Played in Britain

Played in Britain is a ten year research project for English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

which seeks to record and celebrate Britain's sporting and recreational heritage, coinciding with the period from the staging of the 2002 Commonwealth Games

2002 Commonwealth Games

The 2002 Commonwealth Games were held in Manchester, England from 25 July to 4 August 2002. The XVII Commonwealth Games was the largest multi-sport event ever to be held in the UK, eclipsing London's 1948 Summer Olympics in numbers of teams and athletes participating.After the 1996 Manchester...

in Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

to the 2012 Olympics. Much of the research has been made publicly available in a series of books, also called Played in Britain, featuring historic buildings (such as grandstands, pavilions, swimming pools and billiard halls) and sportscapes (such as golf courses, racecourses, rivers and lakes). The series also looks at sporting artefacts and archaeology.

The Played in Britain research project is led by author and architectural historian Simon Inglis

Simon Inglis

Simon Inglis is a British architectural historian, writer and broadcaster, most notably about football and stadiums.Inglis was born in Sparkhill, Birmingham and is currently editor of the Played in Britain series on sporting heritage, published by English Heritage...

, best known for his books on football grounds, stadiums and football history. Simon Inglis is also the series editor of the Played in Britain books.

Background

The Played in Britain series was launched in 2004, following a pilot study conducted in Manchester

Manchester

in 2002 as part of English Heritage’s contribution to the cultural programme of the 2002 Commonwealth Games

2002 Commonwealth Games

. It frequently cites as its inspiration the words of Joseph Strutt

Joseph Strutt

Joseph Strutt may refer to:*Joseph Strutt , English engraver and antiquary*Joseph Strutt , Derby textile manufacturer and philanthropist*Joseph Strutt , British soldier and MP...

, author of the seminal book The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, first published in 1801. Strutt wrote, “In order to form a just estimation of the character of any particular people, it is absolutely necessary to investigate the sports and pastimes most generally prevalent among them.”

Sporting heritage in Britain is expected to gain increased attention as the 2012 Olympics approach, but such attention is often dismissed as tokenism. For example, as government and lottery money was lavished on a new swimming pool in Manchester

Manchester

for the 2002 Commonwealth Games

2002 Commonwealth Games

, a few hundred yards away one of the most important historic swimming pools in Europe, the Victoria Baths

Victoria Baths

Victoria Baths is a Grade II* listed building, situated in the Chorlton-upon-Medlock area of Manchester, in northwest England. The building is currently on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk Register....

(built 1903-06) lay empty and abandoned by its owners, Manchester City Council

Manchester City Council

Manchester City Council is the local government authority for Manchester, a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. It is composed of 96 councillors, three for each of the 32 electoral wards of Manchester. Currently the council is controlled by the Labour Party and is led by...

. Some of the other threatened Victorian and Edwardian baths around Britain are in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, Nottingham

Nottingham

Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

, Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

and most recently, Ripon

Ripon

Ripon is a cathedral city, market town and successor parish in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England, located at the confluence of two streams of the River Ure in the form of the Laver and Skell. The city is noted for its main feature the Ripon Cathedral which is architecturally...

. More historic sports venues in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

are expected to suffer as funds are increasingly diverted towards projects for the 2012 Olympics.

Research so far

Played in Britain has published studies of the sporting heritage of Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Tyne and Wear and Glasgow (for Historic Scotland

Historic Scotland

Historic Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government, responsible for historic monuments in Scotland.-Role:As its website states:...

). A further study is scheduled for London (for the 2012 Olympics).

The series has also featured six thematic studies:

Uppies and Downies by Hugh Hornby, on the so-called 'extraordinary football games of Britain' such as the Royal Shrovetide Football

Royal Shrovetide Football

The Royal Shrovetide Football Match occurs annually on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday in the town of Ashbourne in Derbyshire, England. It has been played since at least the 12th century, though the exact origins of the game are unknown due to a fire at the Royal Shrovetide Committee office in the...

match at Ashbourne, the Kirkwall Ba Game

Kirkwall Ba game

The Kirkwall Ba Game is one of the main annual events held in the town of Kirkwall, in Orkney, Scotland. It is one of a number of Ba Games played in the streets of towns around Scotland; these are examples of traditional football games which are still played in towns in the United Kingdom and...

at Christmas and New Year and the annual Haxey Hood

Haxey Hood

The Haxey Hood is a traditional event in at the village of Haxey in North Lincolnshire, England, on the afternoon of 6 January, the Twelfth Day of Christmas ....

game in Lincolnshire. Hornby is a former curator at the National Football Museum

National Football Museum

The National Football Museum was a museum in Preston, Lancashire, England founded to preserve, conserve and interpret several important collections of association football memorabilia. It was built outside Deepdale, which as of 2010 is the oldest continuously used football league ground in the world...

in Preston.

Liquid Assets by Janet Smith, is a study of the lido

Lido

The Lido is an 11 km long sandbar located in Venice, northern Italy, home to about 20,000 residents. The Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido every September.-Geography:...

s and open air swimming pools of Britain, of which there are approximately 100 left, down from a peak of around 300 in the early 1950s. The book’s foreword was written by artist Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

, herself a great fan of outdoor swimming from her youth in Margate

Margate

-Demography:As of the 2001 UK census, Margate had a population of 40,386.The ethnicity of the town was 97.1% white, 1.0% mixed race, 0.5% black, 0.8% Asian, 0.6% Chinese or other ethnicity....

.

Engineering Archie by Simon Inglis

Simon Inglis

, looks at the life and work of the Scottish football ground engineer Archibald Leitch

Archibald Leitch

Archibald "Offside Archie" Leitch was a Scottish architect, most famous for his work designing football stadia throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.-Early work:...

.

Great Lengths by Dr Ian Gordon and Simon Inglis, features detailed studies of 54 of Britain's historic indoor swimming pools and includes a comprehensive directory of extant baths-related buildings from 1800-1970. The foreword to Great Lengths is written by double Olympic gold medallist, Rebecca Adlington.

Played at the Pub by Arthur Taylor describes the wide range of pub games to be found in Britain, from darts to dwile flonking, and features long lost games such as knur and spell and nipsy.

The British Olympics, Britain's Olympic heritage 1612-2012 by Martin Polley, who details Britain's surprisingly long association with the Olympics.

Bowled Over, by Hugh Hornby, on the bowling greens of Britain, will be published in 2012.

The series has been regularly reviewed in the national press and media, but received its most surprising boost from the TV programme Richard & Judy

Richard & Judy

Richard & Judy was a British magazine/chat show which was presented by married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. It originally aired on Channel 4 from 2001 to 2008 but later moved to digital channel Watch in October 2008. It featured the world's most famous stars, along with their Book Club...

, which featured a pocket book in the series, called A Load of Old Balls. Although apparently a flippant title, the book is actually about the design and manufacture of balls in sport, and the decline of the British ball manufacturing industry.

Another strand in the series is devoted to reproducing the archives of Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly, a pioneering magazine founded by Charles Buchan and first published in 1951. Five books from the archive have been published so far - The Best of Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, Charles Buchan's Arsenal Gift Book, Charles Buchan's Manchester United Gift Book, Charles Buchan's Spurs Gift Book and Charles Buchan's Liverpool Gift Book.

External links

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