A Level PE - The Emergence of Modern Sport:

A Level PE - The Emergence of Modern Sport:

Pre-Industrialisation (1700 - 1750):

• During this time life was very rural and sport was very basic
• ‘Mob Games’ were played on bank holidays and was the only form of sport people played
• E.g. Shrovetide Football 

Post Industrialisation (1750 - 1900):

• This is when Britain experienced the industrial revolution
• Factories were built in large towns and cities
• Transport links were improved (e.g. railways, buses)
• People went from living rural lives to moving into towns and cities to work

The Influence of Public Schools in Post-Industrial Britain:

Early Public Schools (Pre-1940):

• Very unruly places
• The boys would fight, gamble, owned guns and showed no respect to authority
• Younger boys were treated as slaves by the older boys, high bullying culture

The Influence of Thomas Arnold:

• He was the headmaster of Rugby School (1828 - 1841)
• He didn’t like the unruly behaviour
• He wanted to bring about change, so came up with muscular christianity concept
• Along with the muscular christianity concept, Arnold also introduced a house system whereby inter house competition could take place
• This helped Arnold gain ‘social control’ of the previously unruly boys as teachers could threaten to ban them from sports
• Many public schools soon followed their own versions of sports (e.g. football)

Muscular Christianity: the combination of Christian Gentleman beliefs with patriotic duty, manliness, the moral and physical beauty of athleticism, teamwork, discipline and self sacrifice.

Codification and Rationalisation of Sport:

• Many public schools had their own versions of sports, which was an issue when boys left school for uni
• All of the boys thought their version of the sport was best so they needed to decide on a unified set of rules
• To solve the dispute, rules from each game were used in order to create 1 unified version of the rules
• This process was known as the melting point

The Codification of Football:

• Football was the 1st sport to be codified
• Public schools such as Eton, Rugby and Harrow all had their own versions of the game
• Leavers of these schools decided to make a unified set of rules so inter-school matches could be played between their old schools
• The Cambridge rules were created in 1848 at Cambridge University by the alumni of some public schools
• The Cambridge rules were adopted by most, but some schools continued to play their own versions
• On 26th Oct 1863 at Freemasons’ Tavern in London, The Football Association was formed and after more meeting between the The FA members, a comprehensive set of the rules were made
• These rules are the basis of football today

The Development of Football:

• During…