Calcio Danubiano in the Mediterranean

In the 1930s, Great Britain's undisputed hegemony in the world of football was increasingly under challenge by Central European football, particularly that of Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. This was despite the fact that apart from a few international matches, the two centers were strictly separated from each other by the British sports policy of ‘splendid isolation’. However, as Central European football in the mid-1930s was barely viable economically, many players sought their fortune abroad, looking for engagements everywhere in Europe where professional football was played. Not all, though, went to continental Europe: between 1935 and 1938, twenty players from Vienna were engaged in Malta where football was gradually becoming professional. Because Malta was then a crown colony of Britain, an indirect link was forged between the two football strongholds. To illustrate how this connection stimulated the emergence of a Europeanised popular football culture, this article will examine the complex relations between British football and its important protagonists with a focus on the role of both the underlying structural and personal aspects

Ancient history · Archaeology · Geography · Mediterranean climate · Political science · History · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports Analytics and Performance · Sports, Gender, and Society