Hvad man nu kalder sport' - en empirisk undersøgelse af sportens gennembrud i Odense

Resumé

Lokalhistorisk beretning fra Odense om idrættens udvikling i 1800-tallet og frem.

“What you could call Sport” – The breakthrough for Sport in Odense.

Modern sport came to Odense in the latter half of the 19th century. The big breakthrough for sport came, however, only in around 1900, when many new sports clubs saw the light of day. The establishment of the modern sports movement in Odense roughly resembles the development seen in other large towns and cities both nationally and across northern Europe, although here it seems a little delayed in comparison to cities such as Copenhagen or Stockholm.

Around the turn of the century Odense is estimated to have had about 2000 active and organised sports enthusiasts, and this figure rose to about 3000 by 1920. The city’s skating club was the largest sports club with about 6-700 members at the turn of the century.

Despite the limitations of the source material, there is much to suggest that it was the middle class in particular who took to sport. It was the office workers, the book-keepers, the clerical assistants, the sales personnel who were active in the clubs. The upper class dominated only those branches of sport, which required expensive equipment, such as equestrian sports, cycling and motor sports and sailing.

The working class and women were, on the other hand, a rare sight in clubs before the turn of the century. Individual women were, however, active in the private gymnastic institutions which sprung up from the 1880’s onwards. Here the city’s middle class maidens would be offered remedial gymnastics. Only at the beginning of the 20th century would the sight of women enjoying sports become more common. In the city’s parks occasional female footballers might be seen, while on the tennis courts several of the city’s more respectable ladies took a fling with a racquet. It was, however, first and foremost women’s gymnastics run by clubs that managed to involve women in sport.