I’ve just read Jeremy Paxman’s book The English: A Portrait of a People.

I particularly liked his assessment that while the French Revolution invented the Citizen, the English creation is the Game. Under the heading ‘The Ideal Englishman’ Paxman writes-

“Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it during a game of soccer at Rugby School. Tennis was redeveloped by the Marylebone Cricket Club and the first of the world-famous Wimbledon tournaments was held in 1877. Englishmen set the standard distances for running, swimming and rowing competitions and developed the first modern horse-races. Contemporary hockey dates from the codification of rules by the Hockey Association in 1886, competitive swimming from the formation of the English Amateur Swimming Association in 1869, modern mountaineering can be dates from the 1854 attempt on the Wetterhorn by Sir Alfred Wills. The English invented goalposts, racing boats and stopwatches and were the first to breed modern racehorses. Even when they imported sports from abroad, like polo or skiing, the English laid down the rules. The first padded boxing glove was worn by the English prize-fighter Jack Broughton in the mid-eighteenth century, the Marquess of Queensbury codification of the rules of boxing followed over a century later. The list goes on.”

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