Name:
Professor Tony Collins

Position:
Professor of the Social History of Sport

Email:
T.Y.Collins@leedsmet.ac.uk

Qualifications:
Qualifications: PhD, Sheffield Hallam University 1996;
BA (Hons), University of Warwick 1984

Biography:
I joined Leeds Met in September 2006 after seven years at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, latterly as deputy director.

I have written extensively on the social and cultural history of rugby, racism and anti-Semitism in sport, and sport in the north of England. My research interests are currently focused on the issues of sport and class identity, and British imperialism and the role of the various football codes.

My major project at the moment is a social and cultural history of English rugby union entitled The Amateur Body: Middle-Class Masculinity and English Rugby Union, 1871-2003.

I am the joint editor of the journal Sport in History and a member of the executive committee of the British Society of Sports History. I am also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Sport History.

Books:
Rugby League in Twentieth Century Britain, Routledge: 2006 
Mud, Sweat and Beers. A Cultural History of Sport and Alcohol (With Wray Vamplew) Berg: 2002
Rugby’s Great Split: Class, Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football, Cass: 1998 (new and expanded edition, Routledge: 2006)
Encyclopedia of Traditional Rural Sports (edited with John Martin & Wray Vamplew), Routledge: 2005
The Glory of their Times: crossing the colour line in rugby league (edited with Phil Melling), Vertical: 2004

Recent Publications:
‘Work, Rest and Play: recent trends in sport and leisure history’ Journal of Contemporary History, forthcoming 2007

‘The ambiguities of amateurism: English rugby union in the Edwardian age’ in Dil Porter and Stephen Wagg (eds) Shamateurism and Amateurism in British Sport, forthcoming, Dec 2006

‘Jews, anti-Semitism and Sport in Inter-War Britain’ in Michael Brenner and Gideon Reuveni (eds) Emancipation through Muscles: Jews in inter-war European sport, University of Nebraska Press, 2006

‘History, Theory and the “Civilising Process”’ Sport in History, v.25/2,Aug 2005

‘One Common Code of Football for Australia!: The Australian Rules and Rugby League Merger Proposal of 1933’ in Rob Hess, Matthew Nicholson and Bob Stewart (eds) Football Fever: Crossing Boundaries, Maribyrnong Press, 2005

‘Australian nationalism and working-class Britishness in Australian rugby league football’, History Compass, 3, April 2005

‘Wembley, the rugby league cup final and northern English identity’, Journal of Regional Studies, Series 2, v.1/1, Feb 2005

‘English Rugby Union and the First World War’ The Historical Journal, v.45/4, Dec 2002

‘The Pub, The Drinks Trade and the Early Years of Modern Football’ The Sports Historian, 20, May 2000

‘”Return to Manhood”: British Fascism and the Politics of Masculinity 1933-1939’in J.A. Mangan (editor), Superman Supreme: Fascist Body as Political Icon, Cass, 2000

‘From Bondi to Batley: Australians in British rugby league’ Sporting Traditions, v.16/2, May 2000

‘Racial Minorities in a marginalised sport: Race, discrimination and integration in  rugby league’ Immigrants and Minorities, v.17/1, Mar 1998

‘How Muscular Christianity met its match: The curious rise and fall of Leeds Parish Church Recreation Club, 1874-1901’ Sporting Heritage, v.1/ 2, 1996

‘“Noa Mutton, Noa Laaking”: The Origins of Payment for Play in Rugby, 1877-1886’ International Journal of the History of Sport, v.12/1, April 1995