‘It was precious to me from the beginning’: material objects,long-distance fandom and home

Material objects and football fandom are intimately linked. As a repository of emotion, memorabilia holds value as a marker of identity. For many football fans, the conception of ‘home’ is integral to their identity. Despite its centrality to football fans’ construction of identity, the notion of ‘home’ has received little attention from sports scholars. Drawing on recent work in cultural geography, this paper employs concepts of home to explore the ways in which materiality holds identity for football fans. Evidence from New Zealand-based fans of European teams displays how material objects are able to collapse distance between fans and their club, acting as palimpsests for memory and narratives for significant emotional experiences. Embedded in the New Zealand home of the fan, memorabilia resides as an emotional bridge to their football home locality, stadia and supporters.     

The ‘club versus country’ debate: investigating English fan loyalty toward club and national teams

The ‘club versus country’ debate, which refers to an individual’s allegiance to their respective club and national teams, has become an increasingly popular topic for debate in the context of English football. Whilst prior work in this area has focused on the tensions between club officials and national associations, this study investigated the attitudinal and behavioural loyalty of fans towards club and national teams. Data were collected from 647 football fans across 16 English club teams utilizing a survey approach. Findings suggest that those with high levels of loyalty to their club are more likely to be loyal to the national team, questioning whether this is a ‘versus’ debate at all from the fan perspective. In addition, Premier League fans display lower levels of attitudinal loyalty to the national team than lower league fans, which may reflect underlying concerns that club players may sustain injuries in national team matches.     

Club Identity/Class Identity: Negotiations of Popular Memory by Followers of the Australian Football League

A lot of the fun in contemporary sports talk relies on shared understandings about the culture of competitive sporting teams. The purpose of this paper is to explore how often humorous discourses are negotiated by sport fans as they narrate a sense of their own history and identity as followers of professional sports teams. This analysis draws on research conducted with followers of the Australian Football League (AFL), which included 21 life story interviews. As an oral historian, I was interested in how individuals negotiated popular ideas about Australian football in the ‘composition’ of their memories. This attention to the dynamic between the public and personal is described as a ‘popular memory approach’ to oral history. In this paper I explore the place of class in popular understandings about AFL club cultures. I argue that the role class plays in popular discourse around sporting club cultures is revealed more fully when we examine the ways in which individuals – in this case followers of AFL teams – make sense of it.     

Integration or resistance: the influx of foreign capital in British football in the transnational age

As one of the most commercialized and popular football leagues in the world, English Premiership League (Henthforce EPL) has witnessed the massive foreign capital influx since Abravomich’s significant takeover of Chelsea in 2003. British local football community traditionally has strong sense of ‘locality’ with the long history of their clubs. In the globalization context, some local fans embrace foreign capital ownership while some of them resist it. This article establishes an analytical framework to detect the causal relationship between the possible independent variables and local community reaction. Through case studies and critical discussion, this article concludes that club administration is the major determinant of local community reaction. On-pitch performance and club tradition play as second-major determinants explaining local community reaction. This article asserts while the modern neo-liberalism is prevalent in this traditional league and an overwhelming force in the context globalization. Historical local tradition, however, still takes an important role in EPL and has not been fully objected to global capital.     

The Female Vikings,a Women's Fan Group in Denmark: Formation and Development in the Context of Football and Fan Histories

Traditionally, football and fandom have been male domains and celebrations of masculinity. So far there has been some sociological and historical research on women's football; however, little is known about women's fandom, in particular about its formation and development. This article focuses on the historical development of a Danish women-only fan group called ‘The Female Vikings’, which support a professional football club, Lyngby Boldklub (BK), in a city north of Copenhagen. The article explores the backgrounds and motivations of female fans, as well as their ways of staging femininity in a man's world. Drawing on available information about football and fans in Denmark, we have reconstructed the developments of both Lyngby BK and its supporters. Special focus was placed on the histories and cultures as well as the experiences of female fans in this club. Insights into the foundation of the women's fan group were provided by problem-centred interviews which also contained open questions. The foundation and activities of the Female Vikings show how women can perform gender in the fan's stands and how they play a significant role in the fan movement. The interviews also reveal the loyalty of the female fans during the club's ‘crisis’ and their ‘collective memories’.     

The impact of the supporters’ trust movement on women’s feelings and practices of their football fandom

This article looks at the ways in which female football fans in England have responded to and become involved in the cooperative supporters’ trust movement. It examines the history and development of the movement, which offers a new, democratic and equitable way for supporters to become involved in the life of their club, and become part of a new, wider fan community, broader than simple club allegiance. The involvement of respondents in the supporters’ trust movement is explored, profiling the ways in which they have immersed or distanced themselves from the trust concept and community, and comparing their experiences as they have described them in interview. I argue that the trust movement offers the opportunity for supporters to help the game progress in a way that is advantageous to all fans, not just females; and this seems to be an element of the movement that has great appeal to women.     

‘Race’, politics and local football – continuity and change in the life of a British African-Caribbean local football club

This paper focuses on the role of a local sports club in shaping the lives of British African-Caribbean males in one British city over a 40-year period. The paper describes how the ‘Meadebrook Cavaliers’ has transitioned from its origins as an East Midlands parks-based football team in 1970 to a successful senior-level local football club by the early 1980s, before finally achieving a further social and financial organizational complexity in its charitable status, attained in 2009. Attention is paid specifically to the social formation of this largely masculine ‘black’ sport space over time and on how, and in what ways, these developments in local sport in one club in one British city are also intimately connected to wider social, economic and political developments in the UK. In doing so, the paper demonstrates, both theoretically and empirically, how the emergence of ‘black’ local football resonates with social change around ‘race’ politics in Britain during the period 1970–2010. By the same token, this mainly black male sporting space continues to reflect and influence change in the wider political, social and sporting terrains within which the club has been located – and within the dynamic black African-Caribbean communities which constitute it.     

‘True fan = watch match’? In search of the ‘Authentic’ soccer fan

Academics have created typologies to divide association football (soccer) fans into categories based upon the ‘authenticity’ of their fandom practices. One of the main requirements of ‘authentic’ fandom has been assumed to be match attendance. The goal of this paper was to critically assess this assumption by considering how fans themselves talk about the significance of match attendance as evidence of ‘authentic’ fandom. In the light of the fact that the voices of English non-league fans on the ‘authenticity’ debate have so far been overshadowed by the overbearing focus of much previous research on the upper echelons of English soccer, an e-survey was conducted with 151 members of an online community of fans of English Northern League (NL) clubs (a semi-professional / amateur league based in North East England). Findings revealed that opinion was divided on the constituents of ‘authentic’ fandom and match attendance was not deemed to be the core evidence of support for a club by 42% of the sample. Elias (1978) suggested that dichotomous thinking hinders sociological understanding and it is concluded that fan typologies are not sufficient for assessing the ‘authenticity’ of fan activities.     

Loves,Suffering and Identification: the Passions of Australian Football League Fans

The people of Melbourne are renowned for their ‘football fever’, yet this fever is under-studied. This paper addresses this fever by exploring the loves, suffering, and strange identifications of Australian Football League fans. Building on and complicating Freud's theories of group psychology, I argue that love, or rather two loves, are at the heart of the experience of being a fan. Fans love their club in a manner that incorporates the club into their sense of self, with the club becoming an ideal that is to be served. This love facilitates a particular form of identification where fans experience the club's trials, tribulations and triumphs, as if they too were being subjected to them. Moreover, in identifying with their club through love, the fan also takes on a second love, that of the club's object of desire, the elusive premiership. This is the love of the conquest and pursuit, a love that entails pain and suffering.     

‘Foreign ownerships’ in the Premier League: examining local Liverpool fans’ perceptions of Fenway Sports Group

The ‘foreign ownerships’ apparent in the English Premier League have received little academic attention, despite being a controversial issue for football fans and commentators. This study examines local Liverpool Football Clubs fans’ perceptions of the clubs’ American ownership and to what extent criticism aimed at the owners are framed in terms of nationality. Hence, data from the ‘Red and White Kop’s’ online message board (found at www.redandwhitekop.com) were collected. This is an interactive message board used primarily by Liverpool fans. The purposively sampled data, consisting of 3,322 fan comments was analysed with a frame analyse technique advanced by Erving Goffman. The study’s main argument is that Liverpool fans have become normalized to the global features of football, thus the nationality of the clubs’ owner seems unproblematic, when they assess the club’s ownership; an ownership a significant number of fans have positive perceptions about.     

Beyond Tippekampen: the origins and maintenance of Scandinavian support for the Liverpool FC

Professional sport is a highly marketable product, whereby favourite teams often become ‘overseas sweethearts’ for millions of satellite supporters and their imagined community of like-minded fans. Scandinavia has historically proven to be a fertile market for English football and is home to some of the largest supporter groups for English clubs, in particular the Liverpool FC. This article examines the origins of Scandinavian identification with the Merseyside club and how satellite supporters in the region maintain a connection with the famous brand. Scandinavian supporters highlighted the importance of the media, especially the popularity of state-run television programmes such as Tippekampen, the team’s playing style and the presence of star players in their initial support for Liverpool FC and explained how they had turned to a virtual ‘third place’ to regularly connect and engage with fellow fans and the brand in cyberspace. In a global marketplace, satellite supporters are critical for the future of many brands and this article offers a valuable case study for those who seek to exploit these markets, monetize these consumers and build equity for their team brands.     

Sport activism and political praxis within the FC Sankt Pauli fan subculture

FC Sankt Pauli is often portrayed as a rebel football club that represents an ideal manifestation of fan centredness. But whilst the club’s reputation is mostly well earned, there is much to distinguish the fans from the club and conflict between the two is prominent and ongoing. This research, based on more than 10 years of ethnography amongst the fans and questionnaires and interviews with key individuals, looks behind the scenes to reveal how fans challenge their club, the authorities and much more beyond. Authentic voices of fan activists tell a story of fervent sport activism, fan power and resistance, alive and well inhabiting a vibrant subculture. Political praxis and protest are prolific amongst Sankt Pauli fans. By illuminating the radical sport activism of Sankt Pauli fans, this paper offers a vision for other football fans to emulate and for sport more generally to realize a more transformative potential.     

Football,Place, and Community in a New Zealand Mining Town, 1877–1939

Abstract

Resource towns (such as lumber camps, power plants, and mining towns) are by their very nature peripheral. They frequently exist in a space of isolation, not only geographically but also culturally as well. The South Island mining town of Kaitangata is a classic example of this process – an industrial, working class, and heavily migrant community positioned within an otherwise agricultural, conservation, and homogenous tract of rural New Zealand. Kaitangata, in the words of one writer, ‘possessed a unique character and pattern of social interaction’ that marked it out from its immediate environment. One way in which these differences manifested themselves was in the sporting activities of the town. In a part of the world where rugby union held absolute hegemony, the town broke the mould by also fielding teams in association football, rugby league, and even Australian Rules football (distinguishing itself as the only town outside of the provincial capital of Dunedin where these three sports obtained a foothold). This paper analyses how these sporting activities contributed to a unique sense of space, addressing themes including class, ethnicity, masculinity, and identity.     

From local heroism to global celebrity stardom: a critical reflection of the social cultural and political changes in British football culture from the 1950s to the formation of the premier league

This essay through a critical reflection of various social, cultural and political changes in British football, from the 1950s to the formation of the global premier league, explores how they facilitated the broader change in which football players have transformed from local heroes to global stars. As British football became more Europeanized, at the same time, players began to hold greater financial power and the conditions were set for an acceleration in the relationship between football and consumerism, whereby the new economics of signs and space allowed entrepreneurs to commodify the identity of the football club thus providing the foundation for the new consumption of football in the 1990s. Finally, the essay concludes that the development of ‘new’ football and late modern 24?h news culture supports Buckley’s suggestion that new media is primarily concerned with stories of ‘empty global stars, cod personalities and celebrities whose fame is largely self-referential’.     

More than Male-Gazing: Reflections on Female Fans of Rugby Union in New Zealand, 1870–1920

ABSTRACT

The presence of women in and around rugby union in New Zealand remains on the margins of the histories of the game of rugby and the more social and cultural histories that explore rugby’s impact on the formation of a New Zealand national identity. Yet, as this article demonstrates, women have long since engaged with rugby union in ways that may well have assisted in its ascendancy and ultimate claiming of the title of New Zealand’s national game. Through readings of newspapers, magazines, and club histories covering the period from the 1870s through to the Great War a picture emerges: women from both the middle and lower classes of New Zealand society supported the game of rugby as spectators, supporters, and fans. They did so in a manner that was sometimes acceptable but at other times regarded as distinctly inappropriate. In addition, women’s involvement was informal and localized – most obvious at the community level – and it is this feature that helps to explain women’s virtual invisibility in the histories of rugby union in New Zealand.     

Ultras in Indonesia: conflict,diversification, activism

Abstract

Ultras play a vital role in the life of Indonesian football. Ultra fandom has emerged as a highly visual, highly spectacular, and frequently violent form of fandom in post-reformasi Indonesia. Ultra fan groups are overwhelmingly made up of young, urban men who dedicate much of the leisure time to supporting their club – whether through being at the stadium, creating on tifos, or through social-media campaigns. Supporter groups such as PSIM’s Brajamusti are linked to the cultural and political realities of everyday life in Yogyakarta. While the Surabaya-based Bonek are engaged in an ongoing struggle against FIFA and Indonesia’s football federation. The Solo-based Pasoepati are a more recent fan group who have supported several Solo-based teams. This article draws on field work carried out between August and December 2014. The article explores how the different fan groups interact with each other with their city and how they imagine an improved ‘soccer-scape’ in Indonesia.     

Social agency and football fandom: the cultural pedagogies of the Western Sydney ultras

Abstract

This article addresses key questions of social agency and cultural pedagogy within the neoliberal structures of ‘modern football’ in the Australian context. It reports on a two-year ethnographic study of the Red and Black Bloc, an Australian ultras group in Western Sydney, one of the most culturally diverse areas in Australia. The origins of the Western Sydney ultras are described, along with their struggles to build their own cultural identity and to fight for social agency within a commodified football league. By combining a multifaceted theoretical model with a range of ethnographic data – including document analysis and in-depth interviews – this study reveals the processes by which the Western Sydney ultras enhance members’ social cohesion towards an increased social consciousness. The paper acknowledges the role that ultras, as authentic cultural formations, may have in the propagation of new cultural pedagogies that have the potential to enhance citizenship, communal life and participatory democracy.     

Loyal to what? FC United's ‘shaping walk’ through football's ‘muck of ages’

This paper considers the cultural politics surrounding the formation and development of FC United of Manchester. Established in 2005 by boycotting Manchester United fans following their failed attempt to prevent Malcolm Glazer's takeover, FC United was envisaged as a radical, do-it-yourself version of the football club they wanted Manchester United to be. Driven by an idea that football and its clubs should be run in the interests of community stakeholders rather than financial investors, the supporters rejected what they saw as the more compliant and commodified relationship now demanded by attendance at or consumption of top-level English football. The paper examines how traditional notions of authenticity are articulated and understood by supporters who either embrace or reject the notion of a DIY football club. Political as well as cultural capital is at stake, disrupting traditional values of loyalty. The ambivalence experienced by increasing numbers of contemporary fans means that continuity and change seem never far apart, with football supporter culture facilitating, often simultaneously, both a yearning for what might be along with a fear for what might be lost.     

Playing with tension: national charisma and disgrace at Euro 2012

By the time of Euro 2012, deepening tensions of nationalism and internal social struggles were developing across Europe in worsening conditions of systemic crisis. The official football ideology of UEFA conceives Euro 2012 as a civilizing platform for mutual respect and brotherhood between competing nations. In contrast, what I call Hyper-Critical Theory conceives of football competitions like Euro 2012 as part of a de-civilising ‘sports mode of production’ that necessarily produces crisis conditions, alienation and violence on a mass scale, fostering nationalism, militarism and racism. Between these polar perspectives, the figurational sociology of sport associated with Norbert Elias proposes that major international football competitions like Euro 2012 creates and dissipates contingent tensions of ‘group charisma’ and ‘group disgrace’. Study of Euronews ‘post-national’ coverage of Euro 2012 allows their explanatory adequacy to be compared. In a competition structure like the Euros no social group – players, officials, media or fans – is able to disregard entirely the field capabilities of the ‘best minority of 11’ in the serious game of exemplifying the group charisma of nations.