The Changing Face of Rugby: The Union Game and Professionalism since 1995 [Hardcover]

Greg Ryan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2008

In 1995 rugby union became the last significant international sport to sanction professionalism. To some this represented an undesirable challenge to the traditions of the game. To others the change was inevitable and overdue an acknowledgment of both the realty of modern sport and the extent to which money had already permeated the game. While there are some commonalities in the response to professional rugby, the contributions to this book, representing almost all of the significant rugby playing countries, reveal much more that was shaped by particular local contexts both within rugby and in terms of its place within the economic, political, class and social structures of the surrounding society. The authors assess the contrasting ways in which rugby administrators at local, regional and national level grappled with the changes that were required and the demands of the corporate backers who funded the transition to professionalism. But the more contentious relationships considered are those involving the many amateur rugby players and committed fans who found that significant community and historical reference points were subtly altered or simply obliterated in the face of new commercial imperatives and especially new competitions that separated elite players from the grassroots of the game. Some have adapted to the replacement product with relish, others have not. Some have genuine and well articulated grievances against the processes of changes. Others have fallen victim to a nostalgia which appropriates very selective memories of the amateur past to highlight apparent problems with the professional present. Above all, these contributions provide a range of perspectives that enable the reader to take stock at a particular point in what is still a rapidly evolving game. Read in ten or twenty years, this book may confirm that many of the right paths have been taken or it may provide pointers to crisis as yet unimagined.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Greg Ryan is a Senior Lecturer in History at Lincoln University, New Zealand. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters on sport in New Zealand he has edited Tackling Rugby Myths: Rugby and New Zealand Society 1854-2004 (2005) and has written three books The Contest for Rugby Supremacy: accounting for the 1905 All Blacks (2005); The Making of New Zealand Cricket 1832-1914, (2004); and Forerunners of the All Blacks: The 1888-89 New Zealand Native Football Team in Britain, Australia and New Zealand, (1993).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (January 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847185304
• ISBN-13: 978-1847185303
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,240,406 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)