The essay attempts to demonstrate the mechanisms of the relationship between sport and power through a case-study, the genealogy of the railway sports clubs in Hungary. First, it focuses on the determining circumstances of the birth of the railway sport during the last turn of the 19th century. On the one hand, it takes into consideration those structures that determined and made the given formation of the railway sport possible. On the other hand, it focuses on the techniques which made control and subjection for the individuals acceptable. According to our model, the railway sport in the first half of the 20th century evolved from the interactions of the macrostrategies of the dual power (political and railway management) willing to control and influence the employers and the microstrategies of those workers who wanted to do sports. In the beginning, the railway sports clubs were established by workers and gradually they became the means of power, as it was the railway management which first recognized and exploited the opportunity to create healthy and loyal employers. After 1920 the high politics did the same in arranging home-defense and leisure time activities. By surveying the microstrategies, the analysis reveals that the primary aim of the railway workers was to spend their free time sporting in an enjoyable way. Later sport was more often used as a means of promotion and getting higher wages.

full text in Sic Itur ad Astra 62. (2011)