Lost Histories of Indian Cricket studies the personalities and controversies that have shaped Indian cricket over the years and brings to life the intensity surrounding India's national game.
It may be true that that cricket today arouses more passions in India than in any other cricket playing country in the world. Yet, when it comes to writing on the history of the game, Indians have been reticent and much of the past has been obscured and lost. Majumdar here recovers this history and restores it to its rightful place in India's rich sporting heritage.

Drawing inspiration from C.L.R. James' well-known epigram, "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?" the book suggests that South Asian sports make sense only when placed within the broader colonial and post colonial context. It demonstrates that sports not only influence politics and vice versa, but that the two are inseparable. Sports are not only political; they are politics, intrigue, culture, and art. To deny this is to denigrate the position of sports in modern South Asian society.
This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal "Sport in the...

Football managers are at the center of today's commercially-driven football world, scrutinized, celebrated and under pressure as never before. This book is the first in-depth history of the role of the manager in British football, tracing a path from Victorian-era amateurism to the highly paid motivational specialists and media personalities of the twenty-first century.
Using original source materials, the book traces the changing character and function of the football manager, covering:
- the origins of football management - club secretaries and early pioneers
- the impact of...

Football managers are at the center of today's commercially-driven football world, scrutinized, celebrated and under pressure as never before. This book is the first in-depth history of the role of the manager in British football, tracing a path from Victorian-era amateurism to the highly paid motivational specialists and media personalities of the twenty-first century.
Using original source materials, the book traces the changing character and function of the football manager, covering:
- the origins of football management - club secretaries and early pioneers
- the impact of...

Part of the Sport in the Global Society series, this innovative and creative text explores collective history, memory, and sport culture, tracking the passage of sports away from England. The author investigates why 'elite' English sports - such as rugby and cricket - became national sports in New Zealand and Australia, and asks why 'working class' English sports - such as football - have travelled less well to these areas. Focusing on these sports, the author tracks narratives and myths, tracing the passage of colonial truths, behaviours and practices.

Clearly...

Sport has become more than a simple physical expression or game- it now pervades all societies at all levels and has become bound up in nationalism, entertainment, patriotism and culture. Now a global obsession, sport has infiltrated into all areas of modern life and despite noble ideals that sport stands above politics, religion, class, gender and ideology, the reality is often very different.
These essays by leading academics and rising new talent consider the phenomenon of modern sport and its massive influence over global society. Together, this collection is also a tribute to the...

Since it's first publication, Rugby's Great Split has established itself as a classic in the field of sport history. Drawing on an unprecedented range of sources, this deeply researched and highly readable book traces the social, cultural and economic divisions that led, in 1895, to schism in the game of rugby and the creation of rugby league, the sport of England's northern working class.

Tony Collins' analysis challenges many of the conventional assumptions about this key event in rugby history - about class conflict, amateurism in sport, the North-South divide, violence...

This classic sport history title explores rugby in late Victorian and Edwardian England and examines how class conflict tore rugby apart and led to the creation of rugby league. At its heart is an explanation of how a game for public schoolboys was transformed into a sport which became entirely identified with the working classes of northern England. This text deals with the development of amateurism and professionalism, England's north-south divide, the relationship between rugby and masculinity, and the rise of commercialized sport. It focuses on how working-class men and women became...

The first book to focus solely on the Asian Games, this is an analysis of the Oriental rival to the Olympics in terms of its geopolitical, economic, sociological, historical, racial and aesthetic context, looking at its birth, growth and maturation from 1913 up until 2006. Written by a team of international scholars, this is a collection of original research and first-hand material from archives across Asia which addresses a number of issues central to notions of nationalism and Orientalism in sport including:

• the relationship between the Asian Games and the Olympic Games...

In the Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland), as elsewhere, sport has been an assertion of individual and group identity, a demonstration of modernity, a source of personal, local and regional self-esteem, a symbol of confrontation and a preparation for war.