HOCKEY ORIGINS IN SOUTH AFRICA: A FRACTION OF WORLD HISTORY.

HISTORY of sports; WORLD history; MILITARY sports; HOCKEY; ATHLETIC clubs; CRIME

SOUTH Africa; ENGLAND

South African popular and formal sport history has over-emphasised rugby, soccer and cricket during the nineteenth century. To date, no formal South African study has covered a history of hockey. The game emerged in South African newspapers during the mid-to late-nineteenth century. The present article conveys this history within a socio-historical context, starting with an historical narrative about the origins of the game in England. It is worth noting that these origins came to Britain through African and other routes. In England, hockey developed around issues of class and gender and was exported to its colonies in this manner. In the Cape Colony the game emerged initially in schools and later in military garrisons and sport clubs. Not surprisingly, the early officials of these clubs were also leading members in other social areas of society, and, as with all things in colonial society, black people were usually only mentioned in the press in relation to crime and menial activities. This was also true of hockey. In the Zuid-Afrikaanse Republiek, for example, where earliest documentation exists from 1897 onwards, they were recorded acting as groundsmen at white sporting venues. This article pivots around the work of Robertha Park who argues that sports are cultural artefacts, reflecting dominant social structures and salient values of societies. The best we can do is explain the origins of South African hockey as a fraction of world history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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