ABSTRACT
In the run-up to the 1997 general election at which Tony Blair would become British Prime Minister, I received a telephone call from a journalist called Ciaran Fitzgerald. Looking for a non-election story, he asked about current research, and I sent him a paper – my first journal article – which had recently been accepted for publication in the Sociology of Sport Journal (Malcolm 1997). That Sunday I awoke to find my research featured on the front page of the Sunday Times and being discussed on national television and radio. My argument that there were social rather than biological reasons why Black British and British Asian cricketers were disproportionately ‘stacked’ into particular playing positions was contested by leading players and coaches who explained the pattern according to the ‘loose limbs’ and ‘wristy’ stroke play of some ‘racial’ groups. My work had become ‘public’ before it had an academic impact.
