Class,Ethnicity and Civic Governance: A Social Profile of Football Club Directors on Merseyside in the Late-Nineteenth Century

By presenting a wide range of evidence relating to the social characteristics of directors of Merseyside's professional football clubs, an attempt is made in this article to locate the late-nineteenth-century professional football club within the prevailing power relations of the localities in which they were based. The primary objective of the study is to assess the extent to which professional football clubs were part of a network of civic organizations utilized by the urban middle class as a means of maintaining their social and political cohesion. On the basis of the evidence presented here, it is demonstrated that a significant proportion of directors were involved in influential socio-political organizations on Merseyside. It is concluded that the Merseyside football clubs can be viewed as cultural organizations that were integral to the shaping of civic governance.     

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.     

The Usual Suspect: A History of Football Violence in the State of Israel

Rather than hooliganism per se, violence here is examined both in its totality and the extent to which the history of football violence in Israel has been subject to a fluctuating social, political and economic context. Initially, footballers were ‘the usual suspect’ as violence was often incited by the players on the pitch. For political reasons, the Israel Football Association (IFA) was practically helpless. Over time, violent incidents on the pitch decreased as a change in the pattern of violence took place. Due to an increasing commodification of Israeli football, players and spectators switched places. The crowd was now ‘the usual suspect’ and later, due to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, ethnicity-nationality became the major trigger for violent actions in Israeli football.     

Social Change,Astro-Turfs,and Entrepreneurial Activities in the Context of German Non-Elite Football: The Example of Lower-Division Club BSV Bielstein

Abstract

This article explores the efforts of a German non-elite football club to revitalize itself using a combination of modernization strategies to overcome a perceived existential crisis. The modernizing strategies involved improving facilities (laying an artificial pitch and building a new club house) while at the same time actively pursuing a community role via, for example, work with refugees. The interdisciplinary approach used here stresses the peculiar character of institutionalization/bureaucratization (clubs/associations) in combination with the social world of club football as emotional community in Germany since the nineteenth century. In contrast to an emphasis on the systemic character of football as a closed social system with its specific set of rules in which the logic of action is historically predetermined, this article focusses on social actors and their constant struggle to recreate and redefine the social world of football through their actions.     

2005-2006欧洲冠军杯足球赛16强射门进球的统计分析

对2005-2006欧洲冠军杯足球赛16强29场比赛中的57个进球进行分类统计分析,找出欧洲顶级俱乐部足球赛进球的规律和特征,主要的进球方式是快速流动进攻,在流动进攻中最多的方式是抢点射门进球;罚球区内和罚球区前沿地带是射门进球的最佳区域;射门得分的进攻路线在边路,但强队更趋于边中结合;进球时间上半场进球低于下半场。并探讨当今欧洲俱乐部技战术发展的潮流与趋势。     

Football: A Sociology of the Global Game By Richard Giulianotti. Published 1999 by Polity Press, 65 Bridge Street,Cambridge, CB2 1UR,UK. (256 pp., $29.95)

Martial-arts practice is not quite anything else: it is like sport, but is not sport; it constantly refers to and as it were cohabits with violence, but is not violent; it is dance-like but not dance. It shares a common athleticism with sports and dance, yet stands apart from both, especially through its paradoxical commitment to the external value of being an instrument of violence. My discussion seeks to illuminate martial arts practice by systematic contrast to games of sport and works of performance art, especially dance.     

山东省济南市3-6岁幼儿体质现状的研究

为了解山东省济南市3—6岁幼儿的体质现状，探讨影响幼儿体质发展变化的规律及完善国民体质监测网络。对济南市城区和3县的800名幼儿进行调查与测试。结果表明：济南市3—6岁幼儿体质状况良好。但男幼儿体质状况总体上落后于女幼儿；城市幼儿的体质状况略好于农村幼儿。     

Effects of a kindergarten-based,family-involved intervention on motor performance ability in 3- to 6-year-old children: the ToyBox-study

This study targeted to examine the effect of the ToyBox-intervention, a kindergarten-based, family-involved intervention, aiming to improve preschooler’s energy-related behaviours (e.g., physical activity) on motor performance ability. Physical activity sessions, classroom activities, environmental changes and tools for parents were the components of the 1-year intervention. The intervention and control were cluster-randomised, and children’s anthropometry and two motor test items (jumping from side to side, JSS and standing long jump, SLJ) were assessed. A total of 1293 (4.6 ± 0.69 years; 52% boys) from 45 kindergartens in Germany were included (intervention, n = 863; control, n = 430). The effect was assessed using generalised estimating equation. The intervention group showed a better improvement in JSS (Estimate 2.19 jumps, P = 0.01) and tended to improve better in SLJ (Estimate 2.73 cm, P = 0.08). The intervention was more effective in boys with respect to SLJ (P of interaction effect = 0.01). Children aged <4.5 years did not show a significant benefit while older children improved (JSS, Estimate 3.38 jumps, P = 0.004; SLJ, Estimate 4.18 cm, P = 0.04). Children with low socio-economic status improved in JSS (Estimate 5.98 jumps, P = 0.0001). The ToyBox-intervention offers an effective strategy to improve specific components of motor performance ability in early childhood. Future programmes should consider additional strategies specifically targeting girls and younger aged children.

Abbreviations: BMI: body mass index; SES: socio-economic status; JSS: jumping from side to side; SLJ: standing long jump; SD: standard deviation; GEE: generalised estimating equation     

由松而静,道法自然——漫说邱丕相教授的《悠悠太极养性情》

对邱丕相教授的《悠悠太极养性情》进行了深刻的哲学阐释。认为,邱丕相教授的《悠悠太极养性情》,以通俗的语言,解说了太极拳运动的最佳方式——道法自然和太极拳训练的终极法则——由松而静,是一篇很有学术价值的非学术论文。