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Our chapter in this volume comes from the perspective of two trained historians who have taught on research methods courses in sports and events management courses. In a 2012 article, Doug Matthews stated that events management students needed to understand "historical spectacle" and advocated that the study of historic events become a "mandatory core component" of their education. We hope that this piece will provide something of a toolkit for those undertaking historical research on events, with regard to both the strengths and the potential problems or pitfalls involved in analysing primary source material.Our chapter has two aims, firstly to set our work within the context of the field by providing a brief review of the "historiography"—or previous body of discipline-specific work—on historic events, in order to introduce events practitioners to relevant, accessible literature which enhances our broader understanding of events studies in a historical context. Whilst we prioritise events which have happened during the post–World War II period, we also suggest other texts that look at specific, highly bureaucratic, and institutionalised case studies over a longer period.Our second aim is to stimulate original research, so, to that end, we will discuss in detail our work on the 1970 and 1986 Commonwealth Games, both held in Edinburgh. We will look at many of the different types of archival material we used such as national and local newspapers, committee reports, organisers' records and official publications, UK and local government records and ministerial correspondence, activists' records, and even BBC television clips posted on YouTube. We discuss the ways in which we have used this material to piece together the narratives of both events. We will also reflect on the problems these sources presented, in addition to some of the wider issues we faced such as the need to negotiate access to uncatalogued papers and the "gaps' which potentially detailed embarrassing episodes during these competitions which were suspiciously missing or incomplete. We were also mindful that many of the internal and external actors involved in these Games were still alive, and in highly public positions of power.Therefore, we argue that archival research is a crucial, yet often over looked approach vital to the completion of historical research on events. There is also a need for researchers to acknowledge archives as a mediated space whose collections depend on many factors such as the primary material not being disposed of by its creators, the prerogatives of individual and institutional archivists in saving, maintaining, and protecting certain collections and by the interpretation of the researcher.

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-52386-0_5

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