This Sporting Life: Sport and Liberty in England, 1760-1960

Why did killing a fox mean liberty? What did parish revels have to do with the Peterloo Massacre? What did animal cruelty have to do with the English constitution? What did the Factory Acts mean for modern football? In This Sporting Life, Robert Colls explains sport as one of England's great civil cultures. The lived experiences of people from all walks of life are reclaimed to tell England's history through its great sporting cultures, from the horseback pursuits of the wealthy and politically connected, to the street games in working-class neighbourhoods which needed nothing but a ball. It observes people at play, describes how they felt and thought, carries the reader along to a match or a hunt or a fight, draws out the sounds and smells of humans and animals, showing that sport has been as important in defining British culture as gender, politics, education, class, and religion.

About the Author :
Robert Colls, Professor of Cultural History, De Montfort University Robert Colls is Professor of History at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, Leicester. He was born in South Shields, where he first played football on a disused colliery waggon-way. Much of his academic career has been based in Leicester, which is also where he played his last game of football in the local Sunday League. When it became clear that he couldn't play again, he knew that something trivial and yet hugely important had changed for him. He is the author of the acclaimed George Orwell: English Rebel, published by Oxford University Press in 2013.

Review :
"This fascinating and engagingly written book is about much more than sport: customs, tradition, place, identity, national myths as well as national stories. Colls has written the best book I have read on George Orwell, and this book too is definitive." -- Jason Cowley, Editor of the New Statesman "The two most successful and positive exports from this country are the English language and organized sport. The profound influence of sport has been grievously unacknowledged. In his new book, Robert Colls puts this right by bringing its history to life and linking it quite brilliantly with common notions of liberty, patriotism, and belonging. He also shows the part modern sport played in replacing the many textures of our traditional patterns of social life. It's vivid, passionate, and goes to the heart of a subject which in so many ways is now the dominating conversation in peoples' lives." -- Melvyn Bragg, Broadcaster "This is a wonderful book. It is engrossing,�beautifully written, overflowing with insight into England and English ideas of liberty as manifest through sport. It is a history of sport unlike any other and is nothing short of exhilarating." -- Paul Rouse, School of History, University College Dublin "Sparkling and scholarly, Robert Colls' new history of sport is expertly set within the wider context of English society and culture. Abounding with fresh insights, sport is celebrated and explained from Regency prize-fights to Wembley Cup Finals; vibrantly written, full of dramatic incidents and exceptional individuals." -- Richard Holt, author of Sport and the British: A Modern History