Sport helps make us what we are: the shaping of regional and local sporting identities in Cumbria c.1800-1960

This paper explores the ways in which Cumbria’s sports were used to express regional, county or urban identities. It begins with the sporting place myths constructed by national newspapers and newsreel companies, which focused largely on events such as Grasmere Sports. It then goes on to explore the extent to which such ‘traditional’ sporting activities were specifically Cumbrian, before examining the diffusion of modern sports. These arrived later than elsewhere, but though organised by county, generated little sense of county loyalties. Football, rugby and cricket all generated local loyalties, high levels of participation, spectatorship and interest, and became as popular in Cumbria as elsewhere, but gained little if any success on any wider stage, and so were rarely exploited as emblematic symbols. By contrast, Cumbria’s surviving traditional sports still perpetuate myths of Cumbrian exceptionalism and attract off-comer, visitor and media interest despite low levels of participation, often from families with a history of involvement.