South Africa, Apartheid and the Olympic Games

South Africa was part of the Olympic Movement for more than two decades after apartheid had been officially introduced in 1948. In 1964 South Africa was excluded from the sporting event for the first time, and in 1970 it was formally expelled from the Olympic Movement. It had to wait until 1992 for its return when South Africa participated in the Olympic Games in Barcelona and won two medals. In the first part, this article describes South Africa’s development to exclusion and then back to its return by examining reasons for the late expulsion from, and re-entry to, the Olympic family. The next part looks at reactions of the governments and national sports federations (NFs) of Great Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to South Africa’s exclusion and its return against the backdrop of the Cold War. This paper further analyses the general attitudes of those actors towards apartheid (in sports). The conclusion points out the implications of South Africa’s sporting isolation and additional research gaps.

Zwischen Erinnerung und Verständigung: Der Racing Club de Strasbourg und die Wiederaufnahme der deutsch-französischen Fußballbeziehungen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg

This article aims to analyse the role of the Alsatian football club Racing Club de Strasbourg throughout the re-establishment process of the French-German football relations after the Second World War. Because of its geographical location between France and Germany and due to the double annexation of the Alsace by the German Reich the club held a special position in the French football landscape. To examine the difficulties and conflicts that came along with the attempt to restore international sport relations between West Germany and France, the paper focuses on three aspects: German prisoners of war in France, efforts to organise football games between French and German top-level-clubs, and the re-establishment of international matches between the two countries. As a result, Racing’s attitude can be situated in a field of tension between hurtful wartime experiences on the one hand and sporting as well as financial benefits on the other hand. While the former was an argument held against an over-hasty spirit of understanding between the French and the German teams especially by the Alsatian Football Association, the latter were a reason for Racing to intensify its pragmatical efforts to re-establish sport relations with West German clubs. This ambivalence is further exemplified by the dualism between Aimé Gissy, secretary general of the Alsatian Football Association (1935-1939, 1945-1974), and Willy Scheuer, president of Racing Club de Strasbourg (1952-1960).

Real Madrid: “Franco’s Club” or “Ambassador of Spain”?

Some observers consider the team to be “Franco’s club” while others consider it as an “Ambassador of Spain”. This paper argues that both attributions were closely intertwined. To demonstrate this, in the first section the analysis delves into the Spanish nation-state and describes how the centre-periphery cleavage determined Francoist nationalism. The second section then sheds light on the ways in which Real Madrid’s identity shifted between monarchist, aristocratic, bourgeois and republican throughout the first half of the 20th century and yet always remained a fundamentally Spanish one. The focus here lies on the 1950s and early 1960s, when Real Madrid became the most successful football club in the world, and one of the most respected Spanish entities abroad. Thirdly, in order to achieve a more differentiated picture of the club’s own identity and self-perception (how the club perceived itself), for one, and external perceptions of it (how the club was perceived by others) for another, four groups or places, which comprise the entity Real Madrid, are analysed in greater detail: (1) club functionaries, (2) the players, (3) club outsiders, the press and politicians in particular, and finally (4) spectators especially those who tend to assign a certain significance to the club. Particularly notable was the behaviour of the functionaries who voluntarily carried out tasks on behalf of the Spanish government. Thus, the article cautions against the widespread assumption that sport is unilaterally instrumentalised by politics and calls for always viewing the role of a football club in context of dictatorship in relation to other clubs and institutions.

Ein Londoner Möbelfabrikant und das erste Hamburger Tennisturnier

Tennis and golf, as well as numerous other sports, found their way to Germany in the era of the Wilhelmine Empire. Hoteliers in German health resorts, operators of private sports grounds or commercial playground companies, among others, played a significant role. Uhlenhorst, a district of Hamburg since 1894, was already the venue for major tennis tournaments with international players in the early 1890s. At that time, the London merchant, tennis player and sports official Walter Howard donated a silver cup to the Ice Rink Club on Uhlenhorst (Eisbahnverein auf der Uhlenhorst), which was used as a prize for the “Championship of Hamburg”. This article goes into Walter Howard’s biography and outlines his commitment to Hamburg tennis, which also gave important impulses to women’s tennis.

The Organization of Football in Cyprus: History and Politics

This paper employs the history and politics of football looking at discussions about Cyprus’ national identity, the relationship between the Greek-Cypriot state and its self-declared Turkish-Cypriot counterpart, and the possibility of reunification. It explores these issues from both sides of the divide, something rarely undertaken in Cyprus, and within a wider European perspective, by comparing it briefly with the modern football histories of Ireland, Spain and Bosnia & Herzegovina. Football and its inherent developments reflect not only the political rivalries in the world of Greek-Cypriot football, but also the encounters between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots. The history of Cypriot football has no similar precedent in the selected European space. In Ireland, the peace process has not ended historic civil society divisions, while football agents with opposing political ideologies across the Greek and Turkish divide in Cyprus have been able to overcome their differences, political elites on one side of the border have prevented unification. In Spain’s Catalonia, while the football-fed movement for independence, yet to materialize, remains subject to approval by Spain’s institutions, the independence of the de facto Turkish-Cypriot state would require the approval of the governments of the Republic of Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Britain. Finally, while FIFA and UEFA have successfully dictated the terms for the final admission of Bosnia & Herzegovina’s football Federation into their membership, they have failed to repeat this achievement in the Cypriot case.