ABSTRACT
Conservatism characterised much of English sport between the wars. Of the new sports which were launched, only greyhound racing, motor racing and speedway attracted large followings. Governing structures that had been established before 1914, such as the highly conservative Jockey Club, continued with little change after 1918 and few calls were made for them to be reformed. Professional boxing was one exception to this. Before the First World War the National Sporting Club in London, a private club that had begun promoting fights in 1891, had been effectively the supreme authority for professional boxing in Britain. In 1919 the British Boxing Board of Control was established but this still had close links with the National Sporting Club. In 1929 the BBBC was reformed when the National Sporting Club closed. No sport between the wars experienced a breakaway on the scale of the split that occurred in rugby in 1895 which had led to the establishment of the Northern Rugby Football Union. In 1922 the Northern Union became the Rugby Football League but this was merely a change of title and an acceptance of how the sport was known in Australia. In soccer, the Amateur Football Association, a one-time rival to the FA, with its strength in London, the universities and the southern counties, had been formed in 1907 for amateur players, but it affiliated to the FA as the national governing body in 1914, while continuing its organisational functions. It changed its name to the Amateur Football Alliance to reflect this in 1934, after being granted representation on the International Selection Committee. In cricket, a sport with no structure linking the various levels of the game, there were few calls for it to have a more unified organisation.The MCC’s control of the laws of cricket and its status as the ultimate authority for first-class cricket went unchallenged. Speedway was introduced to England as a commercial venture in 1928 but its promoters were content, even eager, to allow the Auto-Cycle Union, which controlled all other forms of motorcycle sport in England, to be the supreme authority for speedway in England.The social backgrounds of those who administered sports that were well established before 1914 remained broadly similar between the wars.
