At the 27th International Congress of the European Committe for Sports History (CESH), held in Paris (at the Campus Condorcet and the Université Paris Nanterre), from 4th to 6th of June 2024, Dr Rahela Jurković presented the paper entitled „Cricket on the island of Vis (Croatia): a researched glocalization“.
Resume:
History of playing cricket on the island of Vis in Croatia has begun in early 19th century, when Sir William Hoste, a Royal Navy captain, started to play cricket with his soldiers, out of boredom, and in-between battles in the Adriatic
Sea. However, cricket was very soon forgotten on Vis, and gone together with the Napoleonic Wars and presence of British soldiers of that time on the island. Almost two hundred years afterwards, a group of people started to “remember Hoste” (referring to his message “Remember Nelson”, used to inspire his sailors to overcome the larger enemy force), and an islander, Oliver Roki, raised in Australia (where he used to watch cricket on television), reintroduced the game on the island. Soon some expats supported and joined him. Hence the last twenty years cricket is played on Vis during springtime and early autumn, at the location that served as an important Second World War airfield in 1944-1945.
The paper is based on the anthropological research done on Vis cricket field from 2020 to 2022, involving semi-structural interviews and ethnography. The traditional qualitative methods were supported by video recording, and the paper presentation uses video-recorded interviews and participant observation, in order to vividly present transnational and local actors playing cricket in Croatia, where that sport is almost unknown and certainly unpopular. The research questions the notion of transnationalism in Eastern Europe, taken in understanding of “processes that interconnect individuals and social groups across specific geo-political borders“ (Giulianotti & Robertson, 2007), where not many scholars have empirically researched the topic of glocalization of sport. The research findings have demonstrated that links between amateur sport, globalisation, cosmopolitanism and connectivity can be manyfold, and that sport should be seen also as a vehicle of personal choices and wishes for fulfilment and happiness.
A player who came from London to Vis, just to play cricket during a weekend on a tournament of amateurs, and who almost broke his finger, but was perfectly happy on an unperfect cricket field, is just one among other interviewees which case supports the research findings.
