Football; Baseball; Basketball; American football;

Rugby; Cricket;

Tennis; Darts; Snooker; Skate Boarding; BMXing; Mountain Bike-ing; Street Luge; Skiing & Snowboarding; X gaming;

Take the fastest growing women's sport: football. For nearly a century the beginnings of football for the most part remained a myth. From where did it begin? Was it a rugby derivative? Or a direct relative of that village/marshes mayhem where everyone joins in? Or is it of a game devised by a ruthless commander in the breaks of war to raise the spirits of beleaguered or besieged troops (using as the ball the severed head of an unfortunate enemy fighter). The Beautiful Game, so beautiful it has worn a mask that has rarely revealed a complex and at times contradictory hidden self.

Even after the establishment of the Football League much myth and speculation blossomed. Despite the game being now subject to the scrutiny of reporters; it was a long time before many fans ever saw their own teams or too much of the other 'infamous' rivals. Journalistic soccer reporting enjoyed a long honeymoon where it was the soul voice and picture of the game, allowing elaborate and obviously excitable reverence to overflow the descriptions and depictions.

It was even longer before fans ever got a whiff of the real roots. And anyway who cares, what they had was a packaged game, a thing a real thing happening, developing, accessible, part of them, run by them,

The Yo, yo; Hula Hoops; Bowls; Motor-racing;

War & conflict as play as industry: consider computer games; toy soldiers; action figures; dressing up clothing; symbolic toys as well as designed artefacts like toy guns can be included if we wanted to stretch it, but this will do for now.

Many of these derivatives of war conflict and other aggressions have clearly been utilised through play by users but maybe more importantly by the purveyors of play articles toys or whatever else a play thing might be described as. War items have not simply been used for the reproduction of historical incidents or artefacts for play but have gone beyond this. War play items have been taken beyond the future if that is possible.

And it might be if we consider that maybe neither we, nor our children, will ever be able to consume the emotional benefits of the glamourisation of war toys, even if we actually do war for real.

Play;

Playing;

Game;

Pastime;

Competition; Sport; Industry /-ies;

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