ATHLETICS CASE STUDY 2

FOLK SPORTS AND WAKES. Viewed as the seeds from which rationalised athletics grew. Feasts and fairs provided opportunity for employment. They would offer their services for farm labourers, cooks, cleaners and maids. Wakes were annual religious celebrations, in thanksgiving for the Harvest and Christianity in the community. A wake was a great social occasion and associated with things such as blood sports, drinking and promiscuity. Opportunity for men to test their strength, speed and virility in events such as stick fighting, wrestling, and running. Prizes were of practical use; shirts smocks, hats, cheeses and joints of meat.

The Cotswold Games – revived by Robert Dover in 1604, attracted huge crowds in leaping, shin-kicking, wrestling, coursing and jousting. Attracted both upper and lower-class participants. REMEMBER – The Much Wenlock Olympian Games. (You studied this at AS socio-cultural studies.) This and the Cotswold Games link to the background of the modern Olympic games. Task 1. Pg 59. Read the description of the Hungerford Revels. To what extent does this occasion ‘fit’ with the accepted characteristics of popular recreation.