age of Empire, as well as its erosion and decline in the aftermath ofWorldWar II following an economic collapse, decolonization and the introduction of governmental multicultural policies (see, e.g., Bell 2011; Colley 1994; Davies 1998; Hitchens 2008; Marr 2000). This mainstream historiographical focus on ‘Britishness’ has been counterpoised by a wave of scholarship emphasizing the discourses of national identity and distinctiveness within the multinational state (Colls 2002; Davies 2007; Devine 2001; Kumar 2003). This decentring of the British nation has been predicated upon a focus on Gaelic and Celtic nationalism, regional histories, as well as an examination of the colonial push for independence and selfgovernance in the broader geographical realm of the British Empire (see, e.g., Bell 2011; Davies 2007; Devine 2001; Harvie 2004). Despite some noteworthy examples (Bairner 2001; Holt 1989; Holt and Mason 2000), the flourishing discipline of sport history has contributed to the decentring of a shared, civic British identity. This literature, much of which is focused on association football and rugby union, emphasizes the role of sport – and the banal national stereotypes that sport promotes – in the formation and hardening of separate and competing national identities within the Home-Nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales (see, e.g., Beck 1999; Dart 2009; Johnes 2002, 2005).
