Martin Johnes

Wales since 1939

This rigorous overview of the post-war decades should appeal to academics, students and the wider public interested in delineating modern Welsh history. It should fill a gap for a core-text on several post-1939 Welsh history undergraduate modules, and provides food for thought for postgraduate researchers as well. In fact, there is a role for this book on courses marketed as ‘British’ history: not only in terms of providing the ‘Welsh’ perspective, but as a contribution to the debate on the nature of ‘Britishness’.

Aberfan and the management of trauma.

This paper is a case study of the management of post-disaster trauma in 1960s Britain. It explores the traumatic aftermath of the 1966 Aberfan disaster (where 116 children and 28 adults were killed when a colliery spoil heap collapsed on top of a school in a small Welsh mining community) which had a devastating impact on the village. The professional and voluntary services made available to help the bereaved, survivors and wider community are documented and assessed. The paper demonstrates how limited finance and the popular and professional contemporary understanding of trauma and disasters hindered those services, and how the actions of government and media had a negative impact on the communitys recovery. This case study of disaster management in the 1960s illustrates many of the pitfalls that continue to haunt the response to man-made tragedies in the UK.

Archives, Truths and the Historian at Work: A Reply to Douglas Booth's ‘Refiguring the Archive’

In his article ‘Sites of Truth or Metaphors of Power? Refiguring the Archive’ 1 Douglas Booth calls for ‘a more cautious engagement with archived materials’ and suggests that traditional historians ‘conceptualize archives as simple, straightforward neutral sites of knowledge’. In reply, this article argues that all good historians understand that archives are not straightforward repositories from where truths can be retrieved. It suggests that the practicalities of writing and publishing mean that historians’ caution in interrogating archives is not always obvious in their publications. Postmodernism does have much to teach historians about how to practise history but its lessons will not be fully embraced while it fails to recognize fully the critical methodologies already employed within the discipline.

Soccer, Public History and the National Football Museum

Hopc springs ctcmal for tlic football fan. Thc miscry of dcfcat is casily sootlicd by tlic promisc of futurc victorics. Thcrc is always anothcr gamc and anothcr scason. Tlic football fin’s rclationship with thc past is morc complcx. Supportcrs boast a strong sciisc of tlic traditions and idcntitics of tlicir clubs; many fans hoard old programmcs, tickct stubs, scawcs and otlicr picccs of mcrnorabilia that signify thcir club’s history and tlicir pcrsonal history of attachmcnt to it. Vidcos and books of past triumphs arc popular products and oftcn compcnsatc for a lack of prcscnt succcss. Yct no mattcr how ycstcrday’s glorics on tlic pitch arc rcmcmbcrcd, ultiniatcly, football is conccrncd with winning in thc prcscnt. This articlc scts out to csplorc tlic gamc’s rclationship with its past, bcforc offcring a rcviciv of thc National Football Muscum in Prcston.1 In thc proccss, wc considcr how muscums facilitatc diffcrcnt typcs of rcmcmbrancc by providing a public spacc in which popular and individual mcmorics of football intcrscct with thc collcctivc, tlic institutional and tlic acadcmic.

Cardiff: The Making and Development of the Capital City of Wales

Capital cities are never static entities and their status is often contested or the subject of resentment elsewhere. Any history of capitals should thus extend beyond considering the built environment that has dominated its historiography and root itself in an understanding of popular attitudes and local political processes. Only then can the reality and significance of being a capital be properly understood. Cardiffs claim, attainment and development as the Welsh capital city over the course of the mid-late twentieth century are clear illustrations of this. They demonstrate first the uncertainty and contested nature of Welsh identity and then the growing confidence that came to exist in Wales as the nation became a more meaningful administrative entity. That process might have reduced the dispute surrounding Cardiffs capital status but it did not always endear the capital to the rest of Wales.

Hooligans and barrackers: Crowd disorder and soccer in South Wales, c.1906–39

Drawing upon an extensive search of the local press, this article offers a quantitative and qualitative analysis of incidents of crowd disorder at soccer matches in South Wales in the period 1906‐39. As well as contributing to the existing academic debate on the extent of football hooliganism in this period, it develops that debate through firmly situating the trouble in the class and cultural values of those who witnessed and perpetuated it. The paper argues that crowd disorder at and around soccer matches did take place, it was not a serious problem, certainly not on the lines of modern disturbances, and rooted in the working‐class values of the day.

PIGEON RACING AND WORKING-CLASS CULTURE IN BRITAIN, c. 1870-1950

ABSTRACT Pigeon racing was immensely popular amongst male industrial workers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article offers an overview of the history of pigeon racing in this period before moving on to explore the sports multiple meanings for those who took part. Pigeon racing offered not only the thrills and excitement of racing but also the more sedate and intellectual rewards of breeding and rearing the birds. The pigeon loft was a masculine enclave and a retreat from the pressures of domestic life for some, although for others it was an opportunity to share time with their family. As such, pigeon racing demonstrates the complexities of working-class masculinity. Pigeon keeping was also expensive, time consuming and required space. The article thus concludes by arguing that despite the agency workers were able to exercise over their leisure, they were still restricted by wider material constraints.

The 1953 FA Cup Final: Modernity and Tradition in British Culture

The 1953 FA Cup final was more than just a memorable game of football. It was the first cup final to reach a mass television audience. It was a match where a national hero, Stanley Matthews, finally won a winners medal for a competition that itself was a national institution. It was also a match that was intertwined with the ideas of modernity and tradition that ran through British culture in the early 1950s. The new Queen, present at the game, represented optimism in the future, an optimism closely linked with a technological progress that was epitomised by television. The celebrations of both the cup final and the coronation fed a sense of consensus and unity in the nation. Yet, as the loyalty towards the monarchy and the celebration of a respectable working-class hero like Matthews showed, British culture also remained profoundly attached to older traditions. Such discourses were mediated and actively promoted, although in varying fashions, by the local and national press. The game is thus a guide to the importance of historians understanding the press, not just as a repository of the past but also as an agent that helped to shape that past.

'Poor man's cricket': baseball, class and community in South Wales c. 1880-1950.

While American sporting enthusiasts may recognize their national game in the above description, it actually refers to a hybrid sport that is popular in Liverpool and South Wales. A game called baseball in Britain can be traced back into the eighteenth century, even gaining a passing mention in Jane Austens Northanger Abbey. However, it was not until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that, thanks to the efforts of touring American teams, a modern version of baseball emerged in England. Those tours also helped the evolution of rounders in the west of Britain into a sport that was renamed baseball but structurally still more akin to its original title. It is upon this sport of English, British or Welsh baseball (as it was variously known) that this article focuses. The sporting images of Wales have been dominated by international sports such as rugby, boxing and soccer. Yet the reality is far more diverse: a whole host of sports and games from quoits to handball were played and watched across the nation and, in parts of south-east Wales, baseball was the summer game. This article explores the sports history in south Wales before 1950. It attempts to develop our understanding of non-commercial sports within working-class communities, the agencies that influence and direct them and the way in which modern games evolve.

Archives and Historians of Sport

Archives and the documents within them are at the heart of the practice of history and the occupational culture of historians. A majority of historical work has been characterized and defined by research in archives of varying kinds. Yet, the material within archives is both partial and political and using it is never straightforward. For historians of sport, the material available in archives can be especially limited but, with some careful reading between the lines, there is still much to learn from and interpret within traditional archives. This paper explores the different kinds of archives and archival material that historians of sport have used and the uses they have been and can be put to. Archives, however, are not static entities and the paper also discusses the impact and implication of digitization processes and programmes to popularize and legitimize traditional archives. Although sport has been seen as one of the ways of diversifying the content and audience of archives, the paper argues that the practical and interpretative challenges historians of sport face in archives are no different to those faced by other historians.