The Victorian & Edwardian Sportsman

Victorian Britain made sport ‘sporting’ – respectable, rule-bound and a nationwide obsession. Ancient sports, such as archery and fencing, were revived. New sports, such as tennis and cycling, were invented. Foreign sports, including polo, judo and lacrosse, were imported. As new settings were devised – the enclosed racecourse, the cinder track, the swimming-pool, the ice-rink, the velodrome and the football ground, sport became intrinsic to the weekend and the bank holiday, to the armed services and the popular press, to education and to empire. Sportsmanship came to represent the best of what is mean to be British.