Scoring for Britain: International Football and International Politics, 1900-1939

by Beck; Peter J.

• ISBN13: 9780714648996
• ISBN10: 071464899X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-04-29
• Publisher: Frank Cass

Summary

Despite traditional images regarding the separation of politics and sport in Britain, the history of British international football illuminates the emerging use of sport as an instrument of British foreign policy, most notably, in terms of complementing the government s cultural propaganda programme. This study considers the nature and development of linkages between international football and politics in Britain between 1900 and 1939. It provides also a history of international football in Britain. Beck examines how the growing politicization of sport in other countries, encouraged British governments to interpret sport as offering an instrument of policy supportive of British interests in the wider world. He points out that association football, Britain's major sport, came to be seen as a means of projecting favourable images of Britain as a 'great nation' to a large and often responsive overseas audience. The British government's intervention in international football is examined. Throughout thisstudy football is viewed alongside other types of international sport, including the Olympics. Other themes highlighted include the official attitudes towards professional sport and the ongoing debate about international sport as a potential cause of international co-operation or conflict. It is based on British government records, private papers, the press as well as the archives of FIFA and the four British football associations.

Author Biography

Peter J. Beck is Professor of International History at Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	vi
Acknowledgements	vii
Abbreviations	ix
Series Editor's Foreword	xi
Introduction: Eleven Footballers Do a `Good Job' for Britain in Germany, May 1938	1	(16)
Presenting Britain as a Great Nation on the World's Screen through International Football	17	(33)
Conquering the World through Football: 1900--18	50	(29)
Responding to `New Developments' in International Sport after 1919	79	(22)
`Football by Order of the Foreign Office'? The 1920s	101	(29)
```To Intervene in International Football, or Not to Intervene?'', That is the Question': The Early 1930s	130	(43)
`The Greatest ever Triumph of the ``Keep Politics Out of Sport'' Brigade'? England versus Germany, 1935	173	(40)
Footballing Examples of British Propaganda as it Should, and Should Not, Be: The Mid to Late 1930s	213	(25)
Britain's `Football Ambassadors' Perform Work of `National Importance': The Late 1930s	238	(34)
Conclusion: `Good Kicking is Good Politics'	272	(14)
Bibliography	286	(14)
Index	300