‘Base Mechanic Arms’? British Rowing, Some Ducks and the Shifting Politics of Amateurism
2006; Routledge; Volume: 26; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/17460260601066282
ISSN1746-0271
Autores Tópico(s)Doping in Sports
ResumoAbstract This essay examines an incident in the Olympic Games of 1928 when Australian sculler Henry Pearce stopped his boat in a race in order to avoid hitting a family of ducks. It was, it is argued, a definitively amateur gesture; it is also now a prominent piece of official Olympic history. Pearce's pause, however, was not widely acknowledged at the time it took place. This, I contend, is because British rowing was then dominated by gentleman amateurs who were disinclined to recognize amateurism in people they regarded as socially inferior. Furthermore, the apparent rehabilitation of Pearce and the ducks in official Olympic history has to do with a ‘Disneyfication’ of the movement's past, designed to offset in the public mind the abandonment of Olympic amateur ideals. Acknowledgments Thanks to Helen Pussard for suggesting that I look at Olympic myths. For help with the preparation of this essay, I'd like to thank Don Anthony, Marzena Bogdanowicz, Richard Cox, Mary Gibson, Helen Lynott, Amanda Morgan, Dil Porter, Andrew Ruddle, Ian Watson, the (very patient) staffs of the British Library at Colindale and the National Archives at Kew and Chris Dodd and Suzie Tilbury, respectively consultant rowing historian and curator at the River and Rowing Museum at Henley-on-Thames. The research was funded out of a grant from the School of Human and Life Sciences at Roehampton University. Notes 1. John Hoberman, The Olympic crisis: Sport, politics and the new moral order (New Rochelle, NY, 1986), p. 11. 2. John Hoberman, The Olympic crisis: Sport, politics and the new moral order (New Rochelle, NY, 1986), p. 87. 3. John Hoberman, The Olympic crisis: Sport, politics and the new moral order (New Rochelle, NY, 1986), p. 29. 4. Available online at http:/www.Olympic.org/uk/games/past index_uk.asp?OLGT=1&OLGY=1928, accessed 11 Oct. 2006. 5. Available online at http://abc.net.au/olympics_1996/game1928.htm, accessed 11 Oct. 2006. 6. Available online at http://rowinghistory-aus.info/olympic-games/1928-Amsterdam.html, accessed 11 Oct. 2006. 7. Rudolf Lehmann, The complete oarsman (London, 1924; orig. pub. 1908), p. 11. 8. Rudolf Lehmann, The complete oarsman (London, 1924; orig. pub. 1908), pp. 10–17. 9. Walter Woodgate, Boating (London, 1889), pp. 193–5. 10. Walter Woodgate, Boating (London, 1889), p. 197. 11. Walter Woodgate, Boating (London, 1889), p. 10. 12. Lehmann, The complete oarsman, pp. 115–33. 13. Eric Halladay, ‘Of pride and prejudice: The amateur question in English nineteenth-century rowing’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 4 (1) (1984), p. 49; Eric Halladay, Rowing in England: A social history (Manchester, 1990), p. 84. 14. Neil Wigglesworth, A social history of English rowing (London, 1992), p. 135. 15. Woodgate, Boating, p. 199. 16. See http://www.vincents.org/history/ahappybreed/, accessed, 10 July 2006. 17. Lincoln Allison, Amateurism in sport: An analysis and a defence (London, 2001), p. 18. 18. Wigglesworth, A social history, pp. 118–19. 19. Halladay, Rowing in England, p. 45. 20. Wigglesworth, A social history, p. 121. 21. Quoted in Lehmann, The complete oarsman, p. 15. 22. Quoted in Halladay, Rowing in England, p. 29. 23. The Times, 26 April 1880; a shorter extract from this editorial appeared in Wigglesworth, A social history, p. 117. 24. William Benzie, Dr F.J. Furnivall: A Victorian scholar adventurer (Oklahoma, 1983); see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._J._Furnivall, accessed 12 July 2006. 25. Allison, Amateurism in sport, p. 20. 26. Wigglesworth, A social history, pp. 132–3. 27. Richard Burnell, The Henley Regatta (London, 1989), p. 24; see also Halladay, Rowing in England, p. 120. 28. See http://www.rowinghistory-aus.info/1919-peace-regatta/5-Royal-Henley.html, accessed 12 July 1906. 29. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Kelly%2C_Sr., accessed 12 July 2006. 30. Burnell, The Henley regatta, p. 25. 31. Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Commons 1936–7, vol. 322, col. 235, 7 April 1937. 32. Burnell, The Henley regatta, p. 26. 33. National Archives, Kew, FDI/2474. 34. Halladay, Rowing in England, p. 142. 35. Samuel Crowther and Arthur Ruhl, Rowing and track athletics (London, 1905), p. 162. 36. Thanks to Chris Dodd for this observation: interview with author, River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames, 4 July 2006. 37. The Times, 16 Jan. 1928. 38. The Times, 20 Feb. 1928. 39. The Times, 25 Feb. 1928. 40. Halladay, Rowing in England, pp. 145–7. 41. The Times, 23 April 1928. 42. The Times, 14 May 1928. 43. The Times, 8 Aug. 1928. 44. The Times, 9 Aug. 1928. 45. The Times, 24 Aug. and 1 Sept. 1928. 46. Daily Express, 7 Aug. 1928. 47. Sydney Morning Herald, 8 Aug. 1928. 48. Daily Telegraph, 8 Aug. 1928. 49. Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Aug. 1928. 50. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 Aug. 1928. 51. The Times, 1 Sept. 1928. 52. See http://www.rowinghistory-aus.info/olympic-games/1928-Amsterdam.html, accessed 11 Oct. 2006. Pearce's winning margin over Saurin was a comfortable 29 seconds; see G. Van Rossen, ed., The ninth Olympiad: Being the official report of the Olympic Games of Amsterdam celebrated at Amsterdam, trans. Sydney Fleming (Amsterdam, 1928), p. 721. 53. A.P. Ruddle, ‘Rowing on the Thames Tideway in nineteenth-century London’ (unpublished MA thesis, Open University, 2000), p. 21. 54. The Field, 9 Aug. 1928. 55. Rachel Quarrel, ‘Rowing: Silver lining for Pinsent, Cracknell’, Daily Telegraph, 6 July 2005, available online at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2003/07/06/soroww06xml, accessed 1 Nov. 2005. 56. Rachel Quarrel, ‘Rowing: Pair put down marker’, Daily Telegraph, 9 Feb. 2004, available online at http://sport.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2004/02.09/sorow09.xml, accessed 1 Nov. 2005. 57. Chris Dodd, email to author, 11 July 2006. 58. Clive James, May week was in June (Oxford, 1991; orig. pub. 1990), p. 74. 59. Available online at http://www.olympic.org/uk/index_uk.asp, accessed 11 Oct. 2006. 60. Don Anthony, email to author, 27 June 2006. 61. The word ‘caste’ is used loosely here. In de Coubertin's time the words ‘class’, ‘caste’ and ‘race’ were almost certainly closer in meaning than they are now. Nevertheless the notion of groups ‘hierarchically organized and separated from each other by rules of ritual purity’ – the definition of caste offered by the current Dictionary of sociology – seems a tenable description of the social world depicted in this essay. See Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill and Bryan Turner, Dictionary of sociology (London, 2000), p. 42. 62. See, for example, Hoberman, Olympic crisis; Alan Tomlinson and Gary Whannel, eds., Five ring circus: Money, power and politics and the Olympic Games (London, 1986); John Bale and Mette Krogh Christiansen, eds., Post Olympism: Questioning sport in the twentieth century (Oxford, 2004). Additional informationNotes on contributorsStephen Wagg Stephen Wagg, Leeds Metropolitan University
Referência(s)