Anyone writing about sport at the present time can hardly escape the political nature of the subject matter. The obvious example of the interaction of sport and politics is, of course, the recent Olympic boycotts by Black Africa, the USA, and most recently the Soviet Union. Given this politicization of sport, it is hardly surprising that a number of scholarly studies of popular culture have stressed that leisure is a political question, where struggles over spare time, facilities and ideological meanings are continually taking place. Indeed, to the Marxist, sport is an integral part of the superstructure of society and something closely connected to political life. Hence, according to John Hargreaves, sport provides 'surrogate satisfactions for an alienated mass audience, while at the same time perpetuating its alienation and functioning as a means of political socialization into the hegemonic culture. Sport in its organized form is a microcosm of society.&dquo; Although many social scientists would disagree with this view, even those with a liberal democratic notion of the state would find it difficult to refute the fact that sport and leisure are now firmly situated in the political domain. Clearly, the influence of the stateby which is meant central and sub-central government, the administration, the police and the judiciary, and parliamentary assembliesis brought to bear on a vast range of sporting questions.' For some time now, historians of capitalist society have been unearthing material revealing that in the past the state has sought to use leisure for its own ends. Most accounts have stressed leisure as a form of social control, contributing to the formation of a temperate, disciplined workforce. A great deal has also been written about the aim of the authorities to provide improved, reformed recreations to wean the working class away from the alleged degenerations of their own culture. They were not always successful in doing this, for

The historiography of leisure has made considerable advances since the pioneering years of the early 1970s. Research into Victorian leisure has shown that some of the ruling elite attempted to fashion the life-style of working people in order to create a disciplined and reliable labour force which suited the needs of a maturing industrial and urban society, although it must be added that sections of the British public remained immune to attempts at moral reform and improvement. Professional labour leaders were also eager to control and regulate the amusements of the poor. According to trade union bosses like John Doherty, only a sober, industrious and thrifty working class could hope to achieve progressive reforms and some form of political and economic emancipation: workers who were intemperate would apparently stifle the opportunities and aspirations of the emerging Labour movement. Nowhere is this more true than in the Labour leadership's perception of and policy towards working-class drinking.

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