A Response to Vamplew and Some Comments on the Relationship Between Sports Historians and Sociologists of Sport

This article seeks to refute Wray Vamplew's contention that my work on cricket is flawed by a failure properly to define violence, by the presence of factual errors and misinterpretations of evidence stemming from unchecked secondary sources and because there are limited examples to support my argument. In responding to this critique I point to Vamplew's own errors, misinterpretation and argument by limited example. I further discuss the criteria by which we might judge an ‘over-reliance’ on secondary sources and conclude that, again, Vamplew fails to substantiate his criticism. The article concludes with a discussion of the relationship between sports historians and sociologists of sport, arguing that debates such as these should recognise the interdependency of, and the considerable developments in, the respective sub-disciplines in recent years.