This paper provides an examination of the cultural development of Rugby football in England and North America, and an account of the simultaneous transformation of the game since 1965 in both settings. At a time of active cultural exchange across the North Atlantic, English Rugby began to adopt the trappings of rationalized North American spectator sports; while the simultaneous reappearance of Rugby in North America - replete with the traditional cultural characteristics of the English game - is interpreted as a form of resistance to those same rationalized spectator sports. Suggestions for the contextual analysis of sport are made, using Rugby as a specific example.
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