1. Ideological preparation for the prosperity period of football (sports) in the Republic of China
In the previous article, we mentioned that Chinese football has developed relatively quickly after the Republic of China, especially in port cities such as Shanghai and Tianjin, which opened earlier, there have been prototypes of professional industrialization, and football stars such as Li Huitang and Sun Jinshun have also been born in the mainland.
When the time stepped into the 30s, Chinese football had been preparing for decades and was slowly and steadily rising like the rising sun.
Republic of China football superstar: Li Huitang
The first is that football organizations have expanded from coastal areas such as Shanghai and Tianjin to inland areas such as Sichuan and Northeast China, and have sprouted everywhere in the land of Shenzhou.
Secondly, Chinese football is going international, in addition to the Chinese national football team that has won consecutive victories over Japan at the Far East Games, many Hong Kong football clubs and mainland university football teams have received invitations from foreign countries, the most important thing is the holding of national football competitions - national sports football competitions and national football divisional competitions. These two major competitions have greatly promoted the development of Chinese football.
In fact, at that time, it was not only the golden period of China's football development, but also the golden period of the development of the entire Chinese sports industry. The reason is that the enlightened people and intellectuals in the vast educational circles have reached a consensus on sports to save the country.
Sports to save the country is the consensus of enlightened people in the educational circles of the Republic of China
The origin of traditional Chinese sports thought can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Warring States Hundred Schools of Contention period, the university schools have put forward different sports ideas, such as Confucian sports thought is the ethics of the center, advocating through sports to forge a perfect personal personality, maintain patriarchal rule and hierarchical differentiation; Taoist sports thought is The Taoist naturalism, advocating qigong practice, following the laws of nature, pursuing the realm of the unity of heaven and man and creating pictographic martial arts such as monkey fist; Mo jia pays attention to "Shang li", hoping to exercise physical strength and brain power. And in the way of living an ascetic life, it cultivates the martial arts spirit of valuing righteousness over profit; while the soldiers emphasize "the body for military use", take physical training as a means of training soldiers, and attach importance to martial arts and weapon technology. [1]
These ideas, basically, regard sports itself as part of the methodology of the doctrine they advocate, and regard physical exercise as a program for achieving the social goals of thought, which is of a strong political nature.
Compared with the Greeks who founded the Olympic Games, China does not have a simple and specialized sports ideology.
The birth of Keju is inseparable from the "body for military use" military sports ideology
When China entered the modern era, the situation was different.
The Opium War opened the door to China and swept China into the wave of capitalist global colonization, and China's long-closed form of small-scale peasant economy was broken and reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society.
In the eyes of Westerners at that time, Chinese demonized, weak, thin, and weak, and Westerners also gave Chinese the label of "sick man of East Asia".
Therefore, for the Chinese at that time, it was very important to break this Western stereotype. At the same time, with the introduction of more scientific Western modern sports ideas, China's enlightened people have developed the idea of using sports to forge strong physiques to strengthen themselves and strengthen their bodies.
Tang Wenzhi of Nanyang College opened China's earliest football class, and Yan Fu of Beiyang Marine Teachers School hired China's earliest foreign football teachers for this purpose.
Nanyang College is the predecessor of Chiao Tung University and has a rich football tradition
Therefore, Chinese sports throughout the Republican period carried a strong nationalist sentiment, representing the spirit of the Chinese people at that time to be strong in one heart and determined to fight against the Western imperialists.
At that time, Chinese football stars were all patriots with broad hearts. During the Japanese invasion of China, Li Huitang did not want to play for the Japanese imperialists, and did not hesitate to retire at the golden age and bid farewell to the Hong Kong professional stadium.
It is also under the promotion of this patriotic enthusiasm that the entire Republic of China sports reached its most prosperous time in the 30s.
Tan Yonglin's father, Tan Jiangbai, was a football superstar who chose to retire from the army and defend his country during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
2. The socialized development of football (sports) in the Republic of China
At this time, a wave of sports events and football competitions was rising across the country, and the development center of football gradually shifted from universities to society.
Especially after the mainland officially joined the International Football Federation in 1931, it promoted a number of social clubs to mushroom.
For example, the Shanghai Donghua Sports Association, this team was founded in 1931 with the wind of China's accession to FIFA. Originally named Donghua Football Club, the funds are provided by the board of directors composed of celebrities, and the members are mainly Lehua football players, and the staff, doctors, engineering and technical personnel and university students are composed. Shanghai Mayor Wu Tiecheng served as honorary president.
In 1933, it was expanded into the Donghua Sports Association, with Song Ziwen as the honorary president, Wu Tiecheng as the chairman of the committee, and Shi Liangcai as the vice chairman. Mainly football, basketball, tennis and other sports are also carried out. The soccer team has twice won the Scottau Cup.
By 1947, he had won 13 citywide league titles. From 1932 to 1952, he visited Southeast Asia, North Korea and other countries many times. It ceased activities in 1952. [2]
In 1980, the former head of the board of directors Tan Jing, Wu Zhongyi and Lu Jusheng proposed to restore the Donghua Football Club. The meeting resumed on New Year's Day 1981. Establish football teams for the elderly, youth, children and women, and hold training classes for football goalkeepers. Until 1990, the 5th Donghua Cup Football Invitational Tournament was held. [3]
As a representative of the power of the Republic of China, Song Ziwen was the honorary president of the Donghua Football Association
In addition to the Donghua Football Association in Shanghai, the more representative social football organizations include the Chinese Football Federation formed by major universities in Shanghai, the Beining Sports Association in Tianjin, the South China Sports Association in Hong Kong, the Jiandao Sports Association in Yanbian and the Dalian Football League in Dalian.
However, we have to admit that although the development of football at this time has entered a climax, the economic situation of the Republic of China cannot support the commercial operation of football throughout the country, and even the government cannot even support the travel expenses of the Olympic delegation to Berlin, so although Chinese football is moving towards prosperity at this time, there is a huge crisis behind this prosperity.
The most lamentable thing is the dissolution of the Lehua Sports Club. Founded in 1926, this team was Mr. Li Huitang's parent team in mainland China and the first two champions of the Shanghai Football Tournament.
This team supported the façade of mainland football at that time, and it was also the first team in the Chinese mainland to beat the Europeans in official matches. Unfortunately, in 1931, the team was disbanded due to lack of funds.
Shanghai was the place where Chinese mainland football culture was strongest at that time
3. Football tournament of the National Games
At this time, there were two main national football competitions: the National Games Football Tournament and the National Football Divisional Competition.
The official preparations for the National Games actually began with the third session, because the first competition was actually held by the American missionary Axena in Nanjing in October 1910 through the Shanghai YMCA, the "First Sports League of the National School Branch Team", and this competition was posthumously recognized as the "First National Games" after the Xinhai Revolution.
The second competition was initiated in May 1914 by the Beijing Sports Competition Association in the Beijing Temple of Heaven, and the actual person in charge was Hou Grande, the secretary general of the Conference, and all the documents of the Conference were still in English. [4]
No more national games were held for the next decade.
The first two National Games were hosted by missionaries in China
It was only from the Third National Games that the competition truly became a competition hosted by the Chinese.
A preparatory committee composed of Nine people, including Xiong Xiling and Zhang Boling, was held in Wuchang in the central region in 1924, and except for a few projects in which foreigners served as referees, the rest of the projects were enforced by Chinese referees. In this competition, the East China team won the football championship.
The successful holding of the Third National Games has provided rich experience for the development of the future National Games, and has undergone major reforms since the fourth National Games.
Before the three National Games, the regional representative teams were divided according to the region of east China team, north China team, etc., such a division is too simple and rude. Moreover, there is no women's group in the first three competitions, which cannot guarantee the purpose of "participation of the whole people", and this kind of competition is held by the people, without the endorsement of government agencies, it is difficult to ensure stable holding.
Mr. Zhang Boling, the founder of Nankai University, is a member of the preparatory committee for the National Games
The Fourth National Games was held in Hangzhou in 1930 on the basis of the successful holding of the third session, and this National Games carried out major reforms according to the shortcomings of the third session, first of all, the method of regional division was changed from the regional system to the provincial team system with provinces and cities as the unit, laying the institutional foundation for the future Continental National Games. Secondly, a women's competition was added.
Finally, the competition is no longer simply organized by the people, but has the endorsement of the government, and the person in charge of the competition is the National Sports Association, with Dai Jitao as the president and Chiang Kai-shek as the honorary president.
There are 12 teams participating in this competition: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Liaoning, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Nanjing, Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangxi. [5]
The football match of the Fourth National Games ended with the victory of Shanghai, the team with the most developed football culture, and Shanghai defeated Nanjing team with a score of 10:1 in the final.
Dai Jitao, then a standing committee member of the Central Committee of the Republic of China, was the person in charge of the preparations for the National Games
After that, the football championship of the Fifth National Games was still won by the Shanghai team, and it was not until the sixth Games that Shanghai lost for the first time, losing 1:3 to Guangdong in the group stage. The Shanghai team, which entered the knockout round as the second in the group, did not win the next game, losing 1:3 to the Malaysian overseas Chinese team and then 1:3 to Guangdong again, missing the top three.
The winner of this tournament is Hong Kong, which is unbeaten in this competition. This national games has 38 teams and more than 2,700 participants. It was an event of unprecedented splendor.
After the end of the Sixth National Games in Shanghai, China entered the stage of all-out war of resistance, and the National Games were suddenly suspended for 13 years, and it was not resumed until 1948.
However, the 7th National Games held this year have long lost the style of the previous year, the event is chaotic, the conflict is continuous, and finally three tied champions were selected in the football match: the Army, the Police and the Hong Kong Team. The Seventh National Games is the final song of the National Games of the Republic of China.
Shanghai Jiangwan Stadium is the venue for the Sixth and Seventh National Games
With the holding of the National Games, Republic of China football has reached the highest peak it can reach, after which it has fallen into a complete decline, and this story of decline is stirring up the epic of heroes and the national lament of resisting Japan and saving the country.
The other game, the National Football Divisional Tournament, which is the two major national competitions, is just a manifestation of this decay.
To find out what happens next, please pay attention to this column to see through football to tell you about the development of Chinese football for thousands of years.
Resources:
[1] Yang Xiangdong, "History of Ancient Chinese Sports Thought", 2007.2, the official website of the State General Administration of Sport
[2] Zhu Rong, "Overview of Modern and Contemporary Shanghai Social Sports Organization", 2013.2, Shanghai Archives Information Network
[3] Shanghai Municipal Local History Office, Shanghai Tongzhi, Volume 37 Sports, 2008.7, Shanghai Local History Office Official Website
[4] Baidu Encyclopedia "National Games of the Republic of China" entry
[5] The National Sports Commission's Sports Literature and History Working Committee, Chinese Football Association, History of Chinese Football, 1993.6, Wuhan: Wuhan Publishing House, p. 60