Dissertation Series

Walla Walla Press, in keeping with its mission to publish original research in sports history, has introduced a series of Sports History Dissertations to make small print runs of outstanding doctoral theses available to a wider audience.

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Dissertations

Soccer Boom: The Transformation of Victorian Soccer Culture 1945-1963
John Kallinikios challenges previous interpretations of the soccer boom in post-war Australia. He argues persuasively that historians have overplayed the ethnic factor and underplayed a significant advance of the code from an amateur participant-based sport to a more commercial and professional mass-spectator sport and that the tensions that shaped the code during this period were not necessarily linked to ethnicity.

Sydney's Pony Racecourses: An Alternative Racing History
Contrary to the name of the sport, most pony races were contested by fully-grown thoroughbreds. It has been suggested that pony racing appealed to desperate, the 'needy and greedy' elements of the working class only. Sydney's Pony Racecourses demonstrates that such assertions are without basis. The sport was one of the country's biggest industries with the prize money for its cup-races matching the Cox Plate.