Barbarians, Gentlemen and Players: A Sociological Study of the Development of Rugby Football

by Sheard; Kenneth

• ISBN13: 9780714682907
• ISBN10: 071468290X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2005-02-02
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

First published in 1979, this classic study of the development of rugby from folk game to its modern Union and League forms has become a seminal text in sport history. In a new epilogue the authors provide sociological analysis of the major developments in international ruby that have taken place since 1979, with particular attention to the professionalism that was predicted in the first edition of this text. Sports lovers, rugby fans and students of the history and sociology of sport will find it invaluable.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Foreword	vii
Preface to the Second Edition	xi
Preface to the First Edition	xv
Introduction: The Development of Rugby Football as a Sociological Problem	1	(16)
PART I Folk-Antecedents and Transitional Forms of Football in the Public Schools	17	(38)
The folk-antecedents of modern Rugby and their decline	19	(21)
Football in the early-nineteenth-century public schools	40	(15)
PART II The Modernization of Rugby Football	55	(116)
The preconditions for modernization: embourgeoisement and public school reform	57	(12)
The incipient modernization of Rugby football	69	(18)
The `civilizing process' and the formation of the RFU	87	(26)
The democratization of Rugby football	113	(12)
Professionalization and the amateur response	125	(17)
The split	142	(8)
The class structure and the professionalization of British sport	150	(21)
PART III The Development of Rugby Football as a Modern Sport	171	(59)
The professionalization of Rugby League	173	(25)
Rugby Union as a modern sport: bureaucracy, gate-taking clubs and the swansong of amateurism	198	(32)
Conclusion: Sociological reflections on the crisis in modern sport	230	(17)
Afterword	247	(40)
Notes and References	287	(16)
Index	303