Professor Mike Huggins

Writer on sports history, leisure history
and the history of popular culture

Emeritus Professor of Cultural History at the University of Cumbria.

Hi
I am a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow and President-Elect of the European Committee for Sports History, and on the editorial consultancy boards of five peer-reviewed academic leisure and sports history journals in Britain, France, the USA and South America. I’m the Senior Review Editor of the International Journal of the History of Sport. Currently I am Chair of the North American Society for Sport History Book Award Committee and I’ve given invited addresses and keynote speeches at many universities across Europe, Britain, the Far East and the United States. I was proud to be given the International Society for Sport History and Physical Education Award in 2009 for my ‘outstanding scientific contribution to the history of sport’.

I have published a very wide variety of material on leisure and sport:

  • general histories of Victorian and inter-war British sport.
  • specialist books and articles on the history of British and American horse racing.
  • edited collections relating to less respectable middle-class Victorian leisure patterns; the upper classes and sport;, the complex inter-relationships between sport and visual sources, and am currently editing a collection on the history of sport tourism.
  • I have written many chapters and peer-reviewed articles dealing with twentieth and nineteenth century leisure topics such as British football; seaside holidays; gambling and bookmakers; the music hall; and the impact on sport and leisure of radio, newsreels, television, the press, the census and the railways.
  • I’ve deliberately set out to exploit many previously under-explored sources, including newsreels, cartoons, dialect poetry, music hall song and even sporting gravestones, to find new angles on standard narratives, present material in new ways, or give voice to neglected groups and individuals.
  • Beyond my national and international work, I’ve produced regional and local studies of sport, leisure and tourism in the north-east and north-west of England.
  • Ive written about PE in schools

I’ve talked about my enthusiasms on radio and TV, as well as done many conference presentations across the world, including keynote speeches in Britain, America, Europe and the Far East. I’ve written substantial numbers of book reviews for leading journals in the field, refereed books for leading publishers including Routledge, Frank Cass and Manchester University Press. reviewed articles for many journals and carried out external examinations and consultancy.

I’ve also got qualifications, experience and expertise in primary education and as an education researcher and I’ve published in educational and curriculum studies. In the 1980s and 1990s I was Head of Post-graduate Teacher Education at Charlotte Mason College, Ambleside and at Lancaster University and later was Inspector of Schools for the English Office for Standards in Education, before joining the University of Cumbria.

I enjoy music and after work was over I spent many evenings when I was younger playing in rock, folk and ceilidh bands on guitar, mandolin and bass guitar.

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