I am a big fan of Greece, the spiritual home of sport and education, so it was a real pleasure to do a keynote speech at the recent CESH congress, held in the beautiful town of Edessa, in Macedonia, Northern Greece, the so-called Manchester of Macedonia because of its many waterfalls and rivers, which drove machinery in factories in the past. CESH is a really important organisation which disseminates, discusses and develops knowledge in sports history on a European and international scale. If you are a serious scholar of sport you should really join!!!! And if you are expert enough you can achieve the honor of recognition as a Fellow as you attend more regularly. It helps tremendously with networking and is really cheap too.
It was well attended, with delegates from seventeen countries, and focused on the history of sport in education. One of the great benefits of attending events like this is the variety of contacts you make. I’ve always really valued and appreciated meeting scholars from other European countries, whose approaches and methods are different. By sharing ideas and discussing approaches, all of us can to an extent remove our cultural blinkers and think in a more sophisticated way.
The congress was really well organised, so thanks to all the friendly and helpful staff, and the two CESH colleagues, Christodoulos Faniopoulos and Evangelos Albanidis, who did so much to make it a success.
