Richard Holt begins his book on French sport with two misleading observations. In the one, he recalls that when, in the course of his research, a pile of books on football or on cycling arrived on his desk at the Bibliothèque Nationale, his neighbours were bemused by his reading material. How extraordinary that he never seems to have found himself sitting next to one of those readers who begins his day's work with a careful perusal of L'Equipe or Paris-Turf. None of them would have found it strange that he was reading up the history of past sporting events. The other, more chilling observation seeks to assure us that, in spite of the beliefs of what he calls 'Anglo-Saxon circles', sport is as popular in France as it is 'almost anywhere else'. My personal experience suggests that sport is more important nationally in France than it is in this country, and I would have thought that anyone writing about it would want to describe and analyse this phenomenon, rather than present an apology for his subject.

LRB 3 December 1981 | PDF Download