Pennine
Productions -- details of
"No Sport, No Empire"
"No Sport, No Empire"
Date:
Time:
Duration:
Presenter:
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Description:
Pennine
Productions -- details of "No Sport, No Empire" |
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| Network: | Radio 4 | |
Date: |
Thursday, July 25, 2002 | |
Time: |
20:00 | |
Duration: |
30 | |
Presenter: |
Mark Whitaker | |
Producer: |
Mark Whitaker | |
Repeat date: |
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Description:
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By 1930 the power of the British Empire was under threat from movements for colonial independence and the growing influence of American money and culture. The first British Empire games, held in Hamilton, Canada, in august that year, were a last-gasp effort to assert the world-wide relevance of the British race. On the day that the commonwealth games open in Manchester, a programme that looks back at the first sporting expression of imperial ties. What’s remarkable is that the event did not happen until 1930, and that it was held not in Britain but in a little-known Canadian town. In fact, when a scheme for a ‘pan-Brittanic’ games had been mooted in England in the 1890s it had been greeted with ridicule. Even in 1930 the British were less than keen. The initiative for the first games came from Canadians worried at how American their country was becoming. ‘British Empire Games’ was a misnomer for what was a get-together of the white dominions. Canada’s 400-metres champion in 1930 was black – and he couldn’t take part. | |
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