My father John Bale, who has died aged 83, was a pioneer within the examine of geography and sport. From the Seventies, he revealed many articles and books.
In Sport and Place (1982), he explored the the reason why place had grow to be the primary technique of figuring out, and figuring out with, sports activities groups. He confirmed the extent to which sport impacts and is affected by the bodily atmosphere in options reminiscent of pitches and stadiums.
John’s work more and more questioned sport’s means to be a power for good. Imagined Olympians (2002) confirmed how Belgian colonists exploited the native Rwandan “leaping” custom by turning it right into a aggressive sport. Working Cultures (2004) explored athletics as transgression, escape and resistance. In Anti-Sport Sentiments in Literature (2007), he revelled in accounts of slowness and losers, to interrogate the concept of competitors as a noble pursuit.
John was born in Cardiff, the elder son of Richard, a fitter at Cardiff’s docks, and Alice (nee Laidlaw), a dressmaker, and educated at Howardian highschool, the place he was, by his personal account, a reluctant pupil. Nonetheless, a instructor, Frank Baber, ignited a love of geography.
After performing higher than anticipated in his A-levels, John went first to instructor coaching faculty. Later, he took a BSc in economics on the College of London’s exterior programme, adopted by an MPhil in geography, with reference to industrial estates, on the London Faculty of Economics.
Working was his ardour, and by 16 he had grow to be a devoted athlete. He labored in Cardiff’s Tremorfa steelworks to pay to rent a van so he and his working mates may drive to Rome to observe the 1960 Olympics. He met Ruth Fellerman at a celebration on the Courtroom Faculty of Dancing in Harrow, north-west London, in 1961 and so they married 5 years later.
After working for a number of years as a instructor at Townfield secondary trendy, Hayes (1960-67), and the Nobel grammar college, Stevenage (1967-72), John moved into instructing in greater training – first, from 1972, as a lecturer in training at Avery Hill (now the College of Greenwich) after which, from 1979, as a lecturer in geographical training at Keele College. His profession and mental improvement flourished there. He grew to become professor of sports activities geography in 1998, and later held visiting professorships at Aarhus College in Denmark and the College of Queensland in Australia. He retired from Keele in 2005.
Following a analysis of dementia, John revealed an eloquent memoir known as A Life in Sport (2013).
Ruth survives him, as do his sons, Roderick and I.
