Professionals, amateurs and performance : sports coaching in England, 1789-1914
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Professionals, amateurs and performance : sports coaching in England, 1789-1914
（Sport, history and culture, v. 3）
Peter Lang, c2012
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [267]-290) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book was shortlisted for the Lord Aberdare Prize 2013.
While the relationship between amateurism and sport is well documented, the impact of this ethos on the professional coaches and trainers who directed and supported elite sporting performance has been entirely overlooked. This book explores the foundations of coaching and training practices and chronicles how traditional approaches to performance preparation evolved during the nineteenth century. Drawing on primary material to uncover the life courses of coaches and their families, the author argues that approaches to coaching replicated the traditional craft approach to skilled work. The advent of centralized, amateur-controlled governing bodies of sport created a significant shift in the coaching environment for professional coaches, meaning that individuals had to adapt to the master-servant relationship preferred by the middle classes. Cultural differences in the value accorded to coaching also contributed to a decline in the competitiveness of British athletes in the international arena. The author concludes by arguing that despite scientific advances, Edwardian coaching practices remained reliant on long-established training principles and that coaching practices in any period are inevitably an amalgamation of both tradition and innovation.
Table of Contents
Contents: Introduction: Examines the etymology of the term ‘coaching’, discusses the importance of the coaching context and recalls coaching practices in the Classical World – Coaching and Training in the Eighteenth Century: Outlines the fundamental practices of training employed in this period before highlighting the importance to coaches of oral traditions and experiential knowledge – Amateurism and Coaching Practice: Explores the impact of amateurism on coaches and gives an exemplar of a coaching life at the end of the nineteenth century – Coaching Communities and ‘Know-How’: Presents nineteenth-century coaching as a craft and uses census material to uncover the life courses of coaching families – Training the athlete and fuelling the athlete: These draw on contemporary literature to identify the physiological, psychological and dietary components of training during this period – The International Dimension: Compares the coaching environment in Britain with that of Empire, Europe and, most especially, America – Coaching and Competitive Swimming: Uses Victorian and Edwardian swimming to demonstrate the impact of amateurism on professionals and on international performance – Coaching Lives: Continuity and Change: Emphasises that coaching practices in any period are an amalgamation of tradition and innovation.
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