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A Wider Social Role for Sport

Sport is perceived to have the potential to alleviate a variety of social problems

and generally to ‘improve’ both individuals and the communities in which they
live. Sport is promoted as a relatively cost-effective antidote to a range of problems
– often those stemming from social exclusion – including poor health, high crime
levels, drug abuse and persistent youth offending, educational underachievement,
lack of social cohesion and community identity and economic decline. To this
end, there is increasing governmental interest in what has become known as ‘sport
for good’.
A Wider Social Role for Sport presents the political and historical context for
this increased governmental interest in sport’s potential contribution to a range of
social problems. The book explores the particular social problems that governments
seek to address through sport, and examines the nature and extent of the evidence
for sport’s positive role.
The book illustrates that, in an era of evidence-based policy-making, the
cumulative evidence base for many claims for sport is relatively weak, in part because
research into the precise contribution of sport faces substantial methodological
problems. Drawing on worldwide research, A Wider Social Role for Sport explores
the current state of knowledge and understanding of the presumed impacts of
sport and suggests that we need to adopt a different approach to research and
evaluation if sports researchers are to develop their understanding and make a
substantial contribution to sports policy.

Fred Coalter is Professor of Sports Policy at the University of Stirling, UK.

A Wider Social Role for Sport
Who’s keeping the score?

Fred Coalter
First published 2007
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 2007 Fred Coalter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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ISBN 0-203-01461-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–36349–7 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0–415–36350–0 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–01461–8 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–36349–5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–36350–1 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–01461–5 (ebk)
To Eddie, Mollie and Vicki
Contents

Acknowledgements x

1 Introduction 1
Opportunity or threat? 1
New rules? 2
Structure of the book 4
End of the warm up 6

2 From sport for all to sport for good 8

The active citizen is a responsible citizen 8
From management by objectives to objective-led management 9
Sports policy: a lottery? 14
New Labour and ‘active citizenship’ 14
How does sport achieve the results? 19
Standing up and being counted 23

3 Sport and social impacts: do we need new rules? 25

Evidence-based policy-making 25
But if it works, how does it work? 26
Sport’s wider social role: ill-defined interventions with hard-to-follow
outcomes? 31
Is it logical? 32
It’s not what you do, but the way that you do it 36
Do we know what game we are playing? 38
A rational exercise that takes place in a political context 41
Final comment 46

4 Sport and social regeneration: a capital prospect 47

The Third Way and active citizenship 47
Sport and active citizenship 48
viii Contents
Social capital and social policy 49
Whose social capital? 50
Social capital: it depends where you look 54
Sports volunteers: the real active citizens? 55
Sports clubs and social capital 57
Sports clubs and social capital: survey evidence 62
Clubs’ rules OK? 64
Can we capitalize on sport? 66

5 Sport-in-development: sport plus 68

A global role for sport? 68
Sport plus or plus sport? 70
From economic aid to civil society 71
Sport and gender relations 74
Developing people, creating citizens 75
The case studies 77
But are they hitting the mark? 85
Evaluation: accountability or development? 87
Participatory M&E: developing people and programmes 89
Process-led M&E: why do our programmes work? 90

6 Sport and educational performance: scoring on the pitch

and in the classroom? 92
Introduction 92
Failing most of the tests 93
How is sport presumed to work? 94
Maybe it is feeling better about yourself 98
Depends on your sport? 104
It’s not what you do, but who you do it with 106
But at least it does no academic harm 108
Maybe it’s sport plus 110
The exam results 112

7 Sport and crime prevention: playing by the rules? 115

Fair cop or fair play? 115
What is anti-social behaviour? 117
Theories of crime and theories of sport’s processes 119
Sport plus … again 130
Final sentencing 131
 Contents ix
8 The economic impacts of sport: investing in success? 133
The new economic realism 133
Sport and urban regeneration 135
Large-scale sport events 141
The sports economy 150
The economic benefits of a more physically active population 153
An economy of solutions? 159

9 From methods to logic of inquiry 161

Who is listening? 161
From fuzzy snapshots to clear videos 164
It’s all about families 166
From methods to logic of inquiry 167
A social vaccine? 171
Not proven 172

References 175
Index 199
Acknowledgements

I start by thanking Nick Rowe (Sport England) and Jerry Bingham (UK Sport)
who commissioned me to compile the Value of Sport Monitor, an on-line database
of research evidence of the wider impacts of sport. The work on the Monitor
provided me with access to much of the material included in this book. Although
I absolve them both from all responsibility for the contents and conclusions of this
book, I hope that they explain the reasons for some of our ‘discussions’. I would
also like to thank Jon Best (sportscotland) for commissioning some of the reviews
drawn on in this book (although I do not think that I need to distance him from
my conclusions).
I would also like to thank the generous, innovative and optimistic people whom
I met in Africa and India while compiling the Sport-in-Development Monitoring
and Evaluation Manual (Coalter, 2006). They all, and especially the members of
the Mathare Youth Sport Association (Nairobi), introduced me to a new way of
viewing sport and its potential.
I would also like to express my sincere thanks to Samantha Grant (Routledge
editor) for having the patience of Job. I am grateful to Taylor & Francis for
permission to include material from Fred Coalter, ‘Sports Clubs, Social Capital
and Social Regeneration: “Ill-Defined Interventions with Hard-to-Follow
Outcomes”?’, Sport in Society 10(4) (2007): 537–59.
Thanks are also due to a number of authors whose work I have drawn on more
than others. They will know who they are, but in case they disagree with me I will
not name them here. Thanks to Derek Casey for long discussions, rarely agreeing
with me and illustrating many of the tensions explored in this book. I am grateful
to John Taylor for his stoical and diligent work on the Value of Sport Monitor and
for his invaluable assistance in helping me to compile the bibliography. Thanks
also to Karen Caldwell for her formatting expertise.
Finally, thanks to Vicki for listening.
1 Introduction

Opportunity or threat?
In recent years sport has achieved an increasingly high profile as part of New
Labour’s social inclusion agenda, based on assumptions about its potential
contribution to areas such as social and economic regeneration, crime reduction,
health improvement and educational achievement. However these new
opportunities (welcomed by many in sport) have been accompanied by a potential
threat – evidence-based policy-making. This reflects an increased emphasis on
outcomes and effectiveness and an aspiration to base policy and practice on robust
evidence to ensure the delivery of the government’s policy goals. In pursuit of this I,
and others, have been commissioned to produce several policy-oriented literature
reviews to identify evidence for the presumed social and economic impacts of
sport. In addition I am also responsible (with John Taylor) for the on-line research
database, the Value of Sport Monitor, funded by Sport England and UK Sport. To
the disappointment of the commissioning clients, all reviews have produced rather
ambiguous and inconclusive conclusions – equivalent to the Scottish legal verdict
of ‘not proven’. There are no ‘killer facts’ and few ‘best buys’.
The lack of a strong cumulative body of research evidence from which to inform
policy and practice is explained by four broad factors.

(i) Conceptual weaknesses. Much available research exhibits a wide variety of

frequently vague definitions of ‘sport’; the nature, extent and duration of
participation; intermediate impacts (i.e. the effect of sport on participants) and
outcomes (the resulting individual behavioural or social changes – reduced
‘anti-social behaviour’ or increased ‘social cohesion’). Such variety and lack
of precision raise substantial issues of validity and comparability.
(ii) Methodological weaknesses. There is lack of systematic and robust evaluations
of most programmes. In part this reflects the mythopoeic status of sport and the
assumption of inevitably positive outcomes, with little need for monitoring
and evaluation – sport works. Where research does take place, there is
often an over-concentration on outputs and a failure to define precisely
and measure desired intermediate impacts and outcomes; cross-sectional
designs, with limited longitudinal data; convenience sampling; general lack
2 Introduction
of control groups and a failure to control for a wide range of potentially
intervening and confounding variables. The number of academic articles
which finish with methodological caveats about the inherent limitations of
the chosen methodology is alarming. These issues raise substantial questions
of reliability.
(iii) Little consideration of sufficient conditions. Participation in sport (itself a
difficult goal among certain low participating ‘target groups’) is a necessary,
but not sufficient condition to obtain the supposed benefits. In this regard
there is a lack of information about the various mechanisms, processes and
experiences associated with participation. We have little understanding about
which sports and sports processes produce what outcomes, for which participants
and in what circumstances. These middle-range mechanisms (Pawson, 2006) are
a core concern of this book.
(iv) The inevitable limitations associated with such literature (or narrative)
reviews, which are largely dependent on published materials. The material
included in these sources (mostly academic journals) is inevitably selective
and fails to provide information on the full complexities of programmes (and
rarely provides vitally important information about failed initiatives).

It is important to note that, although this book concentrates on sports research,

the weaknesses and limitations which will be highlighted are not confined to sport
– evidence-based policy-making has exposed widespread limitations in many
areas of research, especially their ability to inform policy (Oakley et al., 2005;
Faulkner et al., 2006; Department of Health, 1999). The acknowledgement of
these limitations has led researchers, from a range of disciplinary and subject
backgrounds, to seek to develop a broader, more eclectic, definition of the world
of knowledge and approaches to evidence gathering – to be less concerned
with methodological purity and more with frameworks for analysis. Many seem
increasingly to accept Hammersley’s (1995: 19) argument that ‘philosophy must
not be seen as superordinate to empirical research … research is a practical activity
and cannot be governed in any strict way by methodological theory’.

New rules?
Within this context the book draws its intellectual inspiration, and the emphasis
on process, mechanisms and programme theories, from two main sources –
Pawson’s (2006) writings on realist (or ‘realistic’) approaches to evaluation and the
closely parallel work of Weiss (1997) and theory-based evaluations (TBE). Weiss
(1997: 520) argues that ‘the clearest call for TBE comes when prior evaluations
show inconsistent results’ – a situation which neatly sums up most sports-related
research.
There is an emerging view that the major methodological limitation on
producing evidence for policy-making and practice is the absence of an
understanding of processes and mechanisms which either produce, or are assumed
to produce, particular impacts and outcomes. In other words, there is a lack of
 Introduction 3
understanding of what processes produce what effects, for which participants, in
what circumstances. As all social interventions are hypotheses about relationships
between programmes, participants and outcomes, understanding and evaluation
requires knowledge of the programme theories underpinning interventions – why
do those who fund or provide such programmes think that they will offer solutions
to their policy problems? This has led to a growing interest in a loose amalgam
of theories of behaviour change, realist evaluation and theory-based evaluation,
in order to understand policy-makers’ assumptions – their programme theories
which underpin interventions. It is hoped that such an understanding will provide
a basis for evaluation and an understanding of how and why interventions work
for some, but not for others. Within this context our concerns with the current
state of sports-related research are as follows:

• What is the nature of the evidence that participation in sport produces

various intermediate impacts (e.g. self-efficacy; physical self-worth; self-esteem;
self-confidence; aspects of social capital)?
• Do we have evidence about which sports, in what circumstances, through
which mechanisms, produce what impacts, for whom?
• Even if sports interventions produce the desired intermediate impacts for some
participants, in what circumstances do these contribute to the solution of the
wider social problems?
• To what extent are sports programmes designed on the basis of an
understanding of the nature and causes of the mostly complex problems
to which they seek to offer a solution – lack of social cohesion, weak social
capital, poor educational performance, anti-social behaviour and criminality,
economic decline? To what extent can ‘sport’ contribute to the solution of
such issues and what is the significance of the increasing use of sport plus
approaches, in which sport’s contribution is complemented and supported by
a range of parallel initiatives?

The second aspect of the work of Pawson and Weiss relates to the relationship
between research and policy. It concerns the nature of evidence-based policy-
making and the implications of Weiss’s (1993: 94) assertion that ‘evaluation is a
rational exercise that takes place in a political context’. The implication is that
academic researchers are somewhat naive (unlike the growing band of savvy
consultants) and too often confuse research with evidence, failing to recognize
that research competes for attention with a range of other more influential factors
– politics in all senses of the term. Where evidence is weak, where there are no
killer facts, where there is little robust guidance as to a best buy, then research’s
or researchers’ entry to the policy process will be even more restricted. Pawson
and Weiss’s potential solution to this is a direct consequence of a theory-based
evaluation approach. This requires researchers to develop ‘conversations’ with
policy-makers and practitioners in order to arrive at a mutual understanding of their
programme theories; their assumptions about the nature of the problems which
they seek to address; how these are related to programme design and delivery;
4 Introduction
the elements and mechanisms of the programmes which are presumed to produce
the desired intermediate impacts and the broader outcomes. Such an approach
seeks to overcome the widespread, if somewhat crude, dichotomy between the
‘engineering/political arithmetic/partisan support’ view of policy-oriented research
and the supposedly epistemologically (and morally) superior disciplinary-based
approach of disinterested ‘scholars’, whose job is to enlighten rather than inform.
Both Pawson and Weiss embrace a slightly different ‘enlightenment’ position. This
is one in which the perspectives and understandings of social science are used to
work with policy-makers to clarify the nature of problems, the extent to which
they can be addressed by the proposed interventions and to identify those actions/
initiatives most likely to make some contribution – a position which combines both
methodological modesty and political ambition. Although we do not deal with
these issues in depth, they are ever-present, providing a broad backdrop against
which to assess the possible relationships between the research and evaluation
reviewed and the policy process, with its elements of power, organizational
interests, professional repertoires and the mythopoeic status of sport.
A third aspect of the theory-based approach is that it is inherently developmental
– it seeks to bring researchers, evaluators, policy-makers and practitioners (and
sometimes participants) together to explore and clarify their shared and conflicting
assumptions (theories). Such an approach can lead to improved coherence and
effectiveness in policy, organizational and programme delivery processes. It has
the potential to contribute to capacity-building, to develop a greater sense of
ownership, understanding and integration and develop an organizational ability
to reflect on and analyse attitudes, beliefs and behaviour.
I am not convinced that I have done the perspectives of Pawson and Weiss full
justice – that would need a book on each topic. However, I can take some solace
from the fact that they both regard their perspectives as frameworks and not the
more precise and easily judged ‘methods’. Hopefully the reader will spot where
these broad perspectives and issues inform the description, analysis and evaluation
of the material presented in this book

Structure of the book

Chapter 2 argues that public investment in sport has always been characterized by
a dual purpose – to extend social rights of citizenship and to use sport to address
a wide range of policy issues (with sport’s presumed externalities being the most
consistent and strongest rationale). However, until recently the ability of sport
to address such wider policy issues was taken for granted, largely on the basis of
a view of sport as a relatively cheap and simple solution to social problems, with
its mythopoeic status ensuring a relative absence of monitoring and evaluation
– sport works. However, the emergence of New Labour’s Third Way concerns
with civic renewal, social inclusion, active citizenship and social capital placed
sport on a broader policy agenda. This was reinforced by an emphasis on joined-up
government and a policy imperative that all areas of public investment contribute
to strategic policy goals. However, this was also accompanied by notions of
 Introduction 5
evidence-based policy-making and outcome-oriented welfare effectiveness. In
such circumstances the relatively untested claims of sport’s wider roles came
under much closer scrutiny and robust research to inform evidence-based policy-
making was in short supply.
Chapter 3 is about methodology and politics rather than research methods.
It explores some basic issues confronting us as we seek to understand current
research on the nature and extent of the wider social role of sport. It outlines the
logic of the assumptions about sport, the claimed personal and social impacts and
provides a context for understanding current research findings and their potential
strengths and limitations. It illustrates some of the reasons for the relatively
weak cumulative research base to inform evidence-based policy-making. It also
explores the political, bureaucratic and professional interests involved in policy
formulation and the fact that research is only one, small, element of this process.
Drawing on the work of Pawson and Weiss a theory-based approach to evaluation
is outlined.
The next five chapters explore aspects of these issues in specific areas of sports
policy. Chapter 4 outlines sport’s presumed contribution to social and community
regeneration, an issue at the heart of New Labour’s social inclusion agenda. It
argues that the precise nature of social capital and the processes underpinning its
formation are undertheorized in this policy debate and explores the perspectives of
Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam (who dominates the policy debate). It examines
the current, limited, research on sport, sports clubs and social capital, which seems
to indicate a limited role for sports clubs in the social regeneration agenda.
Chapter 5 examines the concept of sport-in-development and the approaches
referred to as sport plus and plus sport. This is based on fieldwork (and ongoing
research) and provides some of the intellectual and emotional inspiration for the
book. Although this is an area characterized by unrealistically ambitious claims
made by agencies such as the United Nations, it is also the area in which many are
working in highly innovative ways to explore the real potential of sport to address
wider social issues. The chapter argues that in these circumstances sporting
organizations (rather than ‘sport’) have the potential to play an important role
in civil society. The chapter uses two case studies – the Mathare Youth Sport
Association (Nairobi) and Go Sisters (Lusaka) – to illustrate the sport plus
approach to the development of aspects of civil society and the use of sport to
address issues of HIV/AIDS. The chapter also illustrates the contribution that a
theory-based approach to monitoring and evaluation can make to organizational
and personal development.
Chapter 6 examines the various perspectives on the presumed relationship
between sports participation and (improved) educational performance. In
some ways this is a generic chapter, as the issues raised relate most clearly to
the presumed key sports-related intermediate impacts (e.g. cognitive abilities;
self-efficacy; physical self-worth; self-esteem; self-confidence; social capital). In
addition to examining the extent to which ‘sport’ has such impacts, the bigger
question concerns the extent to which any of these are related to the desired
outcome of improved educational performance. It also illustrates many of the
6 Introduction
methodological issues faced by other areas – wide variations in the definition of
terms (e.g. participation; educational achievement); limitations of self-reporting
and cross-sectional research; difficult issues of self-selection and direction of cause;
lack of controls for significant variables. The difficulties faced by researchers in
providing robust evidence is reflected in the increasing popularity of the ‘at least it
does not do any harm’ position.
Chapter 7 examines issues relating to sport and crime reduction (and deals
with many of the mechanisms and intermediate impacts explored in Chapter 6).
This is one of the most persistent rationales for investment in sport and the
chapter explores various theories of the causes of crime and the extent to which
there is evidence that sport can provide some solutions. The chapter illustrates
an increasing recognition that there is a need to understand the various types of
programmes and mechanisms which work for particular groups, with the growth
of sports plus programmes indicating a growing recognition of the limitations of
sports-only approaches.
Chapter 8 is slightly different from the others as it deals with economic issues –
sport and urban regeneration, the economic impact of sporting events, the nature
and size of the sports economy and the economic benefits of increased physical
activity. However, it deals with the same broad themes about the nature of the
processes, mechanisms and relationships between sport and economic outcomes,
for example, the nature of the economic ‘multiplier’ and the problems involved in
defining precisely the sports economy. However, this chapter also best illustrates
our second theme – the relationship between interests, power and research
evidence. Given the economic and political interests involved in many of these
areas (e.g. bidding for large-scale sports events; expensive regeneration projects)
there is a clear tension between power and knowledge in the shaping of policy,
with cost benefit competing with political benefit.
Chapter 9 reflects on the nature of the evidence reviewed in earlier chapters
and returns to some of the themes explored in Chapter 3 – the nature of evidence-
based policy-making; the relationship between research and policy; the widespread
concern about information on sufficient conditions. In this regard the realist proposal
to shift analysis from families of programmes (e.g. sport and crime) to families of
mechanisms in order to explore and understand better middle-range mechanisms
fits well with the proposal that researchers need to work with policy-makers and
practitioners to explore their programme theories. In this context a range of policy-
oriented researchers propose that we adopt a more eclectic approach to the ‘world
of evidence’ (Faulkner et al., 2006). The chapter ends with a ‘not proven’ verdict
and a plea for more considered and realistic claims about the potential of sport to
contribute to often complex, and not fully understood, social problems.

End of the warm up

My experience of more than a quarter of a century of contract research – seeking
to combine academic rigour (and increasing experience) with the understandable
demands of the commissioning agencies for relatively unambiguous ‘evidence’ of
 Introduction 7
the effectiveness of their investments to placate their masters – has convinced
me that there is a need to think more clearly, analytically and less emotionally
about ‘sport’ and its potential. This might be difficult for the sports evangelists,
for those who have invested much in their professional repertoires, for those
wanting apparently cheap and simple answers (if not solutions), for generalist
civil servants with little understanding of ‘sport’ (but a desire to ‘do something’)
and those operating in a still relatively marginal policy area with demanding, if
often ill-informed, masters. If sports policy and practice are to mature and their
interventions to become less ambitious and more effective, there is a need to ‘de-
mythologize’ or ‘de-centre’ sport. In a sense sport is a collective noun which hides
much more than it reveals – perhaps this simplifying function is part of its political
attraction. There are almost endless variations of sport processes, mechanisms,
participants and experiences – individual, partner or team sports; motor or
perceptually dominated sports; those which require physical or mental dexterity;
task versus ego orientation and so on. If research is to inform policy, then it is
essential to seek to explore the question of sufficient conditions – which sports, in
which conditions, have what effects for which participants? Of course, as we will
see, we are still left with even more fundamental issues about the relationship
between any sports effects and their ‘contribution’ to the solution of wider social
and economic problems.
Weiss suggests that nobody in high office reads social science journals (far less
books) and Pawson argues that as one ascends the intervention hierarchy the
capacity to absorb complex information dwindles by the bullet point – so that rules
out some potential readers! However, although some of the key target audiences
will not read this, I hope that those who might talk to them will – the students,
practitioners and researchers who might come across it (and hopefully agree with
some of what they read) can eventually engage in the necessary ‘conversations’.
2 From sport for all to sport for
good

The active citizen is a responsible citizen

The history of public policy for sport in the United Kingdom (and elsewhere)
has been characterized by an essential duality. Government involvement and
investment have been characterized by the dual purposes of extending social rights
of citizenship while also emphasizing a range of wider social benefits presumed to
be associated with participation in sport. Of course such duality is a common
characteristic of most social policies, where the extension of social rights has
mostly been accompanied by social obligations and duties (Roche, 1992). Writing
about cultural policy, Bianchini (1992) suggests that ‘citizenship’ represents
an attempt not simply to extend social rights, but also to bridge the potentially
socially disruptive gap between the individual and the community and between
the exercise of individual rights and the common good. Harrison (1973), writing
about state intervention and moral reform in nineteenth-century England, points
to the inherent tension between social and moral reform. Although social reform
requires the lessening of constraints on individual liberty, moral reform requires
the building up of constraints. Citizenship implies responsibilities and duties as
well as rights.
Consequently, much of the nineteenth-century government interest in
sport (and other aspects of leisure, such as libraries, museums, parks) combines
genuine concerns to improve the quality of life and health of the new urban
working class with attempts to create a new civic culture and, by implication,
‘citizens’ (Bailey, 1978). Consequently, participation in socially sanctioned
leisure activities was not simply about individual welfare and rights – the act
and process of participation were central to the idea of the citizen. Participation
was both an expression and an affirmation of citizenship and, by implication, a
deeper social consensus: the responsible citizen is the participating citizen, with
non-participation frequently viewed as a potential threat to social stability. In
such institutions as the English public schools and movements like Muscular
Christianity, sport was regarded as ‘character building’, developing virtues or
moral personality traits such as discipline, honesty, integrity, generosity and
trustworthiness (President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, 2006).
Further, the supposed efficacy of sport was strengthened by being regarded as
 From sport for all to sport for good 9
a ‘neutral’ social space where all citizens, or sport people, met as equals and in
an environment regarded as ‘unambiguously wholesome and healthy in both a
physical and moral sense’ (Smith and Waddington, 2004: 281).
It could be argued that such policies are based on sport’s ‘mythopoeic’ status.
Mythopoeic concepts tend to be ones whose demarcation criteria are not specific
and, as will be suggested throughout the book, this can be applied to the way
that an overgeneralized notion of ‘sport’ is frequently used in policy debates.
Such concepts are based on popular and idealistic ideas which are produced
largely outside sociological analysis and which ‘isolate[s] a particular relationship
between variables to the exclusion of others and without a sound basis for doing so’
(Glasner, 1977: 2–3). Such myths contain elements of truth, but elements which
become reified and distorted and ‘represent’ rather than reflect reality, standing
for supposed, but largely unexamined, impacts and processes. The strength of
such myths lies in their ‘ability to evoke vague and generalised images’ (Glasner,
1977: 1). The mythopoeic nature of sport can partly be illustrated by the fact that
it is a rich source for a wide variety of metaphors: playing the game, level playing
fields, it’s not cricket, first past the post, getting to first base, throwing in the towel,
being on a winning team.

From management by objectives to objective-led management

However, despite nineteenth-century beliefs about the contribution of sport
to improved health and the construction of civic cultures, systematic central
government interest in sport dates largely from the 1960s. As in the nineteenth
century, government’s interest reflected a concern with the potentially negative
effects of rapid economic, social and cultural change. The understanding of the
context which seemed to require government intervention is illustrated by the
first annual report of the Advisory Sports Council (1966: 1), which stated that:

We have entered a new era of dramatic evolution in our material progress

… more and more people are acquiring leisure and the means to enjoy it
… consequently we are faced with the need for better, more abundant and
sophisticated facilities for our leisure activities.

This was a reflection of a more general concern to promote public planning,

provision and management for sport to cater for the demands of the new ‘leisure
age’ (Sillitoe, 1969; Blackie et al., 1979; Veal, 1982). The general organizational
infrastructure for leisure policy was reorganized and extended, with an executive
Sports Council being established in 1971 to support the voluntary sector and to
encourage local authorities to provide for increasing demand ‘in the interests of
social welfare and the enjoyment of leisure among the public at large’ (Sports
Council Royal Charter, 1971:1). Underlying these developments was a vague
social-democratic consensus about the extension of welfare services to provide for
a widening range of social rights of citizenship, although as Roche (1992) points
out, this was not subject to widespread political, or even theoretical, debate (for
10 From sport for all to sport for good
an analysis of similar developments in the Netherlands see van der Poel, 1993;
Germany see Nahrstedt, 1993; France see Hantrais, 1989).
Within this context, identified inequalities in participation in sport led to the
designation of certain groups as being ‘recreationally disadvantaged’. If all aspects
of social citizenship were to become a reality, public provision must provide
equal opportunities for all. This led to the formulation of policies of ‘recreational
welfare’ (Coalter et al., 1988). Rather than increase supply in response to what was
initially assumed to be the inevitable rise in demand, policy became concerned to
democratize areas of public leisure. The language of policy quickly shifted from
a concern with expressed demand to an attempt to address the issues of ‘need’
(Rapoport and Rapoport, 1975; Mennell, 1979). In Britain the 1975 White Paper,
Sport and Recreation defined recreational facilities as ‘part of the general fabric of
the social services’. Policies of positive discrimination were developed, under the
vague slogan of Sport for All (McIntosh and Charlton, 1985) with the identification
of ‘target groups’ and associated special concessionary and promotional strategies
aimed at reducing constraints and encouraging participation (for accounts of
similar developments in France see Hantrais, 1984).
However, the ambiguity and duality of sports policy were also present. The
1975 White Paper also promoted the idea of recreation as welfare (Department of
the Environment, 1975: 2), stating that,

by reducing boredom and urban frustration participation in active recreation

contributes to the reduction of hooliganism and delinquency among young
people … The need to provide for people to make the best of their leisure
time must be seen in this context.

As Henry (2001) points out, such policy developments occurred during a period
of emerging economic crisis, with the Labour government seeking a loan from
the International Monetary Fund, devaluing the pound and reducing public
expenditure, thus ending the period of welfare expansion. Against the background
of economic decline, rising unemployment and problems of inner-city decay, there
was a quickening of the pace of governmental use of sport in urban policy. For
example, in 1976 the Urban Programme was extended to include environmental
and recreational provision; in 1977 the Department of the Environment
launched the Leisure and the Quality of Life Experiments (1977a) and published
a study entitled Recreation and Deprivation in the Inner City (Department of the
Environment, 1977b). Such experiments and publications did not represent a
coherent government policy for sport (that was the responsibility of the Sports
Council). Rather, it has been argued that the apparent political neutrality and
popularity of sport, and its presumed ability to provide ‘an economy of remedies’
(Donnison and Chapman, 1965), made it a more attractive option than addressing
fundamental structural change (Coalter et al., 1988; Henry, 2001). Therefore the
vocabulary of motives shifted to recreation as welfare with increasing recourse to
what economists refer to as ‘externalities’ and ‘merit good’ arguments (Gratton
and Taylor, 1985) – i.e. that participation in sport may be an individual social
 From sport for all to sport for good 11
right of citizenship, but such participation also leads to collective benefits such
as improved health and reduced crime. Henry (2001) illustrates a general shift in
central government funding away from local government leisure and recreation
services to funding via the Urban Programme and a concentration on the inner
city and increased targeting of particular social groups and deprived areas. Related
to this was an increasing willingness to provide substantial dedicated funds to
the Sports Council for specific ‘social’ programmes, despite its supposedly quasi-
autonomous status (Henry, 2001). The most striking example of this occurred
under the new Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, following the
urban riots of 1981. The Sports Council allocated £3 million over three years for
a demonstration project entitled Action Sport (Rigg, 1986). This can be regarded
as the forerunner of many subsequent sports development projects. The problem-
oriented nature of this was indicated in the Sports Council Annual Report 1981/2
which stated that the purpose of Action Sport was ‘to demonstrate the part that
could be played by sport and physical recreation within deprived urban areas’.
The intention was to ‘select ready-made leaders from among the unemployed
… because of the urgency, in view of the social problems, of putting leaders on
the street’ (quoted in Rigg, 1986: 12). The overall aim of Action Sport was to
demonstrate that leadership can develop positive attitudes to sport and recreation
and increase participation. I will explore some of the lesson from Action Sport in
Chapter 4, but here it is worth noting Deane’s (1998: 153) comment that many
of the schemes

suffered … credibility problems with local community representatives. Local

community representatives perceived the schemes as being a short-term
attempt by central government to show that they were doing something for
the young unemployed … [and] saw the Action Sport schemes as a complete
waste of resources.

Nevertheless, although the rhetoric of recreation as welfare was ideologically

potent, it remained politically weak and relatively marginal to core public policy
developments, and the Sports Council’s largest single financial commitment (45
percent of the total) was to elite sport (Coalter et al., 1988). More importantly,
few attempts were made to examine systematically the effectiveness of recreation
as welfare policies, with monitoring usually being restricted largely to measuring
participation and the nature of participants (Rigg, 1986).
Further, a more general attack was made on public provision for sport and
recreation as Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal government subjected the nature
and content of social citizenship to fundamental moral, economic and political
questioning. The neoliberal moral critique of social citizenship was one of passivity
– that, in practice, it consisted solely of rights, with few associated responsibilities
and duties (Roche, 1992). This ‘nanny state’ had led to passivity and a decline in
the willingness, or ability, of welfare recipients to take responsibility for their own
consumption and welfare. The economic critique was that local governments were
financially profligate and, in order to reduce public sector borrowing deficits, there
12 From sport for all to sport for good
was a need to control local government spending. The political critique was of local
government per se: because of what was seen as bureaucratic inefficiency and
lack of accountability and responsiveness to consumer needs, local government’s
role as a direct provider should be abolished or reduced greatly (Coalter, 1998).
Despite reflecting different historical trajectories and national circumstances,
broadly similar shifts in policy can be identified in the Netherlands (van der Poel,
1993; Lengkeek, 1993), Germany (Nahrstedt, 1993), France (Poujol, 1993) and
Australia (Sport and Recreation Victoria, 1994).
Although this critique was aimed at all forms of public provision, there were
specific attacks on sport and recreation services at both national and local levels.
Despite the formal rhetoric of welfare and ‘sport for all’, policies for sport occupied
‘an uneasy place between ideologies of the market and ideologies of welfare’,
with policies being ‘modified by, or subordinated to, more fundamental political
philosophies and economic realities’ (Coalter et al., 1988: 188). In terms of local
sports provision it was claimed that universal subsidies were inefficient, ineffective
and a form of regressive taxation (Audit Commission, 1989). They were perceived
to generate artificially high levels of demand among groups who could afford to
take responsibility for their own consumption and they had demonstrably failed
to attract the disadvantaged groups for whom they were intended. For example,
commenting on the fact that the proportion of professional people who participate
in sport regularly is about twice that of unskilled manual labourers, the Audit
Commission (1989: 10) said that, ‘across the board subsidies have a perverse effect
from a redistributional perspective. Many poorer people are, through their rates,
paying to subsidise the pastimes of the rich.’
More tellingly, given our concerns with the supposed wider social impacts
of sports participation, the Audit Commission (1989: 7) strongly criticized the
widespread lack of monitoring and evaluation:

Many authorities do not have a clear idea of what their role in sport and
recreation should be … only a minority … can demonstrate their achievements
in terms of numbers of people participating or increases in participation
… even those which place great emphasis on social objectives have only
qualitative evidence to demonstrate their achievements.

Such analyses led to the more general policy of Compulsory Competitive

Tendering (CCT) being applied to local authority sport and recreation services.
This required them to compete to retain the management of their facilities (on
the presumption that this would lead to increased economic efficiency and a
greater customer focus), while retaining control of strategic policy and methods
of implementation (pricing, programming) (Coalter, 1995). Despite the lack of
clarity as to the precise role of public provision for sport as a component of social
citizenship, reaction to the extension of CCT to sport and recreation services
was almost uniformly negative. Bramham et al. (1993) argued that welfare rights
were being replaced by consumer rights (see also Aitchison, 1992; Clarke, 1992;
Ravenscroft and Tolley, 1993). Ravenscroft (1993: 42) argued that public leisure
 From sport for all to sport for good 13
provision (largely sport and recreation services) had ceased to be a constituent
part of a liberal democratic model of freedom and had become ‘a central feature
[emphasis added] of a deeply divisive process of constructing a new citizenship,
one in which the politics of choice has been replaced by the politics of means’.
However, such responses largely ignored the relative failure of local authority
sport and recreation services to cater for disadvantaged groups. Second, the ‘defence
of welfare’ position was based on oversimplified assumptions about the nature of
constraints on participation in sport and cultural activities. Although it must be
acknowledged that entrance charges are one component of the sport participation
decision, research suggests that they have a relatively small influence – cultural
capital may be more important than financial capital (Coalter, 1993; Gratton
and Taylor, 1995). From an economics perspective Gratton and Taylor (1985)
suggest that the failure of supply-side subsidies to attract lower income groups in
proportion to their number in the population indicates a basic ‘marketing failure’,
i.e. many of those who do not use publicly provided facilities are not ‘constrained’
or ‘excluded’ – they simply do not wish to use them. For example, in England in
2002, in the four weeks before interview, 58 percent of higher professionals took
part in at least one activity (excluding walking), compared to 29 percent of those
in routine occupations (Sport England, 2005). Such persistent differentials raise
important issues for later policies of ‘sport and social inclusion’, whose success
depends on achieving a basic necessary condition of increased participation in
sport by many socially marginal and consistently ‘under-participating’ groups.
The introduction of CCT, with the associated need to produce detailed contract
specifications to provide the basis for monitoring performance, also marked a broad
shift from the rather vague approach of management by objectives (‘catering for
the sporting needs for the community’; ‘contributing to the community’s quality
of life’) to objective-led management. This was welcomed by the Sports Council
(1990: 1), saying that ‘CCT presents local authorities with the opportunity to
precisely define what service they are seeking to provide for their communities’.
However, a large-scale evaluation of this aspect of CCT concluded that there was a
widespread failure to formulate quantifiable, non-financial performance measures,
largely because of a lack of previous monitoring information and absence of sports
strategies to provide a framework for such targets (Coalter, 1995). More critically,
Walsh (1991) suggested that competition had illustrated the lack of adequate
management information and information services. Bovaird (1992) suggested
that the new-found emphasis on objective-led management was largely symbolic,
reflecting a need to establish a legitimating myth that leisure departments have
a sense of direction and an explicable rationale for their actions! Nevertheless,
throughout the 1990s, performance measurement became an increasingly
important issue – culminating in New Labour’s concerns with evidence-based
policy-making and outcome measurement (see below).
14 From sport for all to sport for good
Sports policy: a lottery?
Although the replacement of Margaret Thatcher by John Major in 1990 did not
lead to a substantial change in the broader neoliberal policies, it led to a more
proactive approach to sport, an area of strong personal interest to Major and one
which articulated closely with his more traditional view of Conservatism. His
ability to pursue this interest was facilitated by what Henry (2001: 92) refers to
as a ‘masterstroke in terms of leisure policy’ – the establishment of the National
Lottery in 1994 – which ‘allowed the Conservative government to both decrease
tax-driven subsidy and to increase financial support for sport, the arts and heritage’.
This ensured large sums of money becoming available (by 1999 over £1 billion
had been allocated to sport), although Henry (2001) argues that because access
to Lottery funding was based on a bidding process and some degree of matched
funding, it clearly did not address issues of needs-driven welfare spending.
Major published the first strategy for sport since 1975: Sport: Raising the Game
(Department of National Heritage, 1995). Policy was formulated within a traditional,
one-nation, Conservative discourse, emphasizing sport’s role in reinforcing heritage,
nationhood and national pride (Henry, 2001). In his introduction, Major stated
that, ‘sport is a central part of Britain’s National Heritage … a binding force
between generations and across borders … one of the defining characteristics of
nationhood and local pride’. This was reflected in a focus on ‘traditional sports’ in
school and elite sport. However, such sports were not only important because of
their contribution to nationhood and pride, but also because of their character-
building effects (Department of National Heritage, 1995: 2) because ‘competitive
sport teaches valuable lessons which last for life. Every game delivers both a winner
and a loser. Sports men [sic] must learn to be both.’
Despite such collective and individual sporting outcomes, the document
downplayed the equity issues implied by the, now discarded, slogan of ‘sport for
all’ and effectively ignored the central role of local government in promoting
social citizenship and mass participation. Issues of nationhood and national pride
underpinned the major element of the initiative – elite sport – with Major arguing
that ‘sport at the highest level engages the wider community’ (Department of
National Heritage, 1995: 2). To combat what was perceived as the relative decline
in Britain’s international sporting performance it was proposed to establish a
Lottery-funded British Academy of Sport on the Australian model (Green, 2004).
Despite Major’s electoral defeat in 1997, the emphasis on school sport and elite
development was adopted by the New Labour government of Tony Blair. However,
because of a desire to find a new or ‘Third Way’ to address social and economic
problems, sport was to achieve a new, more clearly articulated, prominence in
social policy.

New Labour and ‘active citizenship’

The election of a New Labour government in the UK in 1997 placed sport more
centrally on the broader social policy agenda, largely because of the presumed
 From sport for all to sport for good 15
externalities, or benefits, associated with participation. Further, the nature of its
contribution was stated more precisely and systematically than had ever been
done before. For example, Policy Action Group 10 (DCMS, 1999: 23) stated that
‘sport can contribute to neighbourhood renewal by improving communities’
performance on four key indicators – health, crime, employment and education’.
Even more precisely and ambitiously, the Scottish Office (1999: 22) stated that:

Arts, sport and leisure activities … have a role to play in countering social
exclusion. They can help to increase the self-esteem of individuals; build
community spirit; increase social interaction; improve health and fitness;
create employment and give young people a purposeful activity, reducing the
temptation to anti-social behaviour.

Although this may look like a more precise statement of the recreation as welfare
policies of the 1970s and 1980s, the underpinning socio-political philosophy of
New Labour ensured that such policies moved beyond their previous rather ad
hoc and often rhetorical status. The presumed link between sport and ‘active
citizenship’ was to be made much more explicit.
The increased emphasis on the potential of sport is explained by the nature
of New Labour’s agenda. The desire was to create a ‘Third Way’ between the
perceived failures of previous Labour governments’ policies of state control, state
provision and anti-individualism and the Thatcherite neoliberal, free-market
policies and extreme individualism. The Third Way – between the state and the
market – is a relatively amorphous term which draws on a number of sources: the
communitarian ideas of Etzioni (1993), Putnam’s (1993, 2000) concepts of social
capital, Hutton’s (1995) notions of a ‘stakeholder’ society and, most prominently,
the writings of Giddens (1998). The Third Way represents an attempt to modernize
and reform all aspects of government, to strengthen civil society, to address
issues of ‘social exclusion’ and to encourage ‘active citizenship’. For example, in
1999 Tony Blair (quoted in Keaney and Gavelin, n.d.: 2) asserted that part of
New Labour’s mission was ‘to create a modern civic society for today’s world, to
renew the bonds of community that bind us together’. Room (1995) argues that,
whereas previous welfare policies were distributional, based on a largely economic
concept of ‘poverty’, the new concerns of policies to combat social exclusion were
relational – identifying the issues in terms of inadequate social participation, lack
of social integration and lack of power. In this regard Giddens (1998: 104) states
that social exclusion is ‘not about gradations of inequality, but about mechanisms
that act to detach groups of people from the social mainstream’. This perspective
resulted in an increased policy emphasis on social processes, relationships and the
organizational capacities of communities (Forrest and Kearns, 1999).
In policy terms the formal definition of social exclusion was provided by the
Social Exclusion Unit (1998) as being a shorthand label for a combination of
linked problems of unemployment, poor skills, low income, poor housing, high
crime environment, bad health and family breakdown. As the above policy
statements from Policy Action Group 10 and the Scottish Executive illustrate, it
16 From sport for all to sport for good
was increasingly assumed that sport had a significant contribution to make to the
solution of several aspects of social exclusion.
However, policies addressing issues of social exclusion are not simply about social
(or sporting) participation and the strengthening of communities. There is also a
parallel emphasis on accountability and responsibility (Le Grand, 1998), summed
up in the concept of ‘active citizenship’. Although Giddens’s (1998: 66) Third
Way values include such social democratic values as protection of the vulnerable,
freedom and equality, they also assert a belief that there are ‘no rights without
responsibilities’. Consequently, the emphasis on community and social inclusion
is accompanied by an emphasis on ‘active citizenship’ and personal responsibility
– to work or seek to work, to provide for family, to behave responsibly, to take
responsibility for personal health, to contribute to the solution of community
problems and so on. The emphasis on both personal and civic responsibility is
illustrated by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett’s (2001) desire to find a
way to empower people in their communities in order to enable them to provide
answers to contemporary social problems.
Such thinking recasts central assumptions about the nature and role of welfare
provision and its purpose. It marks a shift from a traditional notion of ‘passive
welfare’, in which citizens consumed benefits and services as of right, to one of
‘active citizenship’ in which these benefits are rewards, or at least viewed in terms
of their ability to assist people to become active and responsible citizens. This shift
in attitudes to welfare is symbolized in the renaming of Unemployment Benefit
(a right) as Job Seeker’s Allowance (the exercise of personal responsibility).
White (1998) has argued that most social inclusion policies are ‘employment-
centred’, aimed at increasing the employability of the socially excluded, providing
employment opportunities and encouraging civic responsibility (Levitas, 1996).
Holtham (1998) argues that New Labour’s commitment not to raise tax or
government spending meant that efforts had to be confined to helping the
relatively small proportion of the population who were most at risk of being
‘excluded’, but who also accounted for a very high proportion of the most visible
social problems, such as crime. The solution was not simply bigger handouts, but
helping them to find work. Collins and Kay (2003: 22) quote a Department of
Social Security (1998) document, stating that the government’s aim is to rebuild
the welfare state around work and conclude that underpinning such policies is
‘the belief that work will provide the income, status and self-esteem and thereby
make recipients into active citizens, exercising their political and consumer rights’
– again, participation in sport might be both an affirmation of citizenship and
(more importantly) a means of helping people to find employment and a more
complete citizenship.
The historically asserted potential of sport’s ability to address wider social issues
was restated and reinforced by a broader change in social policy. In New Labour’s
agenda all institutions of civil society, and certainly those in receipt of public
funding, are regarded as having the potential to contribute to the agenda of social
inclusion and active citizenship – reflecting a key New Labour mantra about the
reduction of departmentalism and the encouragement of ‘joined up government’.
 From sport for all to sport for good 17
In this regard Kearns (2004: 4) suggests that one of the appeals of the concept
of social exclusion was that ‘it provides a potential route to achieving coherence
across government programmes, so that all parties see that their efforts are
contributing to an overriding objective’. Kearns (2004) suggests that the related
concept of social capital has a similar attraction. Broadly speaking, the concept
of social capital is taken to refer to various social and moral relations that bind
communities together. Communities deemed to be ‘high’ in social capital are ones
with strong community networks and civic infrastructure, an active citizenry, a
strong sense of local identity and solidarity and norms of trust and mutual support.
These issues will be examined in more detail in Chapter 4, but here it is sufficient
to note that the attraction of this concept is that evidence seems to suggest that
communities high in social capital tend to have a number of positive aspects:
lower crime rates, better health and lower rates of child abuse. As issues relating
to social inclusion and social capital are clearly not the property, or goal, of any
single government department, such concepts provide central government with a
cross-departmental outcome measure that can be viewed as strategic and holistic.
Second, social capital is a phenomenon that individual government departments
can adopt as an objective, enabling all to ‘sing from the same hymn sheet’ (Kearns,
2004). In such circumstances all institutions of civil society have the potential to
contribute to this broader social inclusion, active citizenship and social capital
agenda. For example, the concepts of active citizenship and social capital clearly
inform Scottish Office (1999: 5) claims that ‘people who participate in sports and
arts activities are more likely to play an active role in the community in other
ways’.
In a similar vein, Policy Action Group 10’s (DCMS, 1999: 5) action plan for
sport and the arts stated:

Participation in the arts and sport has a beneficial social impact. Arts and sport
are inclusive and can contribute to neighbourhood renewal. They can build
confidence and encourage strong community groups. However, these benefits
are frequently overlooked both by some providers of arts and sports facilities
and programmes and by those involved in area regeneration programmes.

Consequently, such political and funding circumstances served to revive and

reinforce sport’s traditional claims about its ability to provide an ‘economy of
remedies’ (Donnison and Chapman, 1965) to a variety of social problems. Although
a convincing case could be made that such policies were simply more coherent
statements of approaches developed in the early 1980s (Rigg, 1986; Houlihan and
White, 2003), sport’s ability to articulate with core Third Way concepts provided
a much greater degree of legitimation and apparent integration. Houlihan and
White (2002: 2) suggest that sport development ‘is normally at the margin of
the government’s field of vision’ being ‘located in a sector of government activity
that is crowded with services that are both relatively resource rich and politically
heavy’ (e.g. education, health, foreign policy, social services). While this is clearly
so, the predominance of ‘cross-cutting’ policy concepts such as social inclusion
18 From sport for all to sport for good
and social capital provided sport with a historical opportunity to suggest that it
had the ability to at least complement others’ efforts and make some contribution
to overarching policy objectives. In fact, given the dominance of this agenda, it
has been impossible for government departments, non-departmental public bodies
(e.g. Sports Councils) and those in receipt of public funding to ignore it – funding
became increasingly dependent on an organization’s ability to illustrate (at least
theoretically) their contribution to the social inclusion agenda.
Within sports policy it is claimed that this agenda marks a shift from the
traditional welfare approach of developing sport in the community, to seeking to
develop communities through sport (Coalter et al., 2000; Houlihan and White,
2002). In New Labour’s social inclusion agenda the test of effectiveness shifted
from the equity-oriented ‘sport for all’, to what Richard Caborn, Minister of Sport,
referred to as ‘sport for good’, as sport is called upon more systematically to provide
an economy of remedies to a variety of social problems. The extent of this shift is
indicated by Caborn’s statement to the 2003 conference of the Central Council
for Physical Recreation (the UK convention of governing bodies of sport), that ‘we
will not accept simplistic assertions that sport is good as sufficient reason to back
sport’. Of course, this political attitude to sport is not new. In 1983 Denis Howell,
the first Labour Minister of Sport, stated that ‘if sport doesn’t have a social role …
it would be irrelevant. If sport is servicing the people of the country … it must take
account of the changing nature of the social challenges which we all have to face’
(quoted in Coalter et al., 1988: 70). However, in Howell’s era, sport’s contribution
was much more ad hoc and not related systematically to a broader integrating
vision of the type provided by the social inclusion, social capital and ‘joined up
government’ agendas.
However, increased emphasis on an instrumental, externally driven, approach
to sports policy has not been confined to the UK. For example, Bloom et al.
(2005) have undertaken a major review of the socio-economic benefits of sports
participation for Sport Canada. The extensive review examined the effect of
sports participation on health, skills development, social cohesion and economic
performance, recommending a holistic approach to sport policy-making by linking
it to wider areas of social policy. In Australia Driscoll and Wood (1999) undertook
a project for Sport and Recreation Victoria examining the role and importance of
sports clubs and ‘sporting capital’ to rural communities’ experiencing substantial
social and economic change. In Australia, where elite sports funding has dominated
the agenda for decades, the Australian Sports Commission (2006: 3) felt the need
to produce a consultative document, The Case for Sport in Australia, because
‘the importance of sport as a means to achieve wider social, health economic
and environmental outcomes has been increasingly recognised by the Australian
Government and others over recent years’.
In the United States of America, Crompton (2000: 65–6) has argued for the
need to ‘re-position’ leisure services by identifying their public benefits, because

Providing resources to a leisure department so a minority of residents can

have enjoyable experiences is likely to be a low priority when measured
 From sport for all to sport for good 19
against the critical economic, health, safety and welfare issues with which
most legislative bodies are confronted.

In fact the presumed potential of sport to address a range of issues has been
embraced by the United Nations. For example, in November 2003 the General
Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution affirming its commitment
to sport as a means to promote education, health, development and peace.
It also agreed to include sport and physical education as a tool to contribute
towards achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including
those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration. Under the
collective term of ‘sport-in-development’ UN agencies such as UNICEF have
actively explored the use of sport to achieve some of the eight millennium
goals, including the promotion of universal primary education, promoting
gender equality and empowering women, combating HIV/AIDS and addressing
issues of environmental sustainability – even contributing to world peace (see
Chapter 5).
However, accompanying this new, more systematic, emphasis on the social
role of sport there has been an increased, general, concern with evidence of
effectiveness. In the UK New Labour has placed an emphasis on ‘evidenced-based
policy-making’, value for money, ‘welfare effectiveness’ and outcome evaluation
of various forms of public investment. I will examine the implication of these
issues in detail in Chapter 3. However, here it is worth examining briefly the
often unarticulated logic underpinning the widespread claims being made about
sport’s contribution to a variety of policy agendas (many of which are the subject
of detailed examination in subsequent chapters in this book).

How does sport achieve the results?

The presumption that sport can help to address the multifaceted aspects of social
exclusion (e.g. reduce crime, increase employability, improve health) and contribute
to community development and social cohesion implies that participation in sport
can produce outcomes which strengthen and improve certain weak, or negative,
aspects of processes, structures and relationships, or change negative behaviours
thought to characterize deprived urban areas. Several writers have listed the
structural and processual aspects of sport that are presumed to be able to produce
a range of benefits, ranging from the psychological via the socio-psychological to
the social (Svoboda, 1994; Keller et al., 1998; Wankel and Sefton, 1994; Reid
et al., 1994; Collins et al., 1999; Coalter et al., 2000). In summary, the claimed
potential benefits of participation in sport are:

• physical fitness and improved health;

• improved mental health and psychological well being, leading to the reduction
of anxiety and stress;
• personality development via improved self-concept, physical and global self-
esteem/confidence, self-confidence and increased locus of control;
20 From sport for all to sport for good
• socio-psychological benefits such as empathy, integrity, tolerance, cooperation,
trustworthiness and the development of social skills;
• broader sociological impacts such as increased community identity, social
coherence and integration (collectively referred to as social capital).

As Figure 2.1 illustrates, the presumed social significance of these, mostly individual,
positive outcomes is that, via resultant changes in attitudes and behaviour, they
are assumed to lead to wider impacts (see also Coalter, 2002, 2006).
What might be termed as ‘traditional sports development’ was concerned
largely with providing sufficient opportunities to achieve certain sporting outcomes
and impacts – increased and more equitable participation and the development of
sporting skills. From this ‘sport for all’ perspective, participation was usually the
only measure of effectiveness (and even this basic information was rarely collected
at project level) (Coalter et al., 2000; Collins et al., 1999). Such equity objectives
are central to the new social inclusion agenda – if ‘sporting inclusion’ is to be
achieved, the various underprivileged and at-risk groups need to participate in
sport (Collins and Kay, 2003). However, as we are concerned largely with the
nature and quality of evidence about the various impacts and outcomes supposedly
associated with participation in sport, it is worth noting that, even at the most basic
level, our understanding of the motivations underpinning sport is rather limited
and rarely goes beyond correlations (see e.g. Sallis et al., 2000; Foster et al., 2005).
The conclusion of a major systematic review of research on the psychological and

Outputs/opportunities

Sporting outcomes
Sporting inclusion/equity

Sporting impacts
Improved skills/expertise

Intermediate impacts
Personal/social development

Intermediate outcomes
Changed behaviours

Strategic social outcomes

Community regeneration/social capital

Figure 2.1 The social impacts of sport: a logic model

 From sport for all to sport for good 21
ecological factors relating to sports participation (Foster et al., 2005: 2) was that
there was ‘insufficient high quality research evidence about the reasons why adults
and young people do and do not participate’. More generally, other systematic
reviews (e.g. Kahn et al., 2002; Blamey and Mutrie, 2004) conclude that there is
insufficient evidence to assess the effectiveness of a variety of interventions aimed
at increasing physical activity.
However, participation is only a basic necessary condition for the achievement
of the higher level social inclusion objectives, which shift the test of effectiveness
to the outcomes associated with sports provision and participation As Figure 2.1
illustrates, the assumption is that participation will lead to intermediate (individual)
impacts (e.g. improved fitness, increased sense of well being, improved self-efficacy
and (maybe) self-esteem, the development of social skills). The presumed logic
is that such impacts are then likely to lead to intermediate outcomes (i.e. changes
in behaviour): decreased drug use, decreased anti-social behaviour, increased
healthy lifestyle, improved educational performance, increased employability.
In fact, following White’s (1998) argument that most Third Way policies are
‘employment-centred’ (see also Levitas, 1996) the presumption seems to be that
sport can improve participants’ employability by contributing to such factors as
their improved heath, increased self-confidence, improved social (and maybe
administrative and technical) skills. Again, participation in sport might be both
an affirmation of, and means via which to obtain, citizenship. More vaguely, the
accumulation of such behaviours, plus the more general impact of an improved
and active local sports infrastructure (clubs, organizations) will produce strategic
social outcomes such as increased social capital, community cohesion and social
regeneration.
Some or all of these presumed outcomes have always been implicit in the
ideology of sport and in policy rationales. However, they have rarely been
articulated systematically, and even less frequently monitored and evaluated. For
example, in an analysis of 180 items on sport and social exclusion, Collins et al.
(1999: 3) found only 11 studies had ‘anything approaching rigorous evaluations
and some of these did not give specific data for excluded groups or communities’.
In a review of 120 programmes for at-risk youth in the USA, Witt and Crompton
(1996a) found that 30 percent undertook no evaluation and only 4 percent
undertook pre/post evaluation of participation-related changes. Of course, this is
not a problem restricted to sports research, as Oakley et al. (2005: 12) report that
in one major social science review only 2.5 percent (78) of the 3,180 references
located for five reviews could be classified as methodologically sound evaluations
of interventions providing clear outcome data. An even smaller proportion (1.2
percent) was ‘sound’ evaluations of effective interventions. Consequently, Bloom
et al. (2005: preface), examining the socio-economic benefits of sport participation
in Canada, concluded that

there is relatively little empirical knowledge about the way sport participation
benefits Canadians through its impact on health, education, social cohesion
and the economy. As a result, policy-makers lack the evidence required to
22 From sport for all to sport for good
make informed policy decisions and to connect sport issues to other policy
priorities.

As is implied by the logic outlined in Figure 2.1, there are many methodological
difficulties in measuring such presumed impacts and outcomes. Even where
intermediate impacts can be measured (and attributed to participation in sport),
the relationship of these to intermediate outcomes (i.e. changed behaviour)
presents substantial difficulties. For example, Taylor (1999) suggests that the
major problem in identifying and measuring the effects of sports participation on
crime is that this influence (if it is effective) is essentially indirect, working through
a number of intermediate processes, such as improved fitness, self-efficacy, self-
esteem and locus of control and the development of social and personal skills.
Consequently, in most cases it is misleading to argue that ‘sport’ reduces crime, or
leads to improved educational performance. Such issues are compounded by the
difficulties in controlling for intervening and confounding variables which will
also influence attitudes and behaviour, the difficulties of undertaking longitudinal
analysis and the precise definition and measurement of desired outcomes. At
its most basic the majority of sports development programmes do not have the
resources or expertise to undertake such evaluations and, because of short-term
funding, rarely last long enough to have a realistic chance of achieving measurable
and lasting change (Collins et al., 1999).
However, Coalter et al. (2000) argue that the absence of systematic evaluation
can also be explained partly by the apparent theoretical strength, coherence and
widespread acceptance of the description of sports’ potentially (for some inevitable)
positive contributions – the combination of the mythopoeic nature of sport and a
policy desire for relatively cheap and apparently convincing solutions leads to the
potentially positive benefits of sport being regarded as almost inevitable outcomes
of participation. As Long and Sanderson (2001) illustrate, such a belief in the
possibilities of sport is maintained in the absence of robust confirming evidence – a
mixture of belief and theory, professional and personal repertoires, political and
organizational self-interest and ad hominem arguments permits the assumption
of such outcomes. About 20 years ago Glyptis (1989: 153), commenting on local
authority sports schemes for the unemployed, wrote that ‘virtually all provision
has been based on the basis of assumed need and presumed benefit … in the field
of sport and the unemployed there is a danger that assumptions have already been
enshrined as conventional wisdom’.
For whatever reasons, in the new environment of evidence-based policy-
making and an emphasis on effective investment in welfare, sport seems to lack
systematic evidence for many of its claimed externalities. For example, in 2002
the Department of Culture Media and Sport and the Strategy Unit of the Cabinet
Office (2002) published Game Plan, a broad ranging evaluation of some of the
claims made for sport. Game Plan claimed to find robust evidence only for sport
and physical recreation’s contribution to fitness and health, concluding that the
range of other claims were ‘not proven’ (e.g. crime reduction; economic impact of
mega events; improved educational outcomes) and stated that ‘the evidence base
 From sport for all to sport for good 23
needs to be strengthened to enable policy makers to construct and target effective
interventions’ (DCMS and Strategy Unit, 2002: 79).
This analysis was also shared in less dramatic terms by the DCMS and Home
Office (2006: 14) report Bringing Communities together through Sport and Culture,
which concluded that ‘too much work using sport [is] still focused on output
rather than outcome’, with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (2004: 36),
in a report exploring issues of sport and neighbourhood renewal, suggesting that
‘links between sport and regeneration are not clearly expressed or understood,
[and there is a] … frequent failure to evaluate or monitor outcomes from sporting
activities properly’.
However, in addition to a perceived absence of robust evidence about various
physical, physiological, psychological and sociological outcomes supposedly
associated with sports participation, there is also a widespread lack of even
more valuable evidence relating to sufficient conditions: the type of sports and
the conditions under which the potential to achieve the desired outcomes are
maximized. Svoboda (1994) argues that presumed positive outcomes are ‘only
a possibility’ and a direct linear effect between simple participation and effect
cannot be assumed. Coalter et al. (2000: 85) in a wide-ranging review of the
social and economic impacts of sport concluded that there was ‘a widespread lack
of empirical research on outcomes, and more importantly, the mechanisms and
processes via which they are achieved (especially in “real life” situations)’.
Patriksson (1995: 128) outlines this concern by stating:

The point is that sport has the potential both to improve and inhibit an
individual’s personal growth. The futility of arguing whether sport is good or
bad has been observed by several authors. Sport, like most activities, is not
a priori good or bad, but has the potential of producing both positive and
negative outcomes. Questions like ‘what conditions are necessary for sport to
have beneficial outcomes?’ must be asked more often.

It could be argued that while politicians desire descriptive (and simple)

evidence of outcomes, policy-makers and practitioners require an understanding
of sufficient conditions – the processes or mechanisms via which the potential of
sport can be maximized – in order to increase their ability to design and manage
programmes to increase their potential effectiveness. We turn to issues of evidence
and process in Chapter 3.

Standing up and being counted

Historically, public investment in sport has been characterized by a dual purpose:
to extend social rights of citizenship and to use sport to address a wide range of
social issues. As Harrison (1973) argues, whereas social reform requires increased
freedoms, moral reform requires new constraints – in public policies for sport,
as in other areas of social policy, rights and responsibilities are always present.
However, until the last decade, the ability of sport to address such wider social
24 From sport for all to sport for good
issues was largely taken for granted. Various combinations of a general absence of
a culture of performance definition and evaluation, the mythopoeic status of sport,
the apparent theoretical strength of claims about sport’s benefits, a view of sport
as a relatively cheap and simple solution to social problems and sport’s general
marginal policy status (Houlihan and White, 2002) resulted in a widespread
failure to monitor and evaluate sporting investments (which were always small in
comparison to mainstream policy areas).
However, the advent of New Labour, with its Third Way concerns with civic
renewal, social inclusion, active citizenship and social capital, placed sport (and
other forms of voluntary and civic activity) on a broader policy agenda. This
was reinforced by an emphasis on joined-up government and a desire for all
areas of public investment to contribute to strategic policy goals. This was also
accompanied by notions of evidence-based policy-making and outcome-oriented
welfare effectiveness. In such circumstances the relatively untested claims of
sport’s wider social role came under much closer scrutiny. It is to these issues that
we now turn.
3 Sport and social impacts
Do we need new rules?

Evidence-based policy-making
As outlined in Chapter 2, the new importance of sport in social policy has been
accompanied by an emphasis on measurement, evaluation and effectiveness. The
broad shift from the vague and imprecise management by objectives (e.g. ‘catering
for the sporting needs of the community’) to objective-led management (defining
measurable targets) that had begun with CCT has been reinforced. Further,
with CCT being replaced by Best Value, the emphasis shifted from output-led
to outcome-based evaluation. Emphasis was placed on welfare effectiveness and,
most importantly, the contribution that all services make to so-called cross-cutting
agendas – health, crime, social and economic regeneration and education.
Solesbury (2001: 7) suggests that New Labour had a pragmatic, non-ideological
stance and in terms of policy the watchword was ‘what matters is what works’.
To ensure welfare efficiency and effectiveness and to maximize the chances of
achieving desired outcomes, policy interventions should be based on evidence
drawn from relevant successful interventions. For example, the White Paper,
Modernising Government (Cabinet Office, 1999: 16) stated:

This Government expects more of policy makers. More new ideas, more
willingness to question inherited ways of doing things, better use of evidence
and research in policy making and better focus on policies that will deliver
long term goals.

This new emphasis is encapsulated in the phrase evidence-based policy-making and

led to a number of organizations being established to accumulate and disseminate
evidence about the efficacy of practice – in health there is the National Institute for
Clinical Excellence (NICE) and the NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination;
in education the Centre for Evidence-informed Education Policy and Practice
(EPPI Centre) and the Association of Directors of Social Services has established
a research in practice initiative (Solesbury, 2001). In sports policy several research
reviews were commissioned by government and public organizations to examine
the evidence for sport’s claimed wider impacts and to identify ‘good practice’
models as a basis for policy: Sport and Social Exclusion (Collins et al., 1999); Policy
26 Sport and social impacts
Action Team 10: Report to the Social Exclusion Unit – Arts and Sport (DCMS, 1999);
The Role of Sport in Regenerating Deprived Urban Areas (Coalter et al., 2000 for the
Scottish Executive); Game Plan (DCMS and Strategy Unit, 2002); The Benefits
of Sport (Coalter, 2005, for sportscotland) and the establishment of an on-line
research-based Value of Sport Monitor by Sport England and UK Sport (www.
sportengland.org). Although this new emphasis appears to have been strongest
in the UK, similar reviews were published in Canada (Bloom et al., 2005) and
Australia (Australian Sports Commission, 2006).
The intent of the sports-related reviews was to inform an evidence-based
approach, in which accumulated research evidence would inform sports policy,
provision and practice in a range of areas. However, as discussed in Chapter 2,
the overall conclusion of these reviews was that there was a general lack of robust
research-based evidence on the outcomes of sports participation, leading Bloom et
al. (2005: preface) to conclude that, ‘as a result, policy-makers lack the evidence
required to make informed policy decisions and to connect sport issues to other
policy priorities’.
Others went further and suggested that not only do we lack systematic
measurement of outcomes, but also an understanding of ‘the mechanisms and
processes via which they are achieved (especially in “real life” situations)’ (Coalter
et al., 2000: 85; see also Patriksson, 1995). In Weiss’s (1997) vivid phrase, much
(sports) policy and practice has been, and continues to be, not ‘aim, steady, fire’,
but ‘fire, steady, aim’! (See Figure 3.1 for the contrast between the theory and
practice of evidence-based policy-making (especially in sport).)

But if it works, how does it work?

However, Pawson suggests that, even if these reviews of research had produced
systematic and methodologically robust evidence of a range of positive outcomes,
this would not have solved the issue relating to evidence-based policy and practice
because ‘evidence, whether new or old, never speaks for itself. Accordingly,
there is debate about the best strategy of marshalling bygone research results
into the policy process’ (Pawson, 2001a: 2). Pawson (2001a) identifies two main

Theoretical logic of evidence-based policy making

Research/knowledge Policy Provision/

of best practice practice

The reality (especially in sport)

Theory/ Policy Practice Monitoring Evaluation

hypothesis (outputs, some (perhaps)
outcomes)

Figure 3.1 Contrast between theory and practice

 Sport and social impacts 27
approaches to marshalling evidence to inform policy – meta-analysis and narrative
review – but suggests that they both have significant limitations for informing
policy and practice. Although most of the reviews undertaken to inform sports
policy are narrative reviews, it is worth briefly outlining Pawson’s analysis of both
approaches, as it serves to illustrate the demands which evidence-based policy-
making has made on researchers, the dilemmas posed and the nature of the often
unexamined assumptions made about evaluating policy interventions. This also
provides the basis for exploring Pawson’s (2001b, 2006) alternative – realist
synthesis – a perspective that has important implications for understanding the
strengths and limitations of much of the research reviewed in this book.

Meta-analysis
Numerical meta-analysis (or systematic reviews, or research synthesis) seeks to
provide a ‘summary of summaries’ (Pawson, 2001a: 7) of research on a family of
programmes targeted on a specific issue (e.g. the contribution of sport to cognitive
development or educational achievement; the contribution of sport to the
reduction of cardiovascular disease; the role of sport in crime reduction). This is
achieved by compiling a database of existing research (usually based on specified
and rigorous methodological criteria (e.g. randomized control trials), classifying
each project on the basis of mode of delivery, examining each for some numerical
measure of impact (the net effect of the intervention, such as increased educational
scores) and undertaking an overall comparison by calculating the ‘typical’ impact
of such programmes (the mean effect). In areas of relevance to sports policy this
has been used most widely in medical/scientific areas such as fitness and physical
and mental health, but it has also been used in the area of research into sport
and cognitive development or educational performance (Etnier et al., 1997). Such
approaches seek to identify the ‘stubborn empirical generalisation’ so beloved by
politicians – e.g. school sport causes improved educational performance – and
thereby identify the ‘best buy’ in policy terms (Pawson, 2001a: 6).
The emphasis is on numerical measures of outcomes (Pawson, 2001a), e.g.
correlations between participation in sport and reduced crime; between sports
participation and educational achievement. In this approach methodology tends
to be the key arbiter. For example, Etnier et al. (1997), reviewing the evidence
relating to the relationship between physical activity and educational performance,
found that the largest measured relationships are obtained from the weakest
research designs and the weakest relationships are found in the most robust
research designs. Jackson et al. (2005) in a systematic review entitled Interventions
Implemented through Sporting Organisations for Increasing Participation in Sport, used
highly restrictive selection criteria, including randomized and cluster controlled
trials, quasi-randomized trials and controlled before-and-after studies. They could
find no relevant studies and concluded:

There is an absence of high quality evidence to support interventions

designed and delivered by sporting organisations to increase participation in
28 Sport and social impacts
sport. Interventions funded and conducted in this area must be linked to a
rigorous evaluation strategy in order to examine overall effectiveness, socio-
demographic differentials in participation and cost-effectiveness of these
strategies.
(Jackson et al., 2005: 2)

Of course these comments could apply to most areas of social research and not
just to sports research. For example, Oakley et al. (2005: 12) refer to the results
of more general systematic reviews in social science which ‘confirmed those of
health research in showing that better designed studies were generally less likely to
demonstrate effectiveness. In other words poor study design and over-optimistic
results tended to be linked.’ Nevertheless, such findings are partly a function of the
methodological criteria applied and the associated definitions of robust evidence
and illustrate the tension between the need for rigour and the need for practical
guidance for policy and practice.
Because of the emphasis on methodological rigour and measured outcomes,
vitally important issues of process and context are largely ignored. In fact, Pawson
(2006) argues that the approach, based on a medical model, is concerned solely
with the effects of the treatment (e.g. participation in sport) and ignores various
other potentially relevant factors, or seeks to include studies which have controlled
for them (e.g. via random allocation; control groups). The result is that such an
approach implies that programmes (or treatments) have powers – sport reduces
crime; sport leads to increased educational performance. Consequently, significant
issues are downplayed or effectively ignored. For example, Blamey and Mutrie
(2004: 748), reviewing research on physical activity promotion, conclude that
‘trying to combine results from interventions and evaluations that have used varying
methods is difficult and can sometimes mask the reasons why projects have been
successful or not’. Others regret that the application of rigorous methodological
criteria leads to the inevitable ignoring of the wider ‘world of evidence’ (Faulkner
et al., 2006: 120), such as the cultural context of programmes, programme diversity
and, most importantly, processes and mechanisms and participants’ reactions
(Oakley et al., 2005).
As Pawson (2001a) argues, the problem is that it is quite possible for a programme
to work well with one type of subject, but not with another. For example, sports
programmes may have different impacts on the behaviour of petty thieves and
habitual criminals, or those who favour team and competitive environments
compared to those who prefer non-competitive, individual activities, or those
most susceptible to sport’s values.
It is worth noting that such concerns have also been expressed by medical
researchers (where systematic reviews are widely used). For example, Roth
and Parry (1997: 370, quoted in Faulkner et al., 2006: 118) argue that such an
approach tends to concentrate on a ‘circumscribed set of questions and issues
related to outcomes rather than process and to efficacy rather than effectiveness’,
by which they mean that what works in a clinical trial setting might not be what
works (or is needed) in typical clinical practice setting. In similar terms, Blamey
 Sport and social impacts 29
and Mutrie (2004: 742) suggest that, in relation to increasing levels of physical
activity, the concentration on the efficacy and effectiveness of interventions has
led to ‘limited knowledge of how such programmes can be generalised to wider
populations, settings and organisations’.
In other words, different processes and differential effects are lost in aggregation
and the reduction of analysis to mean effects. For example, Fox (1992: 35)
reviewing the impact of primary school PE programmes on children’s self-esteem,
while reporting a generally positive effect, states ‘unfortunately, mechanisms for
these changes have been difficult to isolate’. He quotes Sonstroem (1984) who
argues ‘at this time it is not known why or in what manner exercise programmes
affect self-esteem, or which people are responsive’ (Fox, 1992: 35). More generally,
Papacharisis et al. (2005: 247) sum up the issues by stating that ‘there is nothing
about … sport itself that is magical … It is the experience of sport that may
facilitate the result.’
As we will see in subsequent chapters, there is an emerging recognition that,
rather than simply measuring outcomes (itself a very difficult task), what is required
is a better understanding of process – which sports work for which subjects in
which conditions (Patriksson, 1995; Coalter et al., 2000)? These remain some of
the key unanswered questions in many areas of sports research.

Narrative reviews
Pawson’s (2001a) second approach – narrative reviews (or descriptive analytical
method) – seeks to address the issue of process and has been the approach
adopted in recent sports-related reviews (Collins et al., 1999; Coalter et al., 2001;
Australian Sports Commission, 2006). Like meta-analysis, the aim is to examine
a family of programmes in the hope of finding those particular approaches which
are most successful. Pawson (2001a: 18) suggests that this approach has ‘a slightly
more pronounced explanatory agenda, being more likely to try to identify why
interventions were successful. The approach is often to identify examples of “best
practice”, or “exemplary programmes for an honourable mention”.’
This leads to attempts ‘to extract enough of the “process” of each programme
covered so that the “outcome” is rendered intelligible’ (Pawson, 2001a: 14). Of
course, this best practice approach has a long history in sports policy. It has been
reflected in the policy of demonstration projects long favoured by Sports Councils
in the UK, in which short-term investment is used to illustrate the value of
certain approaches, which can then be adopted by local authority providers. The
narrative review attempts to describe enough of the process of delivery to permit
an understanding of the outcomes and how they were achieved. A key aspect of
this approach is that programmes – e.g. sports provision for young people at risk
– are not regarded as something with causal powers. Rather, the narrative review
seeks to adopt ‘a configurational approach to causality’ (Pawson, 2001a: 16) in
which the outcomes are regarded as resulting from a particular set or combination
of factors, and that these will almost certainly vary between apparently similar
programmes. This has been recognized in commentaries about sports research
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
servant with another of his son-in-law to set up the first coffee
house in London at St. Michael's Alley, in Cornhill." From this it
would appear that Pasqua Ros6e had as partner in this enterprise,
the Bowman, who, according to Aubrey, was^ coachman to Mr.
Hodges, the son-in-law of Mr. Edwards, and a fellow merchant
traveler. Oldys tells us that Rosee and Bowman soon separated. John
Timbs (1801 - 1875), another English antiquary, says they quarreled,
Rosee keeping the house, and his * Manuscript in t\n' Boilloiaii
Library. 53
 54 ALL ABOUT COFFEE partner Bowman obtaining leave to
pitch a tent and to sell the drink in St. Michael's churchyard. Still
another version of this historic incident is to be found in Houghton's
Collection, 1698. It reads : It appears that a Mr. Danie' Edwards, an
English merchant of Smyrna, brought with him to this conntry a
Greek of the name of Pasqua, in 16r)2, who made his coffee ; this
Mr. Edwards married one Alderman Ilodges's danghter, who lived in
Walbrook. and set up Pasqna for a coffee man in a shed in the
churchyard in St. Michael. Cornhill, which is now a scrivener's brave-
house, when, having great custom, the ale-sellers i)etitioned the
Lord Mayor against him, as being no freeman. This made Alderman
Hodges join his coachman, Bowman, who was free, as Pasqua's
partner; but Pasqua, for some misdemeanor, was forced to run the
country, and Bowman, by his trade and a contribution of 1000
sixpences, turned the shed to a house. Bowman's apprentices were
first, John Painter, then Humphry, from whose wife I had this
account. This account makes it appear that Edwards was Hodges'
son-in-law. Whatever the relationship, most authorities agree that
Pasqua Rosee was the first to sell coffee publicly, whether in a tent
or shed, in London in or about the year 1652. His original shop-bill,
or handbill, the first advertisement for coffee, is in the British
Museum, and from it the accompanying photograph was made for
this work. It sets forth in direct fashion : "The Vertue of the COFFEE
Drink First publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosee ...
in St. Michaels Alley in Cornhill. ... at the Signe of his own Head." '
H. R. Fox Bourne ' (about 1870) is alone in an altogether different
version of this historic event. He says: "In 1652 Sir Nicholas Crispe,
a Levant merchant, opened in London the first coffee house known
in England, the beverage being prepared by a Greek girl brought
over for the work," There is nothing to substantiate this story; the
preponderance of evidence is in support of the Edwards - Rosee
version. Such then was the advent of the coffee house in London,
which introduced to English-speaking people the drink of democracy.
Oddly enough, coffee and the Commonwealth came in together. The
English coffee house, like its French contemporary, was the home of
liberty. » See also chapter XXVIII. ' ' The Romance of Trade. London,
(chap, ii ; p. 31.) Robinson, who accepts that version of the event
wherein Edwards marries Hodges 's daughter, says that after the
partners Rosee and Bowman separated, and Bowman had set up his
tent opposite Rosee, a zealous partisan addressed these verses "To
Pasqua Rosee, at the Sign of his own Head and half his Body in St.
Michael's Alley, next the first Coffee-Tent in London": Were not the
fountain of my Tears Each day exhausted by the steam Of your
Coffee, no doubt appears But they would swell to such a stream As
could admit of no restriction To see, poor Pasqua, thy Affliction.
What! Pasqua, you at first did broach This Nectar for the publick
Good, Must you call Kitt down from the Coach To drive a Trade he
understood No more than you did then your creed, Or he doth now
to write or read? Pull Courage, Pasqua, fear no Harms From the
besieging Foe ; Make good your Ground, stand to your Arms, Hold
out this summer, and then tho' He'll storm, he'll not prevail — your
Face * Shall give the Coffee Pot the chace. Eventually Pasqua Rosee
disappeared, some say to open a coffee house on the Continent, in
Holland or Germany. Bowman, having married Alderman Hodges 's
cook, and having also prevailed upon about a thousand of his
customers to lend him sixpence apiece, converted his tent into a
substantial house, and eventually took an apprentice to the trade.
Concerning London's second coffeehouse keeper, James Farr,
proprietor of the Rainbow, who had as his most distinguished visitor
Sir Henry Blount, Edward Hatton' says: I find it recorded that one
James Farr, a barber, who kept the coffee-house which is now the
Rainbow, by the Inner Temple Gate (one of the first in England), was
in the year 1657, prosecuted by the inquest of St. Dunstan's in the
West, for making and selling a sort of liquor called coffe, as a great
nuisance and prejudice to the neighborhood, etc., and who would
then have thought London would ever have had near three thousand
such nuisances, and that coffee would have been, as now, so much
drank by the best of quality and physicians? Hatton evidently
attributed Farr's nuisance to the coffee itself, whereas the present*
Pasqua Rosee's sign. Kltt's (or Bowman's) sign was a coffee pot. *
Ilatton, Edward. . New View of London. London. 1708. (vol. i: p. 30.)
The text on this page is estimated to be only 13.92%
accurate

COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON 55 4^^iiiSI

[ThcVevtucofthe COFFEE Drinkr Firftpub!ic]uciy mad: and fold in
England, by Ttifciti^ .:'rs,by rc:fon of chat Heat, V The ru:ks drink 2t
meals and other times, is ufually W'^ffr, and their Dyec confill; much
of Fr/4^ ^ the Crudities whereof arc very much corrected by this
Drink. ;■ 4^ Is The quality of this Drink h cofd and Dryj and though
it be a Dryer^ yst it neither heats, 'nor inflames more then hot
fojfet. Ir fcTclofech the Orifice of the Stomack, and fortifies the heat
wiihns very good (o^help digeftionj and therefore of great u/e to be
bout 3 or4aCiockafternoon,as wcUas \n the morning.ucn quickens
the Spirits^ and makes the Heart Ughtfwie, . is goodagauift lore Eys,
and the better if you hold your Head oer It, and rake in the Steem
that way. Ic lu'.preifeth Fumes exceedingly, and therefore good
againftthc Head~ach, an^i wiU very much flop any De fluxion of
 56 ALL ABOUT COFFEE ment* clearly shows it was in Farr's
chimney and not in the coffee. Mention has already been made that
Sii Henry Blount w'as spoken of as "the fathei of Enirlish coffee
houses" and his claim to this distinction would seem to be a valid
one, for his strong personality "stamped it self upon the system." His
favorite motto, "Loqnendum est cum vulgo, sentiendum cum
sapientihus (the crowd may talk about it; the wise decide it), says
Robinson, "expresses well their colloquial purpose, and w'as natural
enough on the lips of one whose experience had been world wide. ' '
Aubrej says of Sir Henry Blount, ' ' He is now neer or altogether
eighty yeares, his intellectuals good still and body pretty strong."
Women played a not inconspicuous part in establishing businesses
for the sale of the coffee drink in England, although the coffee
houses were not for both sexes, as in other European countries. The
London City Quaeries for 1660 makes mention of "a shecoffee
merchant." Mary Stringar ran a coffee house in Little Trinity Lane in
1669 ; Anne Blunt was mistress of one of the Turk's-Head houses in
Cannon Street in 1672. Mary Long was the widow of William Long,
and her initials, together with those of her husband, appear on a
token issued from the Rose tavern in Bridge Street, Covent Garden.
Mary Long's token from the "Rose coffee house by the playhouse" in
Covent Garden is shown among the group of coffee-house keepers'
tokens herein illustrated. The First Newspaper Advertisement The
first newspaper advertisement for coffee appeared. May 26, 1657, in
the Puhlich Adviser of London, one of the first weekly pamphlets.
The name of this publication was erroneously given as the Publick
Advertiser by an early writer on coffee, and the error has been
copied by succeeding writers. The first newspaper advertisement
was contained in the issue of the Puhlick Adviser for the week of
May 19 to May 26, and read: In Bartholometc Lane on the back side
of the Old Exchange, the drink called Coffee, (which is a very
wholsom and Physical drink, having many excellent vei-tues. closes
the Orifice of the Stomack, fortifies the heat within, helpeth
Digestion, quickneth the Spirits, maketh the heart lightsom, is good
against Eye-sores, Ck>ughs, or Colds, Rhumes, Consumptions,
Head-ach, Drop» The prosecution came under the heading,
"Pisorders and Annoys." sie, Gout, Scurvy, Kings Evil, and many
others is to be sold both in the morning, and at three of the clock in
the afternoon. Chocolate was also advertised for sale in London this
same year. The issue of the Puhlick Adviser for June 16, 1657,
contained this announcement: In Bishopgate Street, in Queen's
Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house is an excellent West India drink
called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any
time, and also unmade at reasonable rates. Tea was first sold
publicly at Garra way's (or Garway's) in 1657. Strange Coffee
Mixtures The doctors were loath to let coffee escape from the
mysteries of the pharmacopoeia and become "a simple and
refreshing beverage" that any one might obtain for a penny in the
coffee houses, or, if preferred, might prepare at home. In this they
were aided and abetted by many well-meaning but misguided
persons (some of them men of considerable intelligence) who
seemed possessed of the idea that the coffee drink was an
unpleasant medicine that needed something to take away its curse,
or else that it required a complex method of preparation. Witness
"Judge" Walter Rumsey's Electuary of Cophy, which appeared in
1657 in connection with a curious work of his called Organon Salutis:
an instrument to cleanse the stomach. ' The instrument itself was a
flexible whale-bone, two or three feet long, with a small linen or silk
button at the end, and was designed to be introduced into the
stomach to produce the effect of an emetic. The electuary of coffee
was to be taken by the patient before and after using the
instrument, which the "judge" called his Provang. And this was the
"judge's" "new and superior way of preparing coffee ' ' as found in
his prescription for making electuary of cophy : Take equal quantity
of Butter and Sallet-oyle, melt them well together, but not boyle
them ; Then stir re them well that they may incorporate together:
Then melt therewith three times as much Honey, and stirre it well
together: Then add thereunto powder of Turkish Cophie, to make it
a thick Electuary. A little consideration will convince any one that the
electuary was most likely to achieve the purpose for which it was
recommended. ' Rumsey (or Ramsey), W. Organon Salutis. LoU' don,
1657.
The text on this page is estimated to be only 9.68%
accurate

COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON 57 _ TIiePublickAdvifer,

WEEKLY CommunicsUin(* unto the whole Nation the fcvcral
Occafroni of all perfons that arc any way concerned in matter of
Buying and iSelling, or in any kind of Impa)ymcnt, or deahnos
whaifoever^ according to the int«ntof the OFFICE OF PUBLICK
ADVICE newly fct up in feveral places , in and about L4ff/ipff and
rP^/mhfifr. For the better Accommodation and Eafc of the People ,
and the Univerfal Benefit of the Commonwealth, in point of PUBLICK
I NTERCOURSE. from Tuefda^ Maj r^ r# Ttn/Hdy May a5. la
B^rtholomem Lane on the back liJc of the Old Exchange, the drink
called Coffee^ ( yvhich is a very wHolform and Phyfical drink, havjng
many excellent vertues, clofes rhe.Orifice of the Stomack, fortifies
the heat withm, helpcth Digeftion,qUJckncthihc Spirits, niakcth the
hitt hghtfom, is gcodagainft Eyc-furfS. Coughs, or Colds/ Hhun^cs,
Confumptions; Heid-ach, Dropfie, Goac,.ScQrvy»Kings Evlland many
others if to hrfofd bothta the morning, and at three of the clock in
ihe^ a(-^ ternooo* xjittifcers* ONc Mrs. Uffdel living at the fi^ of
the Boot in Fullers Rentsin//o/^»r;i, AttirethanJ DrefTcih Lidicf and
Gcntlt womcns Heads •, and tcawheth Maids to ** H:ads: TAct'; fV c
refTiMS * ' till they br p*****^ THE FIRST NEWSPAPER
ADVERTISEMENT FOR COFFEE — 1657
 58 ALL ABOUT COFFEE Another concoction invented by the
"jud^e" was known as "wash-brew", and included oatmeal, powder
of "cophie", a pint of ale or any wine, ginger, honey, or sugar to
please the taste; to these ingredients butter might be added and any
cordial powder or pleasant spice. It was to be put into a tiannel bag
and "so keep it at pleasure like starch." This was a favorite medicine
among the common people of Wales. The book contained in a prefix
an interesting historical document in the shape of a letter from
James Howell (1595 - 1666) the writer and historiographer, which
read : Touching coffee, I concurre with them in opinion, who lioltl it
to be that black-broth which was us'd of old in Lacedemon, whereof
the Poets sing ; Surely it must needs be salutiferous, because so
many sagacious, and the wittiest sort of Nations use it so much ; as
they who have conversed with Shashes and Turbants doe well know.
But, besides the exsiccant quality it hath to dry up the crudities of
the Stomach, as also to comfort the Brain, to fortifle the sight with
its steem, and prevent Dropsies, Gouts, the Scurvie, together with
the Spleen and Hypocondriacall windes (all which it doth without any
violance or distemper at all.) I say, besides all these qualities, 'tis
found already, that this Coffee-drink hath caused a greater sobriety
among the nations; for whereas formerly Apprentices and Clerks
with others, used to take their mornings' draught in Ale, Beer or
Wine, which by the dizziness they cause in the Brain, make many
unfit for business, they use now to play the Good-fellows in this
wakefull and civill drink : Therefore that -worthy Gentleman, Mr.
Mudiford*, who introduced the practice hereof first to London,
deserves much respect of the whole nation. The coffee drink at one
time was mixed with sugar candy, and also with mustard. In the
coffee houses, however, it was usually served black; "few people
then mixed it with either sugar or milk." Fantastic Coffee Claims One
can not fail to note in connection with the introduction of coffee into
England that the beverage suffered most from the indiscretions of its
friends. On the one band, the quacks of the medical profession
sought to claim it for their own ; and, on the other, more or less
ignorant laymen attributed to the 'drink such virtues as its real
champions among the physicians never dreamed of. It was the
favorite pastime of its friends to exaggerate coffee 's merits ; and of
its enemies, to vilify its users. All this furnished good ' ' copy ' ' for
and against * Also given as Sir James Muddiford, Murford, Mudford,
Moundeford, and Modyford, the coffee house, which became the
central figure in each new controversy. From the early English author
who damned it by calling it "more wholesome than toothsome", to
Pas(iua Rosee and his contemporaries, who urged its more fantastic
claims, it was forced to make its way through a veritable morass of
misunderstanding and intolerance. No harmless drink in history has
suffered more at hands of friend and foe. Did its friends hail it as a
panacea, its enemies retorted that it was a slow poison. In France
and in England there were those who contended that it produced
melancholy, and those who argued it was a cure for the same. Dr.
Thomas Willis (1621-1673), a distinguished Oxford physician whom
Antoine Portal (1742-1832) called "one of the greatest geniuses that
ever lived", said he would sometimes send his patients to the coffee
house rather than to the apothecary's shop. An old broadside,
described later in this, chapter, stressed the notion that if you "do
but this Rare ARABIAN cordial use, and thou may'st all the Doctors
Slops Refuse." As a cure for drunkenness its "magic'' power was
acclaimed by its friends, and grudgingly admitted by its foes. This
will appear presently in a description of the war of the broadsides
and the pamphlets. Coffee was praised by one writer as a
deodorizer. Another (Richard Bradley), in his treatise concerning its
use with regard to the plague, said if its qualities had been fully
known in 1665, "Dr. Hodges and other learned men of that time
would have recommended it." As a matter of fact, in Grideon
Harvey's Advice against the Plague, published in 1665, we find,
"coffee is commended against the contagion." This is howl the
drink's sobering virtue was celebrated by the author of the
Rehellious Antidote : Come, Frantick Fools, leave off your Drunken
fits. Obsequious be and I'll recall your Wits, From perfect Madness to
a modest Strain For farthings four I'll fetch you back again, Enable
all your mene with tricks of State, Enter and sip and then attend
your Fate; Come Drunk or Sober, for a gentle Fee, Come n'er so
Mad, I'll your Physician be. Dr. Willis, in his Pharmaceutice Rationalis
(1674), was one of the first to attempt to do justice to both sides of
the coffee question. At best, he thought it a somewhat risky
beverage, and its votaries must,
 COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON 59 some cases, be
prepared to suffer languor and even paralysis; it may attack the
heart and cause tremblings in the limbs. On the other hand it may, if
judiciously used, prove a marvelous benefit; "being daily drunk ii,
wonderfully clears and enlightens each part of the Soul and
disperses all the clouds of every Function." It was a long time before
recognition was obtained for the truth about the "novelty drink'';
especially that, if there were any beyond purely social virtues to be
found in coffee, they were "political rather than medical." Dr. James
Duncan^ of the Faculty of Montpellier, in his book Wholesome
Advice against the Abuse of Hot Liquors, done into English in 1706,
found coffee no more deserving of the name of panacea than that of
poison. George Cheyne (1671-1743), the noted British physician,
proclaimed his neutrality in the words, "I have neither great praise
nor bitter blame for the thing. * ' Coffee Prices and Coffee Licenses
Coffee, with tea and chocolate, was first mentioned in the English
Statute books in 1660, when a duty of four pence was laid upon
every gallon made and sold, "to be paid by the maker. ' ' Coffee was
classed by the House of Commons with "other outlandish drinks." It
is recorded in 1662 that "the right coffee powder" was being sold at
the Turk's Head coffee house in Exchange Alley for "4s. to 6s. 8d.
per pound; that pounded in a mortar, 2s ; East India berry. Is. 6d. ;
and the right Turkic berry, well garbled [ground] at 3s. The
ungarbled [in the bean] for less with directions how to use the
same." Chocolate was also to be had at "2s. 6d. the pound; the
perfumed from 4s. to 10s," At one time coffee sold for five guineas a
pound in England, and even forty crowns (about forty-eight dollars)
a pound was paid for it. In 1663, all English coffee houses were
required to be licensed ; the fee was twelve pence. Failure to obtain
a license was punished by a fine of five pounds for every month's
violation of the law. The coffee houses were under close surveillance
by government officials. One of these was Muddiman, a good scholar
and an "arch rogue ' ', who had formerly ' * written for the
Parliament" but who later became a paid spy. L 'Estrange, who had a
patent on "the sole right of intelligence", wrote in his Intelligencer
that he was alarmed at the ill effects of "the ordinary written papers
of Parliament's news . . . making coffee houses and all the popular
clubs judges of those councils and deliberations which they have
nothing to do with at all." The first royal warrant for coffee was
given by Charles II to Alexander Man, a Scotsman who had followed
General Monk ■to London, and set up in Whitehall. Here he
advertised himself as "coffee man to Charles II." Owing to increased
taxes on tea, coffee, and newspapers, near the end of Queen Anne's
reign (1714) coffee-house keepers generally raised their prices as
follows: Coffee, two pence per dish; green tea, one and a half pence
per dish. All drams, two pence per dram. At retail, coffee was then
sold for five shillings per pound ; while tea brought from twelve to
twenty-eight shillings per pound. Cofee Club of The Rota "Coffee and
Commonwealth", says a pamphleteer of 1665, "came in together for
a Reformation, to make 's a free and sober nation." The writer
argues that liberty of speech should be allowed, "where men of
differing judgements croud"; and he adds, "that's a coffee-house, for
where should men discourse so free as there?" Robinson's
comments are apt: Now perhaps we do not always connect the ideas
of sociableness and freedom of discussion with the days of Puritan
rule; yet it must be admitted that something like geniality and
openness characterized what Pepys calls the Coffee Club of the Rota.
This "free and open Society of ingenioiis gentlemen" was founded in
the year 1659 by certain members of the Republican party, whose
peculiar opinions had been timidly expressed and not very cordially
tolerated under the Great Oliver. By the weak Government that
followed, these views were regarded with extreme dislike and with
some amount of terror. "They met", says Aubrey, who was himself of
their number, "at the Turk's Head [Miles 's coffee house] in New
Palace Yard, Westminster, where they take water, at one Miles 's, the
next house to the staires, where • was made purposely a large ovall
table, wdth a passage in the middle for Miles to deliver his coffee."
Robinson continues : This curious refreshment bar and the interest
with which the beverage Itself was regarded, were quite secondary
to the excitement caused
 60 ALL ABOUT COFFEE A Coffee House in the Time of
Charles II From a wood cut of 1674 by another novelty. When, after
heated disputation, a member desired to test tlie opinion of the
meeting, any particular point might, by agreement, be put to the
vote and then everything depended upon "our wooden oracle," the
first balloting-box ever seen in England. Formal methods of
procedure and the intensely practical nature of the subjects
discussed, combined to give a real importance to this Amateur
Parliament. The Rota, or Coffee Club, as Pepys called it, was
essentially a debating society for the rlissemi nation of repubjican
opinions. It was preceded only, in the reign of Henry IV, by the club
called La Court de Bone Compagnie ; by Sir Walter Raleigh's Friday
Street, or Bread Street, club ; the club at the Mermaid tavern in
Bread Street, of which Shakespeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Raleigh,
Selden, Donne, et al., were members; and "rare" Ben Jonson's Devil
tavern club, between Middle Temple Gate and Temple Bar. I The
Rota derived its name from a plan. Which it was designed to
promote, for onanging a certain number of members of parliament
annually by rotation. It was y^ounded by James Harrington, who
had /painted it in fairest colors in his Oceana, I that ideal
commonwealth. Sir "William Petty was one of its members. Around
the table, "in a room every fivening as full as it could be crammed,"
says Aubrey, sat Milton ( ?) and Marveil, Cyriac Skinner, Hamngton,
Nevill, and their friends, discussing abstract political questions. The
Rota became famous for its literary strictures. Among these was ' '
The censure of the Rota upon Mr. Milton 's book entitled The ready
and easie way to establish a free commonwealth" (1660) , although
it is doubtful if Milton was ever a visitor to this "bustling coffee club."
The Rota also censured "Mr. Driden's Conquest of Granada" (1673).
Early Coffee-House Manners and Customs Among many of the early
coffee-house keepers there was great anxiety that the coffee house,
open to high and low, should be conducted under such restraints as
might secure the better class of customers from annoyance. The
following set of regulations in somewhat halting rhyme was
displayed on the walls of several of the coffee houses in the
seventeenth century : The Rules and Orders of the Coffee Housej.
Enter, Sirs, freely, but first, if you please, Peruse our civil orders,
which are these. Jlrst, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither,
And may without affront sit down together: Pre-eminence of place
none here should mind, Rut take the next fit seat that he can find :
Nor need any. if finer persons come, Rise up to assigue to them his
room; To limit men's expence, we think not fair, But let him forfeit
twelve-pence that shall swear ; He that shall any quarrel here begin.
Shall give each man 8 digU t' atone the sin;
 COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON 61 And so shall he,
whose compliments extend So far to drink in coffee to his friend ;
Ij«»t noise of loud disputes he quite forhorne, \() maudlin lovers
here in corners mourn. Hut all he brisk and talk, hut not too much,
On sacred things, let none presume to touch. Nor profane Scripture,
nor sawcily wrong Affairs of state with an irreverent tongue : Let
mirth he innocent, and each man see That all his jests without
reflection be ; To keep the house more quiet and from blame, We
banish hence cards, dice, and every game ; Nor can allow of wagers,
that exceed Five shillings, which ofttimes much trouble breed ; Let
all that's lost or forfeited be spent In such good liquor as the house
doth vent. And customers endeavour, to their powers. For to observe
still, seasonable hours. Lastly, let each man what he calls for pay.
And so you're welcome to come every day. The early coffee houses
were often up a flight of stairs, and consisted of a single large room
with ' ' tables set apart for divers topics." There is a reference to this
in the prologue to a comedy of 1681 (quoted by Malone) : In a
coffee house just now among the rabble I bluntly asked, which is the
treason table? This was the arrangement at Man's and others
favored by the wits, the literati, and "men of fashionable instincts."
In the distinctly business coffee houses separate rooms were
provided at a later time for mercantile transactions. The introduction
of wooden partitions — wooden boxes, as at a tavern — was also of
somewhat later date. A print of 1674 shows five persons of different
ranks in life, one of them smoking, sitting on chairs around a coffee-
house table, on which are small basins, or dishes, without saucers,
and tobacco pipes, while a coffee boy is serving coffee. In the
beginning, only coffee was dispensed in the English coffee houses.
Soon chocolate, sherbert, and tea were added; but the places still
maintained their status as social and temperance factors.
Constantine Jennings (or George Constantine) of the Grecian
advertised chocolate, sherbert and tea at retail in 1664 - 65 ; also
free instruction in the part of preparing these liquors. "Drams and
cordial waters were to be had only at coffee houses newly set up,"
says Elford the younger, writing about 1689. While some few places
added ale and beer as early as 1669, intoxicating liquors were not
items of importance for many years. After the fire of 1666, many
new coffee houses were opened that were not limited to a single
room up a flight of stairs. Because the coffee-house keepers over-
emphasized the sobering qualities of the coffee drink, they drew
many undesirable characters from the taverns and ale houses after
the nine o'clock closing hour. These were hardly calculated to
improve the reputation of the coffee houses; and, indeed, the
decline of the coffee houses as a temperance institution would seem
to trace back to CojpFiE House xests A London Coffee House of the
Seventeenth Century From a wood cut of the period this attitude of
false pity for the victims of tavern vices, evils that many of the coffee
houses later on embraced to their own undoing. The early institution
was unique, its distinctive features being unlike those of any public
house in England or on the Continent. Later on, in the eighteenth
century, when these distinctive fea 
 62 ALL ABOUT COFFEE tures became obscured, the name
coffee house became a misnomer. However, Robinson says, "the
close intercourse between the habitu6s of the coffee house, before it
lost anything of its generous social traditions and whilst the issue of
the struggle for political liberty was as yet uncertain, was to lead to
something Coffee House, Queen Anne's Time — 1702-14 Showing
coffee pots, coffee dishes, and coffee boy more than a mere
jumbling or huddling together of opposites. The diverse elements
gradually united in the bonds of common sympathy, or were forcibly
combined by persecution from without until there resulted a social,
political and moral force of almost irresistible strength." Coffee-
Eouse Keepers' Tokens The great London fire of 1666 destroyed
some of the coffee houses; but prominent among those i^iat
survived was the Rainbow, whose proprietor, James Farr, issued one
of the earliest coffee-house tokens, doubtless in grateful memory of
his escape. Farr's token shows an arched rainbow emerging from the
clouds of the "great fire," indicating that all was well with him, and
the Rainbow still radiant. On the reverse the medal was inscribed,
"In Fleet Street — His Half Penny." A large number of these trade
coins were put out by coffee-house keepers and other tradesmen in
the seventeenth century as evidence of an amount due, as stated
thereon, by the issuer to the holder. Tokens originated because of
the scarcity of small change. They were of brass, copper, pewter,
and even leather, gilded. They bore the name, address, and calling
of the issuer, the nominal value of the piece, and some reference to
his trade. They were readily redeemed, on presentation, at their face
value. They were passable in the immediate neighborhood, seldom
reaching farther than the next street. C. G. Williamson writes :
Tokens are essentially deniooratic ; they would never have been
issued but for the indifterenee of the Government to a public need ;
and in tJieni we have a remarkable instance of a people forcing a
legislature to comply with demands at once reasonable and
imperative. Taken as a whole series, they are homely and quaint,
wanting in beauty, but not without u curious domestic art of their
own. Robinson finds an exception to the general simplicity in the
tokens^ issued by one of the Exchange Alley houses. The dies of
these tokens are such as to have suggested the skilled workmanship
of John Roettier. The most ornate has the head of a Turkish sultan at
that time famed for his horrible deeds, ending in suicide; its
inscription runs: Morat ye Great Men did mee call; Where Eare I
came I conquer'd all. A number of the most interesting coffee-house
keepers' tokens in the Beaufoy collection, in the Guildhall Museum
were photographed for this work, and are shown herewith. It will be
observed that many of the traders of 1660-75 adopted as their trade
sign a hand pouring coffee from a pot, invariably of the Turkishewer
pattern. Morat (Amurath) and Soliman were frequent coffee-house
signs in the seventeenth century. J. H. Bum, in his Catalogue of
Traders' Tokens, recites that in 1672 "divers persons who presumed
... to stamp, coin, exchange and distribute farthings, halfpence and
pence of brass and copper' were "taken into custody, in order to
 COFFEE HOUSES OF OLD LONDON 63 Andrew Vincent in
Friday Street Morat Ye Great Coffee House in Kxchange Alley Mary
Long in Russell Street Robins' Coffee House in Old Jewry Union
Coffee House in Cornhill James Farr, the Rainbow In Fleet Street
Chapter Coffee House in Paternoster Row Sultaness Coffee House in
Cornhill Achler Brocas in Exeter Morat Coffee House in Exchange
Alley PLATE 1 — COFFEE-HOUSE KEEPERS' TOKENS OF THE 17TH
CENTURY Drawn for this work from the originals in the British
Museum, and in the Beaufoy collection at the Guildhall Museum
 64 ALL ABOUT COFFEE severe prosecution"; but upon
submission, their offenses were forgiven, and it was not until the
year 1675 that the private token ceased to pass current. A royal
proclamation at the close of 1674 enjoined the prosecution of any
who should "utter base metals with private stamps," or "hinder the
vending of those half pence and farthings which are provided for
necessary exchange." After this, tokens were issued stamped
"necessary change." losition to the Coffee House It is easy to see
why the coffee houses at once found favor among men of intelA Cup
oh O F E E OR, CoiFee in its Colqms. 7WiMmt.p»»j.rfi».°ti'»~"r' ■
•w, SKl^i w« luw fkM fMT WMteAi Jn ta A Broadside of 1GG3 ligence
in all classes. Until they came, the average Englishman had only the
tavern as a place of common resort. But here was a public house
offering a non-intoxicating beverage, and its appeal was instant and
universal. As a meeting place for the exchange of ideas it soon
attained wide popularity. But not without opposition. The publicans
and ale-house keepers, seeing business slipping away from them,
made strenuous propaganda against this new social center; and not
a few attacks were launched against the coffee drink. Between the
Restoration and the year 1675, of eight tracts written upon the
subject of the London coffee houses, four have the words "character
of a coffee house" as part of their titles. The authors appear eager
to impart a knowledge of the town's latest novelty, with which many
readers were unacquainted; One of these early pamphlets (1662)
was entitled lite Coffee Scuffle, and professed to give a dialogue
between "a learned knight and a pitifull pedagogue," and contained
an amusing account of a house where the Puritan element was still
in the ascendant. A numerous company is present, and each little
group being occupied with its own subject, the general effect is that
of another Babel. "While one is engaged in ({noting the classics,
another confides to his neighbors how much he admires Euclid ; A
third's for a lecture, a fourth a conjecture, A fifth for a penny in the
pound. Theology is introduced. Mask balls and plays are condemned.
Others again discuss the news, and are deep in the store of
"mercuries" here to be found. One cries up philosophy. Pedantry is
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