Latest News

The University of Ulster's Belfast Campus has been announced as the venue for the 2025 BSSH Annual Conference and will take place between 20th and 22nd August 2025.   

Call for papers "Cricket in 2035: What Could it Look Like?" Cricket Research Network Annual Conference.

This was a wonderful year for sport history and the Lord Aberdare Prize committee would like to congratulate each author for the quality and depth of their prose. But there can only be one winner...

The Cricket Research Network has released a call for papers at its 2024 conference, to be held in Cardiff.

The British Society of Sport History and British Sociological Association are excited to announce a one-day workshop for PhD/ECR and Independent Members spanning sport history and sociology. Recognising the challenges facing scholars of the field, this interdisciplinary workshop offers an opportunity for members share their work with others, listen to key experts on the nuances of working in both fields and an interdisciplinary panel concerning jobs in sport.

Congratulations to Rafaelle Nicholson for being selected as the Sport in History Sporting Inequalities Prize winner for 2023.

We are delighted to announce distinguished historian of cricket, Clem Seecharan, as the winner of the 2023 Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship.

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2023 Lord Aberdare Literary Prize is Dr Alexander Jackson for Football's Great War: Associated Football on the English Home Front, 1914 - 1918 (Pen & Sword Books).

We are delighted to announce Selene Salavessa of Northumbria University as this year's winner.

Our research grants support scholars with original research by sponsoring academic trips. Dr. Basudhita Basu recounts her experiences and findings of a month-long academic tour funded by the BSSH.

On January 21, 2023 an event was held in Limerick city to mark the 50th anniversity of Limerick Ladies winning the inaugural Ladies League of Ireland title in 1973. In attendence were the Limerick Ladies soccer team along with other soccer teams in Limerick. This event was sponsored by the British Society of Sport History (BSSH). 

Tom Fabian, ECR Research Grant recipient, details his work into folk wrestling and how this interest led to a BSSH backed research trip to Austin, Texas.

Victoria Hornagold shares her radio series and research into the history of fashion, gender and class at Wimbledon. This project was funded by the BSSH Postgraduate research grant.  

In September 1972, the 'Irish Champions' Jeyes went on a four-match tour of France to play against Stade de Reims. This tour was a landmark moment for women’s football in Ireland. 1972, was just one year after UEFA had recognised women's football and ten years before they organised the first official competition for women. The BSSH funded a reunion for the team on 11 August 2022 so that they could share their memories of the tour and ensure that their story is documented. Their story gives us a better understanding of the wider development of women’s football during that period.

The 2022 BSSH Conference has come and gone, thankfully without a hitch. It would be remiss not to begin by thanking Martin Polley, Heather Dichter, Matt Taylor, Neil Carter and a small army of undergraduate, master and PhD students for creating a wonderful conference. We began liaising with the DMU team in late 2021 and I'm still in awe of their attention to detail, consideration and drive for creating the best possible conference. As our near eighty attendees will attest, their efforts paid off and then some.

Find out who won the Richard Cox and Sporting Inequities prizes this year!

We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2022 Lord Aberdare Literary Prize is Dr Heather Dichter for Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games: International Sport’s Cold War Battle with NATO (University of Massachusetts Press).

The full text of the keynote speech given by Emeritus Professor Richard Holt at the 2022 BSSH Conference in Leicester.

Press release announcing the winner of the 2022 Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship.

Would you like to join the Yorkshire Cricket Foundation Heritage Advisory Group?