as American educators felt the need to gain control of rapidly developing student-organized sports. Still, during the Industrial Revolution, primarily private and boarding schools in England took the same approach toward emerging sports development initially, as they wanted to control their students and ensure that the games had rules and that those rules were written down and enforced. In the nineteenth century, this institutionalization of sports was brought about under the banner of Muscular Christianity.2 Later in the twentieth century, in England as in other European countries, other sport development options and elite development fell primarily outside the educational system.
Many in Europe, especially faculty, did not want direct control of sports by the school, and adamantly wanted sports kept separate from academics. Since European students were often assigned to particular schools based on their individual academic achievement, it was not unusual for neighbors to be attending different schools.3 Consequently, many students and workers wanted to play and interact with friends from the same neighborhood, because they might be separated during the day by occupation or placement in different schools. Since the schools did not provide this organized outlet, the sports club solidified itself as the primary way to conduct local competitive sports activity and allow for such interaction within the community.
THE START OF AN EXTERNAL CLUB SYSTEM THROUGHOUT EUROPE
In the nineteenth century, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Switzerland established gymnastics and shooting societies that focused on cultivating a patriotic spirit, much like the concept of Muscular Christianity that was found in England. In fact, England influenced sports development worldwide, and specifically the development of German and other European sports clubs. In England, there was a greater focus in athletics on competition between individuals or teams in sports like tennis, soccer, or rugby. Sports like these and others manifested themselves in most European countries during a similar period in the nineteenth century as more traditionally English sports gained popularity and expanded rapidly. Along with the gymnastics and shooting associations, other organized sports clubs were established throughout Europe (Miège 2011).
By the end of the nineteenth century, English sports like tennis, sailing, golf, and rowing had been exported to Germany and other countries, primarily by traders. Due to often expensive equipment and time demands, these sports were generally restricted to the upper class, similar to the experience in the United States, which eventually led to the creation of a code of amateurism. While amateurism in America primarily means playing sports for an avocation and not a vocation, initially it was used as a way to separate the upper class from the lower classes, just as in day-to-day life. Nevertheless, both types of clubs, for the upper and lower economic classes, combined physical activity with the social, community aspect and gained popularity. The exclusive, upper-crust amateurism aspect of English sports waned as soccer became extremely popular between 1890 and 1910 and spread virtually throughout the whole country, from small villages to big cities. English sports slowly became more inclusive and popular with other social classes as the government (including the royal family) started to promote physical activity, seeing benefits for industrialized workers. Germany and other European countries followed England’s example of industrialization and modernization in many ways, including in the growth and development of sports (Frei 2015).
As the nineteenth century ended, gymnastics and English-style sports were no longer mutually exclusive, as they were combined within several clubs throughout Europe. Gymnastics became more competitive due to organized championships, and the traditional gymnastics-only clubs began to offer more sports and started to call themselves “gymnastic and sports clubs.” The original ideals of the gymnastics clubs were transferred to the adopted English sports, and this combination of German gymnastics and English sports led to a new concept of sports clubs as offering participation in various disciplines (Heinemann and Schubert 1999, 149). World War I temporarily stopped the spread of sports and gymnastics, but soon after the war ended sport became a mass phenomenon in Europe. People of all classes of society participated in clubs, and even teenagers and women took advantage of being allowed to participate (Nagel 2006). It became essential to organize and provide better and more extensive governance of club-based sports.
GERMAN HISTORY OF ORGANIZED SPORT
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