Overview

In this, the first detailed and original historical study of rugby union at a local level in Wales, Gwyn Prescott draws on previously unused sources to provide fresh insights into the origins and early years of the game in Wales. It also throws new light both on the significance of Cardiff to Welsh rugby in the nineteenth century and on the importance of rugby in Cardiff. At the grass roots, the game was dominated by neighbourhood clubs, largely involving working-class and lower middle-class players and administrators, rather than by institutional teams organised by social improvers. At the highest level of competition, an emphasis on civic pride meant that success on the field was more important than social exclusivity. The game was played and supported, therefore, by representatives of all classes within the town which led to rugby becoming the dominant sporting force in what was to become the capital city of Wales.

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9781860571176

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By the 1890s rugby football was contributing to an expressive local, civic, even national consciousness: Cardiffians, who have that endearing habit of equating Cardiff with Wales, were talking of rugby as 'the national game' as early as 1879...Gwyn Prescott's study shows how rugby became a key component of the new urban culture that developed along with it...He traces, from an exploration of a wide array of hitherto unused primary resources, the emergence and organisation of a robust infrastructure of socially inclusive teams and clubs in inner, dockside and suburban Cardiff...the late, great Bleddyn Williams of Cardiff and Wales, a relative of the author's...would have enjoyed reading Gwyn Prescott's book. So will you. Professor Gareth Williams, University of Glamorgan a solid and original piece of research that contributed to and evaluated knowledge in the history of sport and Wales Martin Johnes, Swansea University

Author Information

A native of Cardiff, Gwyn Prescott has been involved in rugby for most of his life as a player, administrator and historian. Educated at Cardiff High School, when he captained the Welsh Secondary Schools team in the 1960s, and Cambridge University, Gwyn was awarded an MPhil, on the history of rugby, at the University of Glamorgan. Gwyn recently completed a three-year period as Research Assistant for the International Rugby Board.

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