Book review of "A Social History of English Rugby Union: Sport and the Making of the Middle Classes" by Tony Collins, London: Routledge, 2009, vii-288.

Abstract

[Extract] Professor Tony Collins, the doyen of rugby league historians, has turned his renowned historical industry, which has twice won him the Lord Aberdare prize for Sports, to the 'other' code, rugby union. In writing A Social History of English Rugby Union, Collins has produced an outstanding history of rugby union football's emergence, development and metamorphosis, articulated through the themes of class, masculine hegemony, militarism, imperialism and political economy and, implicitly, has written a definitive social history of the English (British) through the lens of a code of football. In both instances this text provides an invaluable and readable insight into the culture of both.