Professionals, Amateurs and Performance

Dave Day is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Exercise and Sports Science at Manchester Metropolitan University where his work focuses on the historical development of coaching and training practices as well as the lives of those individuals who acted as coaches and trainers.

• Contents: Introduction: Examines the etymology of the term ‘coaching’, discusses the importance of the coaching context and recalls coaching practices in the Classical World – Coaching and Training in the Eighteenth Century: Outlines the fundamental practices of training employed in this period before highlighting the importance to coaches of oral traditions and experiential knowledge – Amateurism and Coaching Practice: Explores the impact of amateurism on coaches and gives an exemplar of a coaching life at the end of the nineteenth century – Coaching Communities and ‘Know-How’: Presents nineteenth-century coaching as a craft and uses census material to uncover the life courses of coaching families – Training the athlete and fuelling the athlete: These draw on contemporary literature to identify the physiological, psychological and dietary components of training during this period – The International Dimension: Compares the coaching environment in Britain with that of Empire, Europe and, most especially, America – Coaching and Competitive Swimming: Uses Victorian and Edwardian swimming to demonstrate the impact of amateurism on professionals and on international performance – Coaching Lives: Continuity and Change: Emphasises that coaching practices in any period are an amalgamation of tradition and innovation.