Degenerate days: colonial sports tours and British manliness 1900–1910

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe 1900s saw a crisis in English manliness that played out in the commentary on sport in the national press. At a time when the theory of social Darwinism was becoming more influential among intellectuals and politicians, the British Army put in a catastrophic performance against the Boers in the South African War. In the aftermath of the war some of the blame for the bad performance of the Army had been placed upon the poor physical and mental quality of recruits to the armed forces. This articles argues that the success of colonial teams caused a crisis of middle-class British masculinity that was played out in the national press as progressives and conservatives debated the future direction of cricket and rugby. A debate, it is argued, that was won by those who wished to demarcate their games from the masses, and who rejected class and ethnic inclusivity as a threat to their future leadership of the nation's sports.