Matthew Llewellyn | California State University, Fullerton (original) (raw)

Books by Matthew Llewellyn

Research paper thumbnail of Rule Britannia: Nationalism, Identity and the Modern Olympic Games (London: Routledge Press, 2011)

Papers by Matthew Llewellyn

Research paper thumbnail of Nacionalismo Dos Domínios Ou Patriotismo Imperial? Cidadania, Raça e a Proposta De Uma Equipe Olímpica Do Império Britânico

Resumo Apos um desempenho britânico desastroso na Olimpiada de 1912, em Estocolmo, a Associacao O... more Resumo Apos um desempenho britânico desastroso na Olimpiada de 1912, em Estocolmo, a Associacao Olimpica Britânica (BOA, na sigla em ingles) anunciou um projeto para consolidar as distintas unidades do Imperio Britânico em uma unica equipe olimpica para os jogos seguintes, em Berlim (1916). De olho em Berlim, um evento de grande importância, dada a escalada do antagonismo anglo-germânico, o BOA imaginou que uma equipe unificada da Grandessissima Bretanha solidificaria as relacoes das colonias e dominios com a velha patria-mae e resgataria a autoimagem da Gra-Bretanha como lider do esporte moderno. Porem, os esforcos para manter a posicao esportiva global da Gra-Bretanha atraves da fusao do Reino Unido e de suas possessoes globais em uma equipe olimpica formidavel sofreram dura oposicao. A crescente independencia politica das colonias e dominios britânicos, somada a arriscada tarefa administrativa de selecionar, organizar e financiar uma equipe britânica intercontinental, criaram pro...

Research paper thumbnail of A Universal Dilemma: The British Sporting Life and the Complex, Contested, and Contradictory State of Amateurism

As a core and enduring ideal that influenced sports throughout the world for over a century, amat... more As a core and enduring ideal that influenced sports throughout the world for over a century, amateurism has long fascinated scholars. While historians have examined the social origins of amateurism within its institutional seedbed in Britain, the subject has proven resistant to extensive scholarly analysis. Many questions still remain unanswered: What were the mechanisms that took amateurism around the world? How was amateurism received outside of Britain? Was amateurism a monolithic, homogenous term? Or, alternatively, was it malleable, selective and fluid, transforming itself within and across national boundaries? A coordinated effort by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the popular British newspaper, Sporting Life, attempted to craft a universal amateur definition across all sports in the aftermath of the controversial 1908 Olympic games in London. The IOC’s difficulties in establishing an international consensus in the years prior to the Great War revealed that amate...

Research paper thumbnail of Barbarians, Bridge Builders, and Boycott: The British Sports Council’s Fact-Finding Mission to South Africa

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2019

In January 1980, four representatives of the British Sports Council began a fact-finding mission ... more In January 1980, four representatives of the British Sports Council began a fact-finding mission in South Africa to assess whether or not the apartheid nation had taken significant steps towards social and racial equality in its sports culture. The Council published its conclusions in a long and detailed document. Although the report unreservedly 'condemned' apartheid, it indicated that South African sport was experiencing increasing levels of integration. The Sports Council's work, and the public discourse it generated in Britain, helped to clarify two important issues. First, any changes South Africa might have made or would make to its sporting infrastructure were, by 1980, almost completely irrelevant as a strategy to end isolation. The global coalition behind the boycottunder pressure from the anti-apartheid movement, African states, and the communist blocwould only sanction South Africa's readmission if apartheid per se ceased to exist. Second, any investigation or recommendation visa -vis South Africa's isolation made by Britain alone lacked credibility. With a history of consistently flouting the boycott, anti-apartheid activists viewed Britain as a 'weak link' in the chain. Britain could contribute to the maintenance of South Africa's isolation, but on its own could not end it.

Research paper thumbnail of Sport, Thatcher and Apartheid Politics: The Zola Budd Affair

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2018

On 23 March 1984, Afrikaner teenage running sensation Zola Budd boarded a KLM flight at the Jan S... more On 23 March 1984, Afrikaner teenage running sensation Zola Budd boarded a KLM flight at the Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg bound for Britain. Through the manoeuvrings of the London-based Daily Mail newspaper, Budd fled apartheid South Africa for the opportunity to compete on the international stage under the representative colours of Great Britain. To forward his own commercial agenda, Sir David English, chief editor of the Daily Mail and a personal friend of the British Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, pressured the Home Office into awarding British citizenship to the 5000-metre world-record holder. This article seeks to examine the Zola Budd affair in four interrelated ways. First, we argue that it should be read within the context of the Thatcher government's pursuit of 'constructive engagement' with South Africa and its concomitant opposition to growing international calls for economic sanctions and firmer cultural boycotts against the country. Second, the Zola Budd affair revealed the growing tensions in the British Conservative Party and among officials within different branches of government regarding engagement with the South African regime. Third, the government's handling of Zola Budd exposed an arbitrary and unfair immigration system that legislated in favour of white migrants from the Old Commonwealth. Under the government's redrawn immigration policies, Zola Budd fitted seamlessly within the racial and cultural image of Thatcher's modern Britain. Finally, this article argues that the Zola Budd affair further aligned anti-apartheid and anti-Thatcher activists who grew to become virtually synonymous with one another during Thatcher's premiership.

Research paper thumbnail of The British World and the Five Rings

Research paper thumbnail of Sport and Apartheid South Africa

Research paper thumbnail of Dennis Brutus and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee in Exile, 1966–1970

South African Historical Journal

Research paper thumbnail of Dennis Brutus and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee in Exile, 1966–1970

South African Historical Journal

Research paper thumbnail of The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Just Saying – Bravo Kids – and Giving Them Some Gifts is Not Enough’: Amateurism, Turkish Wrestling, and the Olympic Games

The International Journal of the History of Sport

The Republic of Turkey embraced international Olympic sport as an affair of the state. Sport, in ... more The Republic of Turkey embraced international Olympic sport as an affair of the state. Sport, in particular, the ancestor sport of wrestling, was heralded as an important tool in the cultivation and propagation of an incipient Turkish national identity. The dominance of Turkish wrestlers at the 1948 summer Olympic Games in London revealed the nationalistic importance of sport in Turkey. Eager to recognize the accomplishments of their champion wrestlers, the Turkish public joined forces with journalists and governmental officials in launching an official cash reward scheme. In direct violation of the International Olympic Committee’s anti-profiteering rules concerning amateurism, Turkish Olympic medallists received monetary prizes. When the wave of nationalistic euphoria subsided, Turkish Olympic officials were forced to acknowledge the consequences of the nation’s magnanimity. On the eve of the 1952 Olympic Games, the Turkish Olympic Committee (TOC) stripped the nation’s champion wrestlers of their amateur status and promptly prohibited them from competing in the Finnish capital. The TOC’s decision provoked a national outcry. High-ranking governmental officials called upon the TOC to reverse its decision. Unable to make late amendments to its roster of Olympic participants, the TOC reported that Turkey’s athletic heroes would not be permitted to defend their Olympic titles in Helsinki.

Research paper thumbnail of The Global Games and the Intransigent Dictator

University of Illinois Press

This chapter discusses the decline amateurism during the Cold War era. The Cold War realpolitik, ... more This chapter discusses the decline amateurism during the Cold War era. The Cold War realpolitik, rising global commerce, interorganizational friction, and the advent of television converged to deliver debilitating blows to the amateur ideal. Still, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage had the opportunity to position Olympic amateurism on a more favorable and defensible footing. By lifting the hermetic seals to the IOC's financial coffers, undertaking professional and jurisdictional restructuring, and adopting an uncompromising stance toward known violators, he might have given amateurism a greater chance of survival. However, Brundage's lack of administrative foresight inadvertently pushed amateurism further down the path toward dissolution and decline.

Research paper thumbnail of The Rise of the Shamateur

University of Illinois Press

This chapter details the rise of the “shamateur” during the postwar years. The steady postwar glo... more This chapter details the rise of the “shamateur” during the postwar years. The steady postwar globalization and growth of the Olympic Movement necessitated that the International Olympic Committee revisit its position on amateurism. A larger, more representative Olympics, comprising athletes from North Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, exposed some of the harsh socially exclusive realities of existing amateur polices. For these new Olympic entities, the cultural nuances and ideological beliefs and practices of amateurism were simply alien. Lacking an established professional sporting structure (and thus a clear distinction between amateurism and professionalism), far removed from the chivalric, muscular Christian virtues of Anglo-Saxon moral superiority, these new Olympic nations considered class-based exclusionary policies—as well as prohibitions against travel and living expenses, broken-time payments, and financial prizes—as jejune and outdated.

Research paper thumbnail of A Universal Dilemma

University of Illinois Press

This chapter discusses how amateurism freely evolved into an organic and malleable construct as i... more This chapter discusses how amateurism freely evolved into an organic and malleable construct as it spread and diffused around the globe. From its institutional seedbed in Britain, amateurism would become an enduring ideology that influenced the Olympic Movement for nearly a century. Since the revival of the Olympic Movement in 1894, Coubertin and his fellow International Olympic Committee (IOC) patriarchs labored in vain to unify European and North American nations behind a consistent, workable definition of an amateur. However, the sheer breadth and malleability of the ideology of amateurism meant that it proved to be impossible for the IOC to regulate the status of an amateur on a global scale. In the age of increasing codification and standardization in sport, in part through the gradual establishment of national and international sports federations, amateurism proved resistant to consistency and strict universal regulation.

Research paper thumbnail of The Amateur Apostle and the Cold War Games

University of Illinois Press

This chapter focuses on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage, who defen... more This chapter focuses on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage, who defended amateurism seemingly with religious conviction throughout his bureaucratic career. His deeply conservative views and passionate defense of the amateur ideal set the tone for the IOC in the Cold War years, helping insulate the movement from the radical currents that were transforming postwar societies and global affairs. Both in his lifetime and in the years since, portrayals of Brundage depict a Quixote-esque idealist providing the Olympic Movement's only firm line of defense against professional and commercial encroachments. However, the orthodox view of Brundage as an unwavering apostle of amateurism overlooks the finer, more nuanced realities of his administration. Despite his anticommercial rhetoric and investigatory crusades, Brundage also appeased, compromised, and even spearheaded initiatives that broke with the Olympic Movement's amateur traditions.

Research paper thumbnail of ‘The old days of amateurism are over’: the Samaranch revolution and the return of Olympic tennis

Research paper thumbnail of Viva l'Italia! Viva l'Italia!' Dorando Pietri and the North American Professional Marathon Craze, 1908-10

International Journal of the History of Sport, Apr 8, 2008

'Viva l'Italia! Viva l'Italia!&#x2... more 'Viva l'Italia! Viva l'Italia!'Dorando Pietri and the North American Professional Marathon Craze, 1908–10. Matthew P Llewellyn International Journal of the History of Sport 25:66, 710-736, Routledge, 5/2008. The highly dramatic ...

Research paper thumbnail of Epilogue: Britannia Overruled

International Journal of the History of Sport, Mar 15, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of A British Olympics

International Journal of the History of Sport, Mar 15, 2011

... DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2011.554179 Matthew P. Llewellyn a * pages 669-687. Available online: 1... more ... DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2011.554179 Matthew P. Llewellyn a * pages 669-687. Available online: 15 Mar 2011. ... name of and for the fame of Ireland.' 73 73. Ware, 'Roger Casement', 38–40. View all notes. Calls for the creation of a ...

Research paper thumbnail of A 'United' Kingdom? Nationalism, Identity and the Modern Olympic Games

Proceedings International Symposium For Olympic Research, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Nacionalismo Dos Domínios Ou Patriotismo Imperial? Cidadania, Raça e a Proposta De Uma Equipe Olímpica Do Império Britânico

Resumo Apos um desempenho britânico desastroso na Olimpiada de 1912, em Estocolmo, a Associacao O... more Resumo Apos um desempenho britânico desastroso na Olimpiada de 1912, em Estocolmo, a Associacao Olimpica Britânica (BOA, na sigla em ingles) anunciou um projeto para consolidar as distintas unidades do Imperio Britânico em uma unica equipe olimpica para os jogos seguintes, em Berlim (1916). De olho em Berlim, um evento de grande importância, dada a escalada do antagonismo anglo-germânico, o BOA imaginou que uma equipe unificada da Grandessissima Bretanha solidificaria as relacoes das colonias e dominios com a velha patria-mae e resgataria a autoimagem da Gra-Bretanha como lider do esporte moderno. Porem, os esforcos para manter a posicao esportiva global da Gra-Bretanha atraves da fusao do Reino Unido e de suas possessoes globais em uma equipe olimpica formidavel sofreram dura oposicao. A crescente independencia politica das colonias e dominios britânicos, somada a arriscada tarefa administrativa de selecionar, organizar e financiar uma equipe britânica intercontinental, criaram pro...

Research paper thumbnail of A Universal Dilemma: The British Sporting Life and the Complex, Contested, and Contradictory State of Amateurism

As a core and enduring ideal that influenced sports throughout the world for over a century, amat... more As a core and enduring ideal that influenced sports throughout the world for over a century, amateurism has long fascinated scholars. While historians have examined the social origins of amateurism within its institutional seedbed in Britain, the subject has proven resistant to extensive scholarly analysis. Many questions still remain unanswered: What were the mechanisms that took amateurism around the world? How was amateurism received outside of Britain? Was amateurism a monolithic, homogenous term? Or, alternatively, was it malleable, selective and fluid, transforming itself within and across national boundaries? A coordinated effort by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the popular British newspaper, Sporting Life, attempted to craft a universal amateur definition across all sports in the aftermath of the controversial 1908 Olympic games in London. The IOC’s difficulties in establishing an international consensus in the years prior to the Great War revealed that amate...

Research paper thumbnail of Barbarians, Bridge Builders, and Boycott: The British Sports Council’s Fact-Finding Mission to South Africa

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2019

In January 1980, four representatives of the British Sports Council began a fact-finding mission ... more In January 1980, four representatives of the British Sports Council began a fact-finding mission in South Africa to assess whether or not the apartheid nation had taken significant steps towards social and racial equality in its sports culture. The Council published its conclusions in a long and detailed document. Although the report unreservedly 'condemned' apartheid, it indicated that South African sport was experiencing increasing levels of integration. The Sports Council's work, and the public discourse it generated in Britain, helped to clarify two important issues. First, any changes South Africa might have made or would make to its sporting infrastructure were, by 1980, almost completely irrelevant as a strategy to end isolation. The global coalition behind the boycottunder pressure from the anti-apartheid movement, African states, and the communist blocwould only sanction South Africa's readmission if apartheid per se ceased to exist. Second, any investigation or recommendation visa -vis South Africa's isolation made by Britain alone lacked credibility. With a history of consistently flouting the boycott, anti-apartheid activists viewed Britain as a 'weak link' in the chain. Britain could contribute to the maintenance of South Africa's isolation, but on its own could not end it.

Research paper thumbnail of Sport, Thatcher and Apartheid Politics: The Zola Budd Affair

Journal of Southern African Studies, 2018

On 23 March 1984, Afrikaner teenage running sensation Zola Budd boarded a KLM flight at the Jan S... more On 23 March 1984, Afrikaner teenage running sensation Zola Budd boarded a KLM flight at the Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg bound for Britain. Through the manoeuvrings of the London-based Daily Mail newspaper, Budd fled apartheid South Africa for the opportunity to compete on the international stage under the representative colours of Great Britain. To forward his own commercial agenda, Sir David English, chief editor of the Daily Mail and a personal friend of the British Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, pressured the Home Office into awarding British citizenship to the 5000-metre world-record holder. This article seeks to examine the Zola Budd affair in four interrelated ways. First, we argue that it should be read within the context of the Thatcher government's pursuit of 'constructive engagement' with South Africa and its concomitant opposition to growing international calls for economic sanctions and firmer cultural boycotts against the country. Second, the Zola Budd affair revealed the growing tensions in the British Conservative Party and among officials within different branches of government regarding engagement with the South African regime. Third, the government's handling of Zola Budd exposed an arbitrary and unfair immigration system that legislated in favour of white migrants from the Old Commonwealth. Under the government's redrawn immigration policies, Zola Budd fitted seamlessly within the racial and cultural image of Thatcher's modern Britain. Finally, this article argues that the Zola Budd affair further aligned anti-apartheid and anti-Thatcher activists who grew to become virtually synonymous with one another during Thatcher's premiership.

Research paper thumbnail of The British World and the Five Rings

Research paper thumbnail of Sport and Apartheid South Africa

Research paper thumbnail of Dennis Brutus and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee in Exile, 1966–1970

South African Historical Journal

Research paper thumbnail of Dennis Brutus and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee in Exile, 1966–1970

South African Historical Journal

Research paper thumbnail of The 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games

Research paper thumbnail of ‘Just Saying – Bravo Kids – and Giving Them Some Gifts is Not Enough’: Amateurism, Turkish Wrestling, and the Olympic Games

The International Journal of the History of Sport

The Republic of Turkey embraced international Olympic sport as an affair of the state. Sport, in ... more The Republic of Turkey embraced international Olympic sport as an affair of the state. Sport, in particular, the ancestor sport of wrestling, was heralded as an important tool in the cultivation and propagation of an incipient Turkish national identity. The dominance of Turkish wrestlers at the 1948 summer Olympic Games in London revealed the nationalistic importance of sport in Turkey. Eager to recognize the accomplishments of their champion wrestlers, the Turkish public joined forces with journalists and governmental officials in launching an official cash reward scheme. In direct violation of the International Olympic Committee’s anti-profiteering rules concerning amateurism, Turkish Olympic medallists received monetary prizes. When the wave of nationalistic euphoria subsided, Turkish Olympic officials were forced to acknowledge the consequences of the nation’s magnanimity. On the eve of the 1952 Olympic Games, the Turkish Olympic Committee (TOC) stripped the nation’s champion wrestlers of their amateur status and promptly prohibited them from competing in the Finnish capital. The TOC’s decision provoked a national outcry. High-ranking governmental officials called upon the TOC to reverse its decision. Unable to make late amendments to its roster of Olympic participants, the TOC reported that Turkey’s athletic heroes would not be permitted to defend their Olympic titles in Helsinki.

Research paper thumbnail of The Global Games and the Intransigent Dictator

University of Illinois Press

This chapter discusses the decline amateurism during the Cold War era. The Cold War realpolitik, ... more This chapter discusses the decline amateurism during the Cold War era. The Cold War realpolitik, rising global commerce, interorganizational friction, and the advent of television converged to deliver debilitating blows to the amateur ideal. Still, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage had the opportunity to position Olympic amateurism on a more favorable and defensible footing. By lifting the hermetic seals to the IOC's financial coffers, undertaking professional and jurisdictional restructuring, and adopting an uncompromising stance toward known violators, he might have given amateurism a greater chance of survival. However, Brundage's lack of administrative foresight inadvertently pushed amateurism further down the path toward dissolution and decline.

Research paper thumbnail of The Rise of the Shamateur

University of Illinois Press

This chapter details the rise of the “shamateur” during the postwar years. The steady postwar glo... more This chapter details the rise of the “shamateur” during the postwar years. The steady postwar globalization and growth of the Olympic Movement necessitated that the International Olympic Committee revisit its position on amateurism. A larger, more representative Olympics, comprising athletes from North Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe, exposed some of the harsh socially exclusive realities of existing amateur polices. For these new Olympic entities, the cultural nuances and ideological beliefs and practices of amateurism were simply alien. Lacking an established professional sporting structure (and thus a clear distinction between amateurism and professionalism), far removed from the chivalric, muscular Christian virtues of Anglo-Saxon moral superiority, these new Olympic nations considered class-based exclusionary policies—as well as prohibitions against travel and living expenses, broken-time payments, and financial prizes—as jejune and outdated.

Research paper thumbnail of A Universal Dilemma

University of Illinois Press

This chapter discusses how amateurism freely evolved into an organic and malleable construct as i... more This chapter discusses how amateurism freely evolved into an organic and malleable construct as it spread and diffused around the globe. From its institutional seedbed in Britain, amateurism would become an enduring ideology that influenced the Olympic Movement for nearly a century. Since the revival of the Olympic Movement in 1894, Coubertin and his fellow International Olympic Committee (IOC) patriarchs labored in vain to unify European and North American nations behind a consistent, workable definition of an amateur. However, the sheer breadth and malleability of the ideology of amateurism meant that it proved to be impossible for the IOC to regulate the status of an amateur on a global scale. In the age of increasing codification and standardization in sport, in part through the gradual establishment of national and international sports federations, amateurism proved resistant to consistency and strict universal regulation.

Research paper thumbnail of The Amateur Apostle and the Cold War Games

University of Illinois Press

This chapter focuses on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage, who defen... more This chapter focuses on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Avery Brundage, who defended amateurism seemingly with religious conviction throughout his bureaucratic career. His deeply conservative views and passionate defense of the amateur ideal set the tone for the IOC in the Cold War years, helping insulate the movement from the radical currents that were transforming postwar societies and global affairs. Both in his lifetime and in the years since, portrayals of Brundage depict a Quixote-esque idealist providing the Olympic Movement's only firm line of defense against professional and commercial encroachments. However, the orthodox view of Brundage as an unwavering apostle of amateurism overlooks the finer, more nuanced realities of his administration. Despite his anticommercial rhetoric and investigatory crusades, Brundage also appeased, compromised, and even spearheaded initiatives that broke with the Olympic Movement's amateur traditions.

Research paper thumbnail of ‘The old days of amateurism are over’: the Samaranch revolution and the return of Olympic tennis

Research paper thumbnail of Viva l'Italia! Viva l'Italia!' Dorando Pietri and the North American Professional Marathon Craze, 1908-10

International Journal of the History of Sport, Apr 8, 2008

'Viva l'Italia! Viva l'Italia!&#x2... more 'Viva l'Italia! Viva l'Italia!'Dorando Pietri and the North American Professional Marathon Craze, 1908–10. Matthew P Llewellyn International Journal of the History of Sport 25:66, 710-736, Routledge, 5/2008. The highly dramatic ...

Research paper thumbnail of Epilogue: Britannia Overruled

International Journal of the History of Sport, Mar 15, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of A British Olympics

International Journal of the History of Sport, Mar 15, 2011

... DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2011.554179 Matthew P. Llewellyn a * pages 669-687. Available online: 1... more ... DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2011.554179 Matthew P. Llewellyn a * pages 669-687. Available online: 15 Mar 2011. ... name of and for the fame of Ireland.' 73 73. Ware, 'Roger Casement', 38–40. View all notes. Calls for the creation of a ...

Research paper thumbnail of A 'United' Kingdom? Nationalism, Identity and the Modern Olympic Games

Proceedings International Symposium For Olympic Research, 2010

Research paper thumbnail of Los Angeles is the Olympic City: Legacies of the 1932 and 1984 Olympic Games

The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2008

In no other city but Los Angeles have the Olympics so completely shaped metropolitan identity – n... more In no other city but Los Angeles have the Olympics so completely shaped metropolitan identity – not even in modern Athens. Los Angeles used the 1932 games to put itself on the global map. The city used the 1984 games to redefine its image to the world. The Olympics ...