ABSTRACT
This might be my most important essay, because it set out deliberately to take sports culture into mainstream international academic thinking via a leading journal. Such work could not remain in the sports journal ‘ghettos’ if the field was to get wider recognition. I targeted Comparitive Studies of Society and History because it featured writings I admired, had the cross-disciplinary approach that (in my view) best stimulated insights into sport, had a high profile and reputation: the editorial board included Sylvia Thrupp, Albert Feuerwerker, Jack Goody, Eric Wolf, Bernard Bailyn, Barney Cohn, Clifford Geertz, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and many others whom I had read and admired across a wide variety of fields. Who would not want a paper in such a journal? It took time and at least two versions before the essay was accepted, but when it happened I thought it a breakthrough.
