Introduction

The introduction establishes the nexus that existed between the sporting and military worlds from the colonial campaigns of the Victorian age to the War on Terror at the end of the twentieth century. Not only was the playing-field considered by many to be the perfect training ground for the battlefield but frequently the fighting itself was couched in the language and imagery of sport. Building on the work of Michael Paris and Graham Dawson, the study interrogates a wide range of literary and visual texts to provide an in-depth longitudinal analysis of the British public’s imagining of war and the military over the past century and a half.