The Army Sport Control Board celebrates its Anniversary today – formed on the 18th November 1918.
The Army’s official doctrine regarding sport, as outlined in SS 137, Recreational Training. This pamphlet, updated and reissued four times between the summer of 1917 and December 1918, expressed unequivocally the philosophy underlying the pursuit of games in the Army.
“Games offer the best means of keeping men fit in mindand body and cheerful and contented in spirit. Love ofgames is inherent in the British race. Games recall theand habit formation…Played in the real games spirit – theGames. too. have a moral value, for the man who is trainingfor a competition will be more likely to keep both body andmind under control than he would were such incentive lacking.and he will be less inclined to succumb to vicious temptations.Games are also a process of education. not in the ordinaryacceptance of the term, but in the sense of character buildingand habit formation.. .Played in the real games spirit – theamateur spirit – they teach self-sacrifice and self-subordinationin the individual, and these develop in time into esprit de corps.indispensable to the Army in war or peace…”
An article written by the National Army Museum details the Army’s impact on sport throughout history.
“In the past, sport has been used to help shape native peoples into British ‘models’ of manliness and efficiency. But the army has also taken inspiration from abroad, adopting sports like polo and popularising them back in Britain.”