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Saturday Afternoon Fever: Sport in the Australian Culture
SATURDAY AFTERNOON FEVER
Sport has always been taken seriously in Australia, but Saturday Afternoon Fever takes a new and controversial view of its role in our society.
THE PLAYERS
in the sportsforce, like an other seciton of the workforce, will want to win for themselves the best possible working conditions and reards.
THE ADMINISTRATORS
share a basic fear that professionalism might provide an avenue for upward social mobility to groups who ight then challenge the established order.
THE WOMEN
who want to take sport seriously have to struggle against an established convention of inferiority subscribed to by the majority of other women.
THE MYTH
of sport being open and accessible to allarose early in Australian society. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, the myth continues to flourish.
Wide-ranging in its subject matter and biting in its analysis, this provocative book is an indespensable guide to what is happening to Australian sport.
Dr Brian Stoddart is Senioe Lecturer in Sports Studies at he Canberra College of Advanced Education and a founder-member of the Australian Society for Sports History. He regularly contributes features to various newspapers and radio programmes and was historical adviser for 'Bodyline', the popular Kennedy-Miller television series.
Sport has always been taken seriously in Australia, but Saturday Afternoon Fever takes a new and controversial view of its role in our society.
THE PLAYERS
in the sportsforce, like an other seciton of the workforce, will want to win for themselves the best possible working conditions and reards.
THE ADMINISTRATORS
share a basic fear that professionalism might provide an avenue for upward social mobility to groups who ight then challenge the established order.
THE WOMEN
who want to take sport seriously have to struggle against an established convention of inferiority subscribed to by the majority of other women.
THE MYTH
of sport being open and accessible to allarose early in Australian society. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, the myth continues to flourish.
Wide-ranging in its subject matter and biting in its analysis, this provocative book is an indespensable guide to what is happening to Australian sport.
Dr Brian Stoddart is Senioe Lecturer in Sports Studies at he Canberra College of Advanced Education and a founder-member of the Australian Society for Sports History. He regularly contributes features to various newspapers and radio programmes and was historical adviser for 'Bodyline', the popular Kennedy-Miller television series.
232 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 3, 2025
Good analysis of sport in the Australian culture, and the way in which sport not only reflects the social system but also perpetuates it.
Much of the analysis seems somewhat obvious (some sports are for rich people, women's sport has always been undervalued, etc.). Much of it, however, seems obvious because it strikes a chord - things that have always been there but I (for one) have never really thought about.
The author seems somewhat indignant that sport reinforces the existing patterns of power and ideology. While this is difficult to argue against, he never makes it clear why he thinks it is the role of sport to transform / overthrow the social structure.
Much of the analysis seems somewhat obvious (some sports are for rich people, women's sport has always been undervalued, etc.). Much of it, however, seems obvious because it strikes a chord - things that have always been there but I (for one) have never really thought about.
The author seems somewhat indignant that sport reinforces the existing patterns of power and ideology. While this is difficult to argue against, he never makes it clear why he thinks it is the role of sport to transform / overthrow the social structure.
December 18, 2020
a scholarly treatise on the role played by sport in Australia and Australian culture; important that a non-sport boffin should tackle the sociological issue; well done; not yet out of date
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews