Reviewed by:

• A History of the British Sporting Journalist, c. 1850–1939: James Catton, Sports Reporter by Stephen Tate
• John Whale (bio)

Stephen Tate’s book opens with a detailed account of “stadium mayhem,” the disaster that took place at Ibrox Park in Glasgow in 1902 when part of the ground collapsed and twenty-six people died (1). Aside from its chilling pertinence to the more recent tragedies of Heysel and Hillsborough, the report provides us with a rare glimpse into the mind of Tate’s main subject, the sporting journalist James Catton. Catton, who often used the pseudonym “Tityrus,” plied his long career for various newspapers and journals in Preston, Nottingham, Manchester, and ultimately, London. Tate’s professed aim in this study is to rescue writers like Catton from anonymity and recognize the key role they played in the formation of our sporting literature. Catton’s detailed notes for this tragic occasion and his comparison with a similar event he experienced earlier in his career in the Manchester Athletic Ground at Fallowfield for the 1893 Football Association Cup Final give us rare and valuable insight into his psychology. At the same time, his account reveals the working conditions, including serious danger to personal safety, of the nineteenth-century sports reporter. It is a fitting start to the study. At the heart of Tate’s book is the struggle for regulation and professionalization in the world of late Victorian sporting journalism. This struggle is shadowed throughout by the more familiar story of the increasing need for regulation and professionalism in the codes of the nation’s major sports in the same period. To this purpose, Tate splices Catton’s career between more wide-ranging accounts of regional sporting journalism and publishing. [End Page 632]

The book is particularly rich in its researches into the world of Manchester newspapers and periodicals, their proprietors, and the working culture they presided over, including their hiring practices, wages, and conditions of employment. Tate’s discussion of Catton’s contemporaries, such as Joe Stoddart, Edmund Walmsley, and Tommy Edge, enables us to see the wider picture beyond Catton’s own microhistory. Through Catton we are also made aware of the workings of Withy Grove, the Manchester base for the print empire of Edward Hulton and his flagship titles Athletic News and Sporting Chronicle. Catton eventually became editor of the Chronicle.

As a former journalist himself, Tate is acutely and intelligently aware of the material conditions which obtained within print culture in this period. Through his detailed engagement with the various archives, he is able to identify some of the key challenges facing a changing and emergent profession in search of financial success, respectability, and greater regulation. We are given valuable insight into the pragmatic and often makeshift versatility required of journalists and, in particular, the “fluidity of movement between the job of compositor, shorthand writer, and reporter” (167). Through extensive use of archival detail, Tate introduces readers to the complex and sometimes problematic intersection of the professional journalist and the sporting hero turned hack, as well as to the particular opportunity provided by the advent of the Saturday evening sports special.

Catton himself emerges as a formidable pragmatist of considerable energy and skill. Tate’s energetic work in the archives shows us the extent to which Catton was “the beneficiary of a new order within the world of sport, and a new focus and urgency within the newspaper industry” (32). Throughout his sixty-year career Catton seemed to have been able to maintain good relations between sportsmen, the organising associations of different sports, and his own cadre of journalists. He was realistic about the relationship between sport and gambling, and he recognized the need for greater professionalism amongst the participants, including improved training methods and increased engagement with the local community to produce home-grown talent. At the same time, he was a traditionalist who preferred cricket to football, finding in it the better opportunity for manifesting a Corinthian spirit of honourable amateurism. Stylistically, he was...

审核人：

• 英国体育记者的历史c。1850年至1939年：詹姆斯·卡顿（James Catton），体育记者斯蒂芬·泰特（Stephen Tate）
• 约翰·鲸（生物）

斯蒂芬·泰特（Stephen Tate）的书首先详细介绍了“体育场混乱”，这是1902年在格拉斯哥Ibrox公园发生的灾难，当时部分地面倒塌，26人死亡（1）。除了与最近的海塞尔和希尔斯伯勒惨案有关的令人毛骨悚然之外，该报告还为我们提供了泰特主要主题体育记者詹姆斯·卡顿（James Catton）的难得一见。经常使用化名“ Tityrus”的卡顿在普雷斯顿，诺丁汉，曼彻斯特以及最终在伦敦的各种报纸和杂志上发表了自己的长期职业生涯。泰特（Tate）在这项研究中宣称的目标是从匿名中解救诸如卡顿（Caton）之类的作家，并认识到他们在我们的体育文学形成中所扮演的关键角色。卡特顿在这次悲剧性事件中的详细记录，以及他在职业生涯早期在法洛菲尔德的曼彻斯特运动场参加1893年足协杯决赛所经历的类似事件的比较，为我们提供了对他的心理学的罕见而宝贵的见解。同时，他的叙述揭示了19世纪体育记者的工作条件，包括严重危害人身安全的情况。这是研究的合适起点。泰特（Tate）这本书的核心是在维多利亚时代后期的体育新闻界为规范和专业化而进行的斗争。在同一时期，人们对国家主要体育法规对法规和专业性的需求日益增长的较熟悉的故事笼罩了这场斗争。为此，[结束页632]

这本书对曼彻斯特报纸和期刊，其所有人和他们所主持的工作文化的研究特别丰富，包括他们的雇用实践，工资和就业条件。泰特（Tate）对卡顿（Carton）同时代人的讨论，例如乔·斯托达特（Joe Stoddart），埃德蒙·沃尔姆斯利（Edmund Walmsley）和汤米·埃奇（Tommy Edge），使我们能够看到卡顿自身微观历史之外的广阔前景。通过Catton，我们还了解到Withy Grove（爱德华·休尔顿（Edward Hulton）的印刷帝国的曼彻斯特基地）的运作以及他的旗舰作品《体育新闻与体育纪事》。卡顿最终成为编年史的编辑。

作为一名前新闻记者，泰特敏锐而聪明地意识到了这一时期印刷文化所获得的物质条件。通过与各种档案馆的详细接触，他能够确定不断变化和新兴的行业在寻求财务成功，尊敬和加强监管方面面临的一些关键挑战。我们获得了宝贵的见解，以了解记者所需要的务实且通常具有临时性的多功能性，尤其是“作曲家，速记员和记者之间的流动流畅性”（167）。泰特（Tate）通过大量使用档案细节，向读者介绍了专业记者和体育英雄转变为黑客的复杂有时是有问题的交集，

卡顿本人以强大的精力和技巧成为了一个强大的实用主义者。泰特（Tate）在档案馆中的精力充沛的工作向我们展示了卡顿在多大程度上是“体育界新秩序的受益者，以及报纸行业的新重点和紧迫性”（32）。在他60年的职业生涯中，卡顿似乎能够与运动员，各种体育活动的组织协会以及他自己的新闻干部之间保持良好的关系。他对体育与赌博之间的关系很现实，他认识到参与者之间需要更高的专业水平，包括改进培训方法和增加与当地社区的合作以培养本土人才。同时，他还是个传统主义者，喜欢板球运动而不是足球运动，在其中找到更好的机会来体现科林斯光荣的业余主义精神。从风格上讲，他是...