Based on a vast range of club and association records, Pay Up and Play the Game, first published in 1988, presents a systematic economic analysis of the emergence of mass spectator sport during the years prior to World War I. It explores the tensions behind an increasingly commercialised activity that was nonetheless suffused with 'gentlemanly' values at many levels, and highlights the retreat of the latter as working-class consumption and participation became predominant, symbolised most dramatically by the celebrated victory of proletarian Blackburn Olympic over the Old Etonians in the FA Cup final of 1883. Wray Vamplew examines the linkages between sport, gambling, crime and spectator violence, and concludes that many supposedly 'recent' developments (notably football hooliganism) in fact have their origins in this, the 'Golden Age' of sport in Britain.
The pre-1914 British golf club exhibited bonding social capital formation rather than bridging, seeking to exclude rather than include. Generally the course, but especially the clubhouse, were sites for males of similar social background to meet in a homosocial environment, one protected by cost and membership policies. Segmentation of clubs within the same geographical area allowed for further social differentiation between men from different occupational groups. Numerous golfing societies also brought men together with a common business interest. However, female and working-class players were accommodated without breaking down the male, middle-class dominance, by parent-club development of separate "ladies" sections and artisan clubs. Nevertheless, restrictions on when and where they could play served to segregate them from the full-fee paying male club members.
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