Hope and Glory: Rugby League in Thatcher's Britain

by Anthony Broxton

Hope and Glory recreates the extraordinary era of Thatcherite Britain with the dramatic tension of a novel, revealing it as a critical moment in rugby league history when despite losing everything, anything seemed possible.Rugby league should never have survived Thatcher's Britain. As the sport of the working class, the expectation was that rugby league would suffer the same fate as the textile mills, factories and coal mines that once surrounded it. Having declined in the 1970s, the sport appeared to be at the point of no return in 1982, when the Australian team destroyed any remaining illusions of 'British exceptionalism'.But as it often does, rugby league found a way to turn itself around. From the pit villages which fought industrial decline to the players who ushered in the new professional era, the 1980s was the decade when rugby league finally came of age. By the 1990s, there was an optimism that it could even replace football as the global game for the 21st century.

352 pages, Hardcover

Published October 15, 2023

Reviews

[Euan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A genuinely groundbreaking book which charts the development, rise and fall of rugby league with British politics and Margaret Thatcher’s rise. Manages to traverse cultural/social/political/sporting divides seamlessly and written in a kind of novel like prose, mixing chronology with overarching themes.

If I could, I’d give this a 4.5/5, but goodreads won’t allow that, so I have to round it up, but more importantly, because I came up with the title of the book and am in the acknowledgements, I could not really give it any less than 5 could I.

[Peter Hurst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read. A book about the changes that took place in Rugby League in the 1980’s/1990’s and which places them in their wider economic and political context.

[Malcolm · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s little denying that the Thatcher years were, for most of northern England, a bleak time with rising mass unemployment on the back of rapid deindustrialisation culminating in the evisceration of communities that resulted from the intensity of struggle around the miners’ strike in 1984/85. Anthony Broxon’s exploration of the state of and changes in rugby league, the quintessential sport of the north, during this period doesn’t shy away from those problems, and the immiseration of the population and their communities as rates of joblessness rose rapidly. Yet even with his recognition of those circumstances he paints a distinction between tradition and entrepreneurial dispositions as the primary tension and driver of change.

This isn’t to deny the richness of the narrative, the stories told, the insights to experience in those communities, but even with that this is very much a tale of victory of the enterprise culture, and of the entrepreneur as hero – up to a point. Rugby league, like many sports, was transformed in the final quarter of the 20th century, as the sport and leisure sector became increasingly commercialised and financialised. In many ways this drive was at odds with the game’s convention image as based in community owned and organised clubs. When we add to that the game’s cultural marginalisation by the more upper class based rugby union, league’s parlous state as both its sector and communities were transformed is fully understandable. Despite this, and his attempts to engage with condition in the north however, we get little insight to those conditions – aside from Broxon’s use of Featherstone in west Yorkshire as the representative town of the ‘old north’.

The result then is a well-crafted, engaging story of a game that is transforming for the modern global era. Broxon highlights the growing sense of the game as part of an entertainment culture, with the rising celebrity of some of its stars, woven into other entertainment and cultural industries, with, as noted, a group of younger entrepreneurial types driving change. It’s hard, in this sense, not to see this as a New Labour version of rugby league’s history, right down to the conclusion where fan power defeats global capital (and with it a celebration of community – so not unfettered Thatcherite capitalism but more like a Blairite neoliberalism).

That’s also not to say it’s not a good read – it is, and it trips along entertainingly – but keep its ideological message in sight, and remember there were clubs the newly commercialising League left behind; more about them would have been a welcome addition.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very welcome well-written rugby league book. A wander through the memories as we began to see an end of mud baths and crumbling stadiums and cold winter afternoons standing on the cinder banks of Odsal or in the scratching shed at Thrum Hall. The emergence of world class players like Martin Offiah and Ellery Hanley (I saw them bot several times before they became well known...and many times afterwards) of Shaun Edwards and that truly great Wigan side. The wrongful denial of Keighley’s earned place at the top table...

If I have a complaint it is that the narrative is a bit Wigan heavy (though, to be fair, they did rather dominate the era).

The destruction of northern industrial society (without, unforgivably, putting anything in its place) is covered well enough to evoke anger and sadness in this reader). The modern world would have been a better place if we had never heard of Margaret Thatcher (perhaps James Callaghan should have called that election a few months earlier).

Ultimately a sad book as you can see rugby league (as ever) pulling itself in the wrong direction time and again and sowing the seeds of its own downfall. Another great British lions led by donkeys story. Yet I retain my affection and devotion to the game.

[Liam Judge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stuff. As much a social history - more even - of the Thatcher years, as a history of RL. Accessible without ever veering into simplistic.

I still think the switch to summer rugby was, overall, a negative for the sport. Yes, some gains but those could’ve been achieved without the switch. Dreams of world domination as outlined in the book haven’t come to anything and the loss of off-season touring opportunities has been a massive loss.

I feel the game has become formulaic and lacking in excitement. It’s now so reliant on quick play the balls as a means of creating that genuine back line moves have been lost.

[Michael Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

delightful insight into period of high hopes and soaring ambition as the game of rugby league faced oblivion: manged decline or disruptive innovation unpicked as the British games was outclassed by its traditional Australian rivals. the hype and honesty of Maurice Lyndsay was always complicated but this is the best assessment of what he built, what he undermined and how he ignored the values of the sport.

[Jack Knivett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting take on Thatchers Britain from the point of view of Rugby League and its ebb and flow. I throughly enjoyed it but then I like both subjects, Thatcher and RL.

[Alex Marriott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit more superficial than I expected but that only lends itself to the flow. Very enjoyable