Writing Lives in Sports : Biographies, Life Histories, and Methods

by Bale, John; Christensen, Mette Krogh; Pfister, Gertrud

• ISBN13: 9788779340848
• ISBN10: 8779340849
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-09-30
• Publisher: David Brown Book Co

Summary

This is a book of stories about sports persons: sports stars, less-known athletes and relatively unknown physical education teachers and sports scientists. More exactly, these 13 essays all deal with problems associated with writing sport biographies - how does an author navigate among myths and truths? Why do some athletes live on in the public mind while others, whose achievements may have been greater, fade from memory? Are sports biographies different from those dealing with people from the non-sporting realm? The subjects range from direct theoretical explorations of writing sport biographies to discussions of biographies themselves. Topics include the following: Danish gymnastics pedagogue Niels Bukh; two studies of physical education teachers, including Martti Silvennionen's work on autoethnographical pedagogy in PE teacher training; women's sport in Denmark's intermediary period of 1920-1950; writing about women and sport, and the Finnish worker sports movement experience from a woman's viewpoint. Another essay observes the contrasts in the legends of two sports stars in twentieth century Britain, the English footballer Jackie Milburn and the Olympic athlete, Godfrey Brown. Other topics include the English sports hero from the 1940s and 50s, Denis Compton, the Swedish footballer Lennart "Nacka" Skoglund and the Danish cyclist Niels Fredborg. "Writing Lives in Sport" provides lively discussions of individual sporting lives as well as important methodological and conceptual questions for writers and biographers of sport figures and other genres.

Table of Contents

JOHN BALE, METTE K. CHRISTENSEN AND GERTRUD PFISTER
Introduction	9	(8)
BIRGITTE POSSING
The Historical Biography: Genre, History and Methodology	17	(8)
JOHN BALE
The Mysterious Professor Jokl	25	(16)
HANS BONDE
Gymnastics and Politics: Niels Bukh and the Biographical Genre	41	(18)
METTE KROGH CHRISTENSEN
The Anonymous Biography?	59	(12)
FIONA DOWLING
Re-telling Physical Education Teachers' Life Stories	71	(14)
MARTTI SILVENNOINEN
Body - Experience - Text	85	(10)
ELSE TRANGBAEK
Biographical Narratives about Acculturation, Education and Training	95	(20)
LEENA LAINE
Unfortunately She was the Winner	115	(16)
GERTRUD PFISTER
We Love Them and We Hate Them: On the Emotional Involvement and other Challenges during Biographical Re-search	131	(26)
RICHARD HOLT
The Legend of Jackie Milburn and the Life of Godfrey Brown	157	(14)
JEFFREY HILL
Brylcreem Boy': Inter-Textual Signification in the Life of Denis Compton	171	(8)
NIELS KAYSER NIELSEN
'Nacka' Skoglund: a Swedish Soccer Player as a Welfare-Nationalistic Myth	179	(12)
CONTRIBUTORS	191