FACTS AND OBJECTIVITY are the knowledge base of reconstructionism, the
dominant approach in sport history among those firmly committed to finding
truths about the sporting past. ‘It is the search for truth that must guide our labours’,
wrote Geoffrey Elton whose philosophy continues to guide the field. However, if the
search for truth prevails in history, reconstructionists have, over time, revised their
understanding of the relationship between truth, facts and objectivity. As David Hackett
Fischer reminded reconstructionists some time back, ‘it is no easy matter to tell the
truth, pure and simple, about past events; for historical truths are never pure, and
rarely simple’. Indeed, he explained, ‘the process of historical truth-telling itself is
even more intricate than the truths which historians tell’: