Dr Martin Johnes is from Pembrokeshire and took his BA and PhD at Cardiff University.  He subsequently held research posts at the universities of Oxford and Cardiff, before taking up a lectureship at St Martin’s College (of Higher Education) in Lancaster. He joined the Swansea History Department in 2006. He is a Past Chairman of the British Society of Sports History, and a member of the Swansea Centre for the History of Wales and its Borderlands.

Current research

Dr Johnes' work on contemporary Wales looks at questions of national identity and more general issues in social, cultural and political history.  His work in sports history is especially concerned with questions of methodology and issues of identity - class, gender, national or regional. He is currently completing books on the social history of British boxing (with Matthew Taylor, Portsmouth University) and on Wales since 1939.

Principal publications

Books

Wales since 1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).

A History of Sport in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005)

(ed., with Paul Darby & Gavin Mellor), Soccer and Disaster: International Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2005)

Soccer and Society: South Wales, 1900-39 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2002)

(with Iain McLean), Aberfan: Government and Disasters (Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press, 2000)

Book-chapters and journal articles

‘Textos, leitores e pós-modernismo: O romance como fonte na história do esporte’, Recorde: Revista de História do Esporte Artigo, 3, 2 (2010).

‘Fußall und nationale Identität in Wales’, in Christian Koller & Fabian Brändle (eds), Fussball Zwischen Den Kriegen (Lit Verlaf: Zürich, 2010), 87-107.

‘For class and nation: dominant trends in the historiography of twentieth-century Wales’, History Compass, 8/11 (2010): 1257–74. 

'On the cusp: into the Calzaghe era', in Peter Stead and Gareth Williams, eds., Wales and its Boxers: The Fighting Tradition (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008), 192-208.

‘Populism: Overview’, in Peter N. Stearns, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), Volume 6, pp. 326-328.

'British Sports History: The Present and Future', [North American] Journal of Sport History, 35 (2008), 65-71

'We hate England! We hate England? National identity and anti-Englishness in Welsh soccer fan culture', Cycnos, 25 (2008), 143-157

'A prince, a king and a referendum: rugby, politics and nationhood in Wales, 1969-1979', Journal of British Studies, 47 (2008), 129-148

‘Texts, audiences and postmodernism: the novel as source in sport history’, [North American] Journal of Sport History, 34 (2007), 121-133

'Pigeon racing and working-class culture in Britain, c.1850-1950', Cultural and Social History, 4 (2007), 361-383

'Archives, truths and the historian at work: a reply to Doug Booth’s ‘Refiguring the Archive', Sport in History, 27 (2007), 127-135

'Inventing a county: Cardiff, South Glamorgan and the 1974 reorganization of local government', Welsh History Review, 23 (2006), 153-174

'Student perceptions of research in teaching-led higher education', Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 5 (2006), 28-40

(with Gavin Mellor), 'The 1953 FA Cup final: modernity and tradition in British culture', Contemporary British History, 20 (2006), 263-280

'Putting the history into sport: on sports history and sports studies in the UK', [North American] Journal of Sport History, 31 (2004), 145-160

'Heads in the sand: football, politics and crowd disasters in twentieth-century Britain', in P. Darby, M. Johnes and G. Mellor, eds., Soccer and Disaster: International Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2005), 10-27

(with Paul Darby and Gavin Mellor), 'Soccer and disasters: a conceptual framework', in Paul Darby, Martin Johnes and Gavin Mellor, eds., Soccer and Disaster: International Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2005), 1-9

' "Every day when I wake up I thank the Lord I’m Welsh": Sport and national identity in post-war Wales', in A. Smith and D. Porter, eds., Sport and National Identity in the Post-War World (London: Routledge, 2004), 52-68

(with Andy Croll), 'A heart of darkness? Leisure, respectability and the aesthetics of vice in Victorian Wales', in M. Huggins and J. A. Mangan, eds., Disreputable Pleasures? Vicious Victorians at Play (London: Routledge, 2004), 153-171

(with Ian Garland), ' "The new craze": football and society in north-east Wales, c.1870-1890', Welsh History Review, 22 (2004), 278-304

'The teaching-research nexus in a sports history module', Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 3 (2004), 47-52

'Archery, romance and elite culture in England and Wales, c.1780-1840', History, 89 (2004), 193-208

(with Rhiannon Mason), 'Soccer, public history and the National Football Museum', Sport in History, 23 (2003), 115-131

'Mushrooms, scandal and bankruptcy: the short life of Mid Rhondda Football Club', The Local Historian, 32 (2002), 41-53  

'Poor man’s cricket: baseball, class and community in South Wales, c.1880-1950', International Journal of the History of Sport, 17 (2000), 153-166

(with Iain McLean), ' "Regulation run mad": The Board of Trade and the loss of the Titanic', Public Administration, 78 (2000), 729-749

'Eighty minute patriots? National identity and sport in modern Wales', International Journal of the History of Sport, 17 (2000), 93-110

'Hooligans and barrackers: crowd disorder and soccer in south Wales, 1906-39', Soccer and Society, 1 (2000), 19-35

'Uneasy relationships: local politics, Merthyr Tydfil Borough County Council and the Aberfan disaster', Welsh History Review, 20 (2000), 143-166

'Aberfan and the management of trauma', Disasters: The Journal of Disaster Studies, Policy and Management, 24 (2000), 1-17

(with Iain McLean), 'Regulating gifts of generosity: the Aberfan Disaster Fund and the Charity Commission', Legal Studies, 19 (1999), 380-396

'Fred Keenor: a Welsh soccer hero', The Sports Historian, 18 (1998), 105-119

Key online publications

Resource Guide for Sports History (published by the Learning and Teaching Support Network)  www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/hlst/documents/resource_guides/sports_history.pdf

(with Iain McLean), The Aberfan Disaster http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/politics/aberfan/home.htm

A History of Sport in Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005)

Principal research awards, fellowships, and prizes

• AHRC collaborative doctoral award (with Dr Peter Wakelin and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales), for The historic sporting environment of Wales, 2008-
• Lord Aberdare Literary Prize (2002), awarded by the British Society of Sports History for Soccer and Society: South Wales, 1900-39