When I began my research for my project, I was very optimistic about the role that primary sources would play in my sources. Much like Sebastian Conrad examined the role of work in his study of migration in 19th Century Germany, my initial idea was to focus on transoceanic tours and examine their role in the rise of football around the globe as a spectator sport, and this examination would rely very heavily on newspaper articles. I actually had a lead on a particular Argentinian newspaper called Cr\u00edtica<\/i> that extensively covered Argentinian club Boca Juniors\u2019 1925 tour of Europe from Paul Dietschy\u2019s article on the rise of international football. However, I have come up empty so far in my attempts to find a library in Scotland with access to archives containing this particular newspaper, and I learned quickly that South American newspapers are not particularly easy to get hold of from St Andrews. So, as I have apparently reached a dead end and with the end of the semester rapidly approaching, I\u2019ve decided to temporarily set aside the tours and examine alternative ways of going about the project.<\/p>\n
International tours, though an inherently transnational aspect of football, perhaps might not even be the best angle from which to approach this project. Dietschy speaks about South American players moving to Europe- particularly France and Italy- in the 1930\u2019s to play for professional clubs. A simple analysis of rosters and squad lists from top-flight professional leagues could shed light on the extent of migration to Europe, which then- again taking inspiration from Conrad- could prompt an inquiry into the push and pull factors behind this flow of South American players to Europe. Using a database could be very helpful in analyzing the rosters and players\u2019 nationalities, although it might also\u00a0overcomplicate a simple process.<\/p>\n
This analysis could also be done with regards to European players signing for South American clubs during the same period to avoid a possible Eurocentric focus for the project (Natalie Davis\u2019s stated concern that global history is too Eurocentric is certainly on my mind). \u00a0Many of the South American teams during the period played football as good as or better than their European counterparts: Uruguay won the Gold Medal at the 1924 and 1928 Olympics and the first-ever World Cup in 1930, and Boca Juniors won 15 out of 19 matches played in Europe during their 1925 tour. Therefore, it will be important not to give Europe an exaggerated role in promoting football to the world. Arguably, the South American club and national sides did a great deal to invigorate an interest in the sport in Europe with their dazzling performances against European sides.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
References:<\/p>\n
Conrad, S.\u00a0Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany<\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge; New York: 2010).<\/p>\n Davis, Natalie Zemon, \u2018Decentering History: Local Stories and Cultural Crossings in a Global World.\u2019\u00a0History and Theory<\/i>\u00a050, no. 2 (2011), pp. 188-202. Accessed Online via the Wiley Online Library.<\/p>\n Dietschy, Paul. \u201cMaking Football Global? FIFA, Europe, and the Non-European Football World, 1912\u201374.\u201d\u00a0Journal of Global History<\/i>\u00a08, no. 02 (2013): pp 279\u201398. doi:10.1017\/S1740022813000223.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I began my research for my project, I was very optimistic about the role that primary sources would play in my sources. Much like Sebastian Conrad examined the role of work in his study of migration in 19th Century<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,12],"tags":[52,41,33,89],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion","category-habits-routines","tag-conrad","tag-migration","tag-movement","tag-project"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5wNtZ-3W","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/transnationalhistory.net\/doing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}