Letter From the Editors

EPOCH Editorial Board

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Issue 22 of EPOCH, ‘Sport and Society'! The days are getting darker, and the grounds are getting colder, but intellectual enterprise remains red hot as we embark on a new path and embrace a season of change.

Our last letter addressed the end of an ‘epoch’, as Lancaster University has transitioned away from departments to introduce 'schools' that make up the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. In this new system, History has become part of the ‘School of Global Affairs’ and the restructure has forced students to think about how to cultivate community in a changing and challenging context.

EPOCH has shown a way forward. A publication created out of the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has always been a stage to showcase and celebrate the creativity and commitment of MAs, PGRs, and ECRs around the world. True to form, our Editorial Board has onboarded the expertise of five PhD candidates from a range of disciplines: History, Politics, Sociology, Digital Humanities, and English Literature.

It is our pleasure to announce Emmanuel Adeyemi-Abere, Hafsa Syed, Ila Manish, Atrija Ghosh, and Divij Ingale as the new members of the Editorial Board. We look forward to seeing how the historical consciousness of EPOCH evolves and expands through their involvement in the magazine. We are equally proud to have embarked on a new collaboration with SCAN, the official newspaper of Lancaster University Students' Union. Readers who are able to pick up a copy of SCAN's new print issue will notice a special feature from EPOCH among its pages. We are looking forward to expanding this collaboration further, with plenty of exciting ideas on the horizon. In the meantime, the excellent work SCAN do can be read here!

Coming back to Issue 22, this publication features a hat-trick of pieces on the theme of ‘Sport and Society'. Alex Pomeroy examines how Dutch football clubs have commemorated the Second World War, Emmanuel Adeyemi-Abere addresses the role of football as a nation building tool in Ghana, and Jude Rowley has uncovered the unlikely role of a small Lancashire village in the development of the world's game.

The pieces that feature in our issues are never constrained to the titular theme of the release. Once more, we have pieces of work that span space and place to tackle diverse topics of historical interest.

Witness acts of amnesia in the national memory of Poland and Russia, examine the evolving urban landscape of Istanbul, uncover the connections between French students and China's Red Guard, learn why a library in Louisiana has a special role in local community, and see the seeds of destruction sown within the succession planning of the Mughal dynasty. Closer to home, we have pieces on women codebreakers from the First World War, women’s struggles against ecclesiastical tradition in England, and the experiences of the disabled in the Hundred Years’ War.

Elsewhere, a trio of tutorials provides information on the interpretation of vernacular Celtic literature, historical infographic design, and using and interpreting Late Medieval French pardon letters to give food for thought about source analysis beyond their direct scope of interest.

We hope that you enjoy this issue of EPOCH and hope to hear lots of opinions about the work from our contributors across social media! As 2025 comes to close, our attention turns towards the theme of ‘Religion and Belief’ for Issue 23. We look forward to (belatedly) marking the new year with this release, and until then, stay tuned on our social media pages for all the latest news from EPOCH!

Sincerely,

The Editorial Board