The Power Game: Continued Reflections on the Early Development of Modern Football

In this paper the authors seek to continue the debate on the development of modern football. They note the support offered by Tony Collins to the long-standing reservations of Graham Curry and Eric Dunning regarding the weaknesses of the revisionist case, which has sought to lessen the influence of public schoolboys on the game’s early years. The authors do, however, offer some correctives to Collins’s thoughts, particularly in terms of the complex Sheffield footballing subculture. Curry and Dunning support the need for more research based on local studies and attempt to gather together current thinking in this area.     

Narrative Methods in Sport History Research: Biography,Collective Biography,and Prosopography

Historical research is a widely debated topic as historical knowledge is continually evolving and there is no definable recorded structure. The interpretational nature of the discipline highlights the tensions between ‘fact based’ analysis and the ‘fictional’ viewpoint which is at the heart of social science investigation. Contemporary narrative has gained acclaim from a generation of academics who demonstrate the balance between empiricism and postmodernity in their search for historical ‘truth’, helping to validate biographical methods within the sport history sphere. Biography has long been a respected source for historical inquiry, however, collective biography and prosopography; the study of connections between individuals; have been judged as lesser instruments due to their ambiguous nature and lack of socio-historic use. This paper examines the narrative methodologies employed within the field of sport history and proposes new directions within biographical research for the sport historian to consider.     

全民全运与城市形象——基于情感与认同的多重中介

目的:探究全民全运形象对城市形象的影响机制,以及情感、认同的多重中介效应。方法:采用全民全运形象量表、情感量表、认同量表和城市形象量表,对883名第13届全运会群众项目参赛运动员、观众、部分市民和游客进行调查。结果:全民全运形象由理念形象、参与形象和健康形象构成;城市形象由政府形象、社会形象和市民形象构成;全民全运与城市形象链式中介模型较优;理念形象、参与形象、健康形象与政府形象之间的直接效应量较高;健康形象与市民形象之间,理念形象、健康形象与社会形象之间的中介效应量较高。结论:情感、认同在理念形象、参与形象、健康形象与政府形象、社会形象关系之间,理念形象与市民形象关系之间有链式中介效应;情感、认同在健康形象与市民形象关系之间有完全中介效应;情感在参与形象与市民形象关系之间有部分中介效应。启示:全民全运形象可通过直接管理,情感、认同链式中介路径管理提升城市形象。     

Public Emotions and their Personal Consequences: The Nationalizing Affects of the Australian Football League since 1990

This article examines the historical and emotional consequences of the Victorian Football League's decision to ‘go national’. Many saw the emergence of the Australian Football League (AFL) as a threat to the authentic attachments of supporters. As many localized social practices were ‘rationalized’, however, engagement with the League increased across Australia. This article suggests that this success can be explained, in part, by the ways in which public representations of the AFL provided new points of identification for supporters. Drawing on recent work by critical theorists of emotion, I suggest that the already passionate culture of Australian rules supporting has been reworked by the animation of nationalistic attachments and the increasingly intimate representation of players in Australian public life. Ironically, though, these new modes of representation have opened the AFL out to heated debates about the emotions of the players themselves. The contested emergence of the crying AFL player in Australian public life since 2000 is both a product of these shifts and an example of the unruliness of identification and idealization. Attachments to players in the language of national identity, I suggest, are psychically volatile because they are connected to how supporters understand their own identities, lives, and losses.     

中国女足比赛技术统计指标与比赛结果的相关性研究

以中国女子足球国家队为研究对象,选取2010年至2011年共计15场正式比赛,对比赛相关技术指标的统计以及各技术指标与比赛结果的相关性分析表明:控球率、射门次数、射门成功率、进球四项技术指标与获得比赛胜利的相关性较高,而传球次数、定位球、犯规与越位等技术指标与获得比赛胜利的相关性较低.     

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.     

跑动类体能对足球技战术及比赛成绩的影响

良好的竞技成绩和对抗中的技战术水平的展现,离不开体能基础。在足球比赛中,体能以跑动类体能为主。以中国女足为研究对象,对同场对抗比赛中跑动类体能数据进行对比分析,得出跑动距离与速度的基本规律,发现球队与竞争对手的差距,以期为中国女足后续训练指明方向,并为研究提高我国足球训练竞赛水平提供参考依据。     

Women,Football and History: International Perspectives

This paper provides an overview of a collection of works related to women and football from international perspectives. After a general discursive introduction, the material discussed has its emphasis on studies connected to women and football that occur outside the locus of established scholarship. In particular, it is noted that the works concentrate on the geographic locations of New Zealand, Australia and the USA, and four major football codes are covered. The investigations are also not limited to women playing football, but female spectators and coterie groups are also considered. In terms of variety, different methodological and theoretical approaches are adopted, and a range of time periods are reflected on. Given the existing state of play, it would seem there is still much to be uncovered, documented and written about when it comes to women and the football codes. The conclusion is that any research agenda that emerges from observations on international perspectives concerning the relationship of women with football will continue to resonate and add value to wider understandings of sport and gender.     

The effects of REBT on irrational beliefs,self-determined motivation,and self-efficacy in American Football

ABSTRACT

It has been suggested in recent research that rational beliefs as conceptualized within rational-emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) can be operationalized as strategic self-talk, but this has yet to be meaningfully investigated. The current study examines the effects of five one-to-one REBT sessions with three amateur American Football athletes to foster rational self-talk. The purpose of the intervention was to reduce the irrational beliefs, but also in line with recent applied REBT research, to increase the self-determined motivation and self-efficacy of the athletes. Using an idiographic single-case, staggered multiple-baseline across participants design, visual analyses revealed meaningful increases in self-determined motivation and self-efficacy, adjunct to decreases in total irrational beliefs across all participants. Social validation data supported these outcomes. These findings add to the growing research indicating that REBT can influence motivational approaches in athletes, such as self-determined motivation and self-efficacy. Results are discussed in relation to processes underlying the mechanisms of change, while also reporting the limitations of the study. The robustness of the research design increases the extent to which target variable changes can be attributed to REBT, but critical reflections are undertaken to assess the veracity of the findings.     

Early Football and the Emergence of Modern Soccer: A Reply to Tony Collins

This paper seeks to defend one part of what has become known as the ‘revisionist’ account of the historiography of football in nineteenth-century England. In so doing, it responds to the critique by Tony Collins in his article ‘Early Football and the Emergence of Modern Soccer’ between 1840 and 1880, calling into question the reliance in his arguments of what he describes as ‘legal organized games’ as the only measure of a football culture outside of the public schools. His classification of small-sided games of football as an ‘informal leisure practice or folk custom’ is also interrogated and found wanting. Alternatively, further evidence is presented from 1860 of football games played in a variety of forms, usually alongside other sports, and mainly on church, works’ or schools’ outings, at rural fetes, galas and celebrations, or as street or casual football, the latter taking place in meadows, fields, and greens. Importantly, these were predominantly small-sided games and are, arguably, the ones closest to Association football, as it was codified in 1863, and constituted a broad, tenacious, and increasingly visible football culture that existed amongst the general population across mid-century uninfluenced by the public schools and public school boys.     

Narratives in Dialogue: Remembering,Experiencing, and Appropriating Changes in the Culture of Australian Rules Football

Abstract

In 1990, the Victorian Football League (VFL) became the Australian Football League (AFL) in a symbolic gesture to mark its continuing, although fragmented, national expansion. This commercially strategic move solidified the League’s enduring transition from a parochial competition of Melbourne and its suburbia to a clinically managed franchise business with a nationwide reach and an under-surface global ambition. In this paper, the continual yet not strictly linear development of the League is positioned as an interaction and, at times, a tension between locality and globality, from which to reflect on the stories of Billy and Steph – two AFL followers separated by a generation and differing life experiences. The paper chronologizes neither the VFL/AFL transition nor the two narratives but instead juxtaposes memories and present-day football encounters of the two fans, illuminating creative personal engagements with the League’s perpetually in-flux structures and offering insights into intimate meanings and utilities of community, belonging, and commodity within the AFL spectatorship culture.     

Push-and-Run between Power,Participation and Performance: Political Playmaking and the Tactics of the Asian Football Confederation

In the wake of the nomination of Qatar as host country for the World Cup 2022 and the subsequent debate on ethical and organizational aspects of running world football, more public attention has been drawn to actors that play an important role in the politically, economically, and culturally globalized ‘game’ of football. Journalists, academics, and fans have therefore spotlighted the significance of sport governing bodies in the context of aspects relating to power, profit, participation, and performance. This article provides an insight into the significance of political issues in sport in general and particularly with regard to football in Asia and the role of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Referring to the political processes within the football system as well as the political relations between non-governmental, governmental, and business actors this analysis produces an account of the complexity of football politics. Under consideration of three theoretical perspectives – globalization, neo-institutionalism, and governance – the paper assesses the AFC as Glocal Player, Corporate Actor, and Skilful Negotiator.     

The Emergence of Training and Assessment for Referees in Association Football: Moving from the Side-lines

The referee is an essential part of the codified form of Association Football that we know today. Nevertheless, this has not always been the case; whilst a referee, in some form, has been a requirement since codification in order for football matches to occur, referees have not always been central in the thought process of rule makers and those developing the game. This essay explores the evolution of the referee within Association Football and, more specifically, the training, support and assessment practices that referees have received since the codification of Association Football in 1863. Therefore, this essay focuses on debates and input from governing bodies, such as the Football Association, FIFA and the Referees Associations specifically related to referees and their training, support and assessment as the association code of football continued to evolve.     

校园足球教育改革与实践发展的思考——兼论成立中国（上海）足球教育学院的可行性

以校园足球人才培养为切入点,思考校园足球开展的实质、人才培养与发展出路等问题,探讨成立中国（上海）足球教育学院的必要性、可行性。通过充分整合高校、俱乐部、社会等资源,融合校园足球教育、人才培养、社会接纳三大系统,构建大中小学全覆盖、“一条龙”式的校园足球人才培养体系。     

Parallel Fields: Labour History and Sports History

This article offers a brief exploration of the historiography of labour history, a sub-field or sub-discipline that shares the same essential methodological base as sports history. It argues that labour history, sometimes derided for being conservative and narrowly focused thematically and methodologically, has actually been a site for considerable forward-thinking research in recent years. It examines some of this new research in two key areas – the relationship between class and gender on one hand and global, transnational, and comparative approaches on the other. Finally, it suggests that the institutional fragmentation of labour history is not necessarily as negative for the intellectual future of the field as is sometimes portrayed and that this might offer an alternative trajectory for those interested in the future of sports history.     

福建省竞技体育的历史与发展

采用文献研究的方法，对福建省竞技体育的历史及发展进行了研究，以期对福建省竞技体育夺冠发展战略的制定提供参考。     

Associations between retirement reasons,chronic pain,athletic identity,and depressive symptoms among former professional footballers

Background: Retirement from professional sport has been recognised as a major psychological stressor, and there is a need to identify factors that increase the risk of mental health problems after career termination. The current study examined associations between career-ending injury, chronic pain, athletic identity, and depressive symptomology in retired professional footballers. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed with 307 retired male footballers who had played within a professional United Kingdom league. Participants completed measures of depressive symptoms (Short Depression-Happiness Scale), chronic pain (Pain Intensity Numerical Rating Scale), and athletic identity (Athletic Identity Measurement Scale), and reported their reasons for retirement. Results: A total of 48 participants (16%) met the cut-off score for possible cases of clinically relevant depression. These participants were more recently retired, and had higher athletic identity than those without depressive symptoms. Former players with depressive symptoms were more likely to cite injury as a retirement reason, and report higher levels of ongoing injury-related pain. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that the presence of depressive symptoms was independently associated with retirement through injury (OR?=?3.44; 95% CI?=?1.39, 8.51), higher pain levels (OR?=?1.38; 95% CI?=?1.02, 1.86), and increased athletic identity (OR?=?1.28; 95% CI?=?1.14, 1.44). Conclusions: Career-ending injury is strongly associated with higher odds of depressive symptomology during retirement, while experiencing chronic pain, and maintaining a high sense of athletic identity, are additional potential contributors.     

借鉴与反思:英格兰足球历史演进、改革转型及其启示

运用文献资料法、历史分析法和逻辑分析法等,对英格兰足球的历史演进与改革转型进行研究,从黄金期、衰落期、重振期3个历史阶段梳理了英格兰足球的历史演进。分析了英格兰足球改革转型进程中的正面效应与潜在危机,研究认为:现代公司治理模式高度提升了英格兰职业联赛商业化和职业化水准,但也埋下了疯狂逐利的风险隐患;有效的制度服务治理保护了英格兰足球发展的环境基础和大众根基,但也养成了本土球员的恋土情节;强大的体育文化韧性支撑着英格兰足球发展方式和足球思维模式的转型,但也很难割裂传统的文化基因。最后,从职业层面、社会层面和校园层面指出了英格兰足球改革转型对我国足球发展的启示。     

Aspirational Reflections: The Future of Sport History

Abstract

This article provides a scrambled form of SWOT analysis of the ideas contained in the various contributions to this special issue on sport historians and the field of sport history. The market for sport history, pure and simple, is not in good shape in many places. Yet we must be careful not to confuse trends in employment prospects with shorter term fluctuations in demand. Nor should we conflate national issues with the international situation. One thing is certain: worldwide academia is expanding; surely, there must be opportunities somewhere for sport history. Sport historians may have to be prepared to move geographically or to get a job. Nonetheless, the field of sport history also has many strengths highlighted, and opportunities abound for collaborations, public engagement, and supporting our fellow sport historians across the globe. Instead of allowing the external threats and weaknesses to continue to grow, sport historians should draw on the encouraging aspects contained herein and take advantage of our field’s strengths and opportunities to develop new and creative initiatives which demonstrate the vibrancy and breadth of sport history.