Projecting the visual: British newsreels, soccer and popular culture 1918–39

Abstract

Between the wars soccer was the leading national sport in Britain. But far more watched the brief depictions of ‘celluloid’ soccer on the newsreels in the cinema than ever watched football on the pitch. Newsreels were a central cultural feature, yet their broader social, historical and ideological significance has been overlooked by both sports and media historians. This study draws on an extensive body of surviving newsreel material. It begins by exploring the complex nature of the inter-war cinema audiences, their responses to sporting newsreels and the cultural competencies they brought to their watching. Examination of newsreel content reveals the changing nature and highly varied coverage of professional and amateur soccer over the period, including significant attention devoted to women's soccer even after its banning from English Football Association grounds in 1921. The day to day practices of newsreel soccer coverage provide fascinating insights into the British sporting values and identities, contained, encouraged or prevented by its representations, codes and conventions. Soccer newsreels produced by the leading companies, while largely conservative in tone, were also highly ideologically charged. Through the ways in which they addressed notions of class, gender, politics, region and identity they had a major cultural impact on broader British society.

Notes

[1] For circulation figures and statistics on the penetration of national daily newspapers by different income groups in 1935, see Tunstall, ‘The British Press in the Age of Television’.

[2] McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, 419.

[3] The phrase ‘celluloid soccer’ is borrowed from Gooptu, ‘Celluloid Soccer’.

[4] Tabner, Through the Turnstiles.

[5] Rowson, ‘A Statistical Survey’.

[6] See for details Pronay, ‘British Newsreel in the 1930s’.

[7] Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, 80.

[8] For the key role of sport in English society see Huggins and Williams, Sport and the English.

[9] Oriard, King Football, xi.

[10] Fishwick, English Soccer and Society, covers radio in chapter 5. Johnes, Soccer and Society, covers radio on pages 78, 80, 118–19.

[11] Mason, Sport in Britain, 53.

[12] Russell, Soccer and the English, 106–7.

[13] Neither Huggins, Horseracing and the British, or Williams, Cricket and England, mention newsreels.

[14] See for example the special edition of the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 24, 1 (2004) on Nazi newsreels and their adverse reception in the occupied countries. See also Richards and Sheridan, Mass Observation at the Movies; BUFVC, Researcher's Guide to British Newsreels, vols 1–3; McKernan, Yesterday's News.

[15] Lowe, The History of the British Film Industry 1929–39; Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace; Jones, The British Labour Movement and Film; Stead, Film and the Working Class; Higson, Waving the Flag; Richards, The Unknown 1930s; Sedgwick Popular Filmgoing in 1930s Britain; Kuhn, An Everyday Magic. See also Richards, ‘The Cinema and Cinema-going in Birmingham’; Richards, ‘Cinema-going in Worktown’.

[16] Richards, The Age of the Dream Palace, 323; Richards, ‘Cinema-going in Worktown’, 164; Richards, Films and British National Identity, 25–6.

[17] See Schultz and Lowena, Cultural Anthropology; Ferraro, Cultural Anthropology.

[18] See Archetti, Masculinities; MacClancy, Sport, Identity and Ethnicity; Armstrong and Guilianotti, Entering the Field. See also Cassidy, The Sport of Kings.

[19] See Bloch, Ritual, History and Power; Humphrey, The Archetypal Actions of Ritual.

[20] Mayne, Cinema Spectatorship; Brooker and Jermyn, The Audience Studies Reader. For Bourdieu's concept of cultural competence see his Distinction.

[21] Rose, Visual Methodologies.

[22] See Branston and Stafford, The Media Student's Book, 116–47 for a succinct summary of such discourse analysis approaches.

[23] Political and Economic Planning, Report on the British Press, 77. See also Coglan, The Readership of Newspapers and Periodicals.

[24] Hill, Sport, Leisure and Culture, 59.

[25] McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, 419.

[26] Hiley, ‘Let's Go to the Pictures’.

[27] Jones, The Social Survey of Merseyside, vol. III, 280–2.

[28] Bakke, The Unemployed; Pilgrim Trust, Men Without Work.

[29] Rowson, ‘A Statistical Survey’.

[30] Sedgwick, ‘The Market for Feature Films’; Doyle, ‘The Geography of Cinema-going’.

[31] Kuhn, ‘Cinema-going in Britain in the 1930s’; Kuhn, ‘Memories of Cinemagoing’.

[32] Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, 72.

[33] Reeves, ‘The Power of Film Propaganda’, 195.

[34] The Bioscope, 4 Aug. 1927, 20.

[35] John Gammie, ‘Better Newsreel Campaign: Women are Interested in Newsreels’, Film Weekly 8 (18 Nov. 1932), 214.

[36] Today's Cinema, 2 Nov. 1938, 48.

[37] Richards and Sheridan, Mass Observation at the Movies, 212–3, 186.

[38] A good Edwardian example of such topicals, including soccer film, can be found in the Mitchell and Kenyon films. See Toulmin et al., The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon.

[39] British Movietone News, 3 July 1939.

[40] Pronay, ‘British Newsreels in the 1930s’, 144.

[41] Kinematograph Weekly, 25 Oct. 1934, 8.

[42] Quoted in Pronay, ‘British Newsreels in the 1930s’, 139–40.

[43] British Gaumont News, 17 Feb. 1936.

[44] The Times, 23 April 1927.

[45] Topical Budget, 25 April 1921.

[46] ‘Pirates of the News-reel’, Pictorial Weekly, 31 March 1934.

[47] Norman, ‘The Newsreel Boys’, 7.

[48] World Film News 1 (1 June 1936), 22.

[49] Anon., ‘Newsreel analysis – July’, World Film News 1 (6 Sept. 1936), 31. Cf Oriard, King Football, 50.

[50] ‘A Year in the Life of a Topical Budget Cameraman’, in Ballantyne, Researcher's Guide to British Newsreels, vol. III, 67–72.

[51] McKernan, Topical Budget, 104.

[52] World Film News, Dec. 1939, 39. England, ‘Newsreel Report, January 1940’, 185.

[53] Richards, ‘Cinema-going in Worktown’.

[54] Analysis is based on the BUND material held by the British Universities Film and Video Council, together with that of Pathé News and British Movietone News databases available online.

[55] Pathé Gazette, 28 April 1927.

[56] Universal News, 28 April 1932.

[57] Gaumont British News, 27 Feb. 1936.

[58] Universal News, 15 Feb. 1932.

[59] Gaumont British News, 8 March 1937.

[60] Gaumont British News, 22 Feb. 1937.

[61] The Times, 25 Jan. 1938.

[62] Pathé Gazette, 1 Jan. 1926; 2 Sept. 1926.

[63] British Movietone News, 22 March 1934.

[64] British Movietone News, 19 Dec. 1938.

[65] McKibbin, Classes and Cultures, 202–4.

[66] Walton, Lancashire, 377–402.

[67] Herring, The Newsreel’.

[68] Richards, Films and British National Identity; Fox, Watching the English, 61–72.

[69] Fox, Watching the English, 243–6.

[70] Huggins and Williams, Sport and the English, passim.

[71] Universal News, 11 April 1932.

[72] Cannadine, Class in Britain, 137–43.

[73] Jeff Hill, ‘Cocks, Caps, Hats and Caps’.

[74] Topical Budget, 26 Feb. 1920.

[75] Pickford, A Glance Back, 240.

[76] Gaumont British News, 1 Dec. 1938.

[77] Gaumont British News, 2 Dec. 1937.

[78] British Movietone News, 3 June 1936.

[79] Universal News, 2 Oct. 1933.

[80] Universal News, 5 Dec. 1935

[81] British Movietone News, 5 Dec. 1935; 19 Dec. 1935.

[82] Universal News, 19 May 1935.

[83] Universal News, 15 Nov. 1934.

[84] British Movietone News, 26 May 1934.

[85] British Movietone News, 8 Nov. 1934.

[86] For a summary of the progress of women's sport between the wars see Huggins and Williams, Sport and the English.

[87] Russell, Soccer and the English, 95.

[88] Williams, A Game for Rough Girls, 49. Williams portrayed Stoke's tour of Spain in 1923 as one of the first where a photograph showed a woman player actually playing, but the newsreels had provided pictures much earlier, and continued to do so.

[89] Melling, ‘“Ray of the Rovers”’, 98.

[90] E.g Topical Budget, 3 May 1923; Universal News, 25 April 1935.

[91] Johnes, Soccer and Society, 111.

[92] Universal News, 18 Aug. 1937.

[93] British Movietone News, 7 March 1938.

[94] British Movietone News, 5 May 1938.

[95] Harper, Women in British Cinema, 28.

[96] Topical Budget, 12 Dec. 1921.

[97] Pathé Gazette, 24 April 1930.

[98] Universal News, 25 April 1935.

[99] Universal News, 31 March 1932.

[100] These include the National Film and Television, British Pathé, British Movietone News and the ITN archives.