ABSTRACT
Immediately following the Second World War in October 1945 Britain successfully applied to host the first Olympic Games to be held for twelve years. Despite their makeshift character and the exclusion of teams from Germany and Japan the London games attracted 6,000 participants from 59 countries whose exploits were regularly watched by capacity crowds of 80,000 at Wembley Stadium and for the first time by over half a million television viewers. The British team came away with three gold medals in the gentlemanly sports of rowing and yachting, helped no doubt by the 'charm and domesticity of Henley where the family atmosphere was absorbed by the crews from abroad' ,I which together with the unusual distance and nature of the course may have given the host team a distinct home advantage. The lack of success on the track was once again put down to the British disinclination to indulge in the intense preparation and specialisation increasingly required to compete at international level, and the secretary of the Amateur Athletic Association promised that a much better showing would be forthcoming at the 1952 event. 2 The war, national service and rationing all had a part to play in explaining Britain's continuing lack of international sporting success and the Labour government certainly had different priorities, notably welfareism, housing and education, with sport only being officially considered as an educational issue. Another legacy of the war was the
general recognition that sport was as likely to provide a boost for morale in the peacetime struggle for national prosperity as in the wartime battle for national survival. Both in war and peace the communal pleasures of sport complemented communal work in factories, and football particularly exemplified the growth of sporting spectatorism as a manifestation of social solidarity. It should be no surprise that attendances at football matches peaked in the late 1940s when the AttIee government embodied the collective strength of the working classes but has been on the downward trend ever since as increasing prosperity has eroded social and cultural affiliations.
