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Although badminton has been played in New Zealand for approximately 150 years it has received only minimal attention in scholarly discussions of sport. This paper evaluates the historical development of badminton in New Zealand between 1870 and 1939. It argues that from the last quarter of the nineteenth century badminton was initially played alongside games such as croquet and tennis in mostly private venues as a form of upper-class recreation. It then gained a wider appeal primarily as a winter sport that could be played by tennis players during the off-season. During the interwar period it was promoted as a suitable form of recreation for women because it was non-contact and believed to be not overly strenuous. Although its construction as a useful winter sport for tennis players and a suitable game for women helped badminton achieve a position as a niche sport, such characterizations hindered its further development because it was seen as a supplementary sport to tennis, the then dominant racket sport in New Zealand. Moreover, in comparison to its contemporary racket sports badminton was often criticized as an inferior game. Accordingly, it occupied a somewhat ambiguous place in New Zealand's sporting hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sambo, an acronym commonly derived from the Russian Samozashchita Bez Oruzhiya (self-defence without weapons), is a Soviet created grappling martial art noted for its assortment of painful holds, heavy throws, and take downs. Originally part of a secret military training syllabus with roots in judo, the sport was officially adopted by the USSR All-Union Sports Committee in 1938. Throughout the Cold War period, Soviet sambo slowly inserted itself into the wrestling halls and martial arts dojos of the United States, capturing the attention of American judoka and wrestlers. Sport sambo arrived in the United States at a time in which the Cuban missile crisis remained fresh in the memories of the citizenry while young Americans were being drafted to fight communists in the Vietnam war. Though Cold War tensions had cooled somewhat compared to the days of McCarthyism, the Soviet-US rivalry continued to colour public discourse, permeating every facet of American society. This paper breaks new ground in Western scholarship by analyzing the reception of sambo in the USA during the 1960s and 70s by the professional martial artists and athletes, in the lead up of the 1980 Olympics against the political backdrop of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrants are often characterized as in search of new homes, while spectator sports are frequently spoken of as providing homes for the followers of particular teams. However the particular kinds of 'homes' that spectator sports can provide for migrants is understudied. This paper explores the sporting 'homes' found by those who migrated from Italy to Australia after the Second World War. In particular it examines the different experiences of those who found a home in the mainstream sport of Australian Rules football with the more culturally peripheral sport of Association football (soccer). Drawing on 59 oral history interviews with first and second generation migrants to the Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney, the paper provides a window into the meanings, passions, exclusion, inclusion, intergenerational tensions, and intergenerational bonding that these migrants found in, and created through, Australian Rules football and soccer. Both sports facilitated entry into particular territorial worlds in Melbourne and Sydney. Yet while those who followed Australian Rules football went to away games with throngs of Anglo-Australians, soccer provided access to a more hidden, peripheral, and more European parts of Melbourne and Sydney which were yet to be celebrated for their multicultural ethnic diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper draws attention to free time activities in the Polish countryside after 1945. In pre-war rural worldview, every action in which the element of household usefulness was absent, was valued negatively, and considered to be laziness. Growing spatial mobility of village dwellers and changing attitudes towards work on farms resulted in depreciation of land as superior value. This shift together with industrialization and positive valuation of urban culture brought new patterns of spending time in the countryside. Traditionally, ‘Neighbourhood sit-ins’ - a kind of zone of pleasure and fun, situated on the border between the spheres of work and active rest - have been transformed into something totally different. The emergence of radios, TV sets, and pop culture meant that group meetings were focused on content entirely separate from work. In my article, I would like to examine the intersection of two domains of leisure in post-war countryside, time of community, associated with relaxing meeting, spontaneous fun on the one hand and organized time of the youth on the other. Another major issue I would like to discuss in my paper is emergence of private spare time and its perception by village dwellers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to question the relevance of sport history and to recognize our failings and our successes if we are to ensure the genre develops and contributes to society. While sport historians recognize the value, outside of this sphere, it is apparent that the subject is not always recognized for its significance. In this paper, it is argued that sport historians have a responsibility to engage more with the media and the public, while seeking opportunities to collaborate with sports organizations to ensure the subject is relevant and can develop. It is also argued that minority groups are under-represented in the sport history community, arguing that it is incumbent upon sport historians to ensure greater engagement and promotion of these groups. The paper concludes by urging those engaged in sport history to promote the discipline and develop opportunities for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently, Australia's cricketing past has been coloured by an anglocentric bias. Australian cricket writers, players and administrators mainly have deemed Australian series with subcontinental countries of much lesser importance than Ashes contests. In surveying Australia's cricketing relations with the subcontinent from the 1880s until Australia's first fully fledged official tour of the region in 1959–1960, this paper seeks to redress this imbalance. The paper explores how initial cricketing relations were viewed within the prism of Australia's traditional cricketing ties with England. This did not alter with India's attaining official Test match status in the 1930s. Australian tours of India were confined to unofficial teams, and it was not until 1947–1948 that the first official exchange occurred. As this paper documents, the importance of subcontinental cricket tours increased after the war, as both Labor and Liberal Coalition governments encouraged the use of cricket to foster diplomatic ties at a time of increasing decolonisation and when Indian and Australian external relations were ideologically opposed. The governments' efforts were not fully supported by many Australian cricketers and administrators. While some, such as the Australian captain Ian Johnson, embraced cricketing diplomacy, many of his colleagues coloured these new cricketing worlds with old Australian prejudices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology and history are intimately related to each other and cannot be clearly separated or isolated from each other which resonates with a Māori view of time (the past, present, and future are not distinct entities) and realms (the spiritual and human in particular). This paper uses pūrākau and storytelling to explore how haka performed by strong women in tribal narratives, in Māori contexts, and in women’s rugby creates a more nuanced understanding of the embodied discourses associated with intersecting identities (gender, race, ethnicity, class) in and around the sport of rugby union. As a Māori woman, heavily invested in the sport of rugby union, how did the words and actions of Māori women from my past influence my present and my future and how was this embodied and experienced through haka? In particular, my 10 years as a member of the New Zealand women’s rugby team and my understanding of the histories or pūrākau (tribal stories) of strong women in te ao Māori (the Māori world) inform this paper. This will help to illustrate how history and sociology are intimately connected and highlights how intersecting stories told through time, from different perspectives can influence key learnings in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The history of disability sport is an emerging field. However, much of the work in this area has tended to focus on celebratory accounts of the Paralympics. Accordingly, what is needed are histories that focus on the experiences of individual athletes that avoid the trope of positioning them as ‘tragic’ figures rescued from lives of misery. At issue are narratives of empowerment, progress and agency. This paper responds to this challenge with a ‘pre-history’ of formal wheelchair sporting contests in the Australian state of Victoria. By following the stories of two people who would become, among other things, paraplegic athletes in the 1950s and beyond, it provides a rare local story of the individual, medical and sporting worlds that came together to provide the foundations for the development of formal wheelchair sport. While the narrative of this paper has elements of the traditional celebratory tale of progress, it also points to the agency of the individuals and to the complexities of the medical worlds that they encountered – worlds that could hinder, as well as help facilitate, their recovery. As such this paper also provides something of an exploratory meeting place between the history of sport and the history of medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the historical social contribution of Australian football clubs, and the extent of this as evidenced through Annual General Meetings (hereafter referred to as AGMs) during the period 1890–1910. Australian football club AGMs were an important part of the administration process where the committee would report to members on the performance of the club. These AGMs were highlighted extensively in local suburban newspapers. Results show that suburban newspaper narratives did reinforce that AGMs were more than merely formulaic procedural sessions that reported financial and team performance, but that they also reinforced the social and entertainment aspects of Australian football. The paper contributes and extends arguments about the social importance of Australian football, through AGMs, for which little prior research exists, and suggests that this should be made more prominent when the histories of clubs are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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