ABSTRACT
In this chapter we consider debates within and between different theoretical frameworks and traditions that have been utilised in the analysis of the social and cultural roots and contexts of modern sport. In the previous chapter several case studies established some major common and recurrent themes in the social history of sports in England, and to a lesser extent, Britain. We sought in that chapter, and to a limited extent also in Chapter 1, to blend the historical with the sociological, led by a simultaneous concern with both the past and the present, and the relationships between them. Too often a sociological approach has nodded in tokenistic fashion in the direction of the historical, given some space to the portrayal of an historical backcloth, and then proceeded to offer sociological analysis detached from that historical basis. A critical analysis concerned with history as process and society as product must avoid this.
