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Wray Vamplew

Emeritus Professor in Sports Studies at the University of Stirling, I worked in Australia for eighteen years, latterly as Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the Flinders University of South Australia, before taking up an appointment at De Montfort University where I established a centre of excellence in sports history.

In 2001 I joined Stirling University and was appointed as Scotland’s first Chair in Sports History. I have authored and edited more than twenty books and over a hundred academic papers and reports, and have wide experience as a consultant for sports, education, government and media organisations in Australia and Britain.

My book Pay Up And Play the Game (Cambridge U.P., 1988), a study of professional sport in Britain, won the inaugural North American Society for Sport History international book award.I was also the recipient of the Australian Sport Commission’s National Sport Science Education Award for my work on sports violence. My expertise lies in the area of sports social science including history, economics and quantitative analysis.

My new book, Games People Played, is available from Reaction Books, 1 May 2023. It’s the first truly global history of sport, covering everything from curling to baseball.

Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872

Did Romans Really Fight Rhinos?

A sports historian explains the truth behind the battle scenes in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.