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.     

Accumulating subcultural capital through sport event participation: The AFL International Cup

In this study, the authors use participant interviews to examine how participating in an international event enabled the accumulation of subcultural capital. The authors conducted interviews with players (N = 9) in the Australian Football League (AFL) International Cup from Canada, USA, New Zealand, and Ireland. The AFL International Cup created a liminal state offering individuals with opportunities for: (a) national representation; (b) international competition and comparison; (c) cross-cultural learning and interaction; (d) sport subcultural engagement; and, (d) authentic game experiences. The resulting experience enabled participants a deeper connection with the sport subculture, which created the potential for sport advocacy in their home countries. Results will assist international sport event hosts in creating meaningful participant experiences that facilitate deeper personal attachments to the sporting subculture.     

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.     

Mission Statements and Cake Stalls: The Women’s Supporter Group in Australian Football League Clubs

ABSTRACT

The Australian Football League (AFL) has made extensive efforts in the past decade to ensure that Australian Rules football is seen as an inclusive culture that respects, acknowledges, and desires the presence of female supporters in its membership base. Given that women have constituted a significant proportion of the football audience since the inception of the game in the mid-1800s, this show of support for women would appear to be belated and leads one to question what other motivations lie behind it. This article questions whether these recent attempts to acknowledge women as an important constituent group in AFL football culture, through the formation and/or maintenance of dedicated female supporter groups and networks in AFL football clubs, are genuinely aimed at making AFL club culture more inclusive of women.     

The efficacy of talent selection criteria in the Australian Football League

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the association between talent selection criteria, draft order and match performance in professional Australian Football players. Physical performance results from the Australian Football League (AFL) National Draft combine and non-performance based talent selection criteria were collated for all players drafted in the National Draft with selections 1–80 between 2003 and 2008 (n = 318). Match performance was assessed via the AFL Player Ranking metric that was provided by a commercial statistical provider (Champion Data Pty Ltd). A combination of stepwise multiple regression and linear mixed model analyses examined the influence of National Draft combine physical performance assessments and non-performance based talent selection criteria on draft order and future match performance. Earlier draft selection was associated with Under-18 all Australian team selection, height, Under-18 National Championship participation and indigenous status. The 20 m sprint and state of origin were associated with later draft selection. Under-18 all Australian team selection increased both Player Ranking/game and total Player Ranking. Under-18 all Australian team selection displays efficacy for selecting players with the potential for success.     

‘Playing Dead’ and Killing Off Amateurism: Bribery Scandals,Illegal Player Payments,Rule Expunging,and the Victorian Football League’s Authorization of Professionalism in 1911

Abstract

Australian football is an indigenous game codified in 1859. In Melbourne, the code’s birthplace, the game remained officially committed to the amateur ideal for over a half-century. Illegal player payments nonetheless became increasingly commonplace. Moreover, periodically rumours swirled of champion footballers taking bribes to ‘play dead’. By the early 1900s, the code’s leading competition, the Victorian Football League (VFL), was derided with the ‘shamateurism’ label. Following a sensational match-fixing investigation that resulted in two players receiving five-year bans, in 1911 the VFL expunged its rule prohibiting player payments. Was the timing merely coincidental or was the League’s historic switch to professionalism a deliberate countermeasure to redirect press attention, renew public confidence, and restore the game’s integrity? By consulting the League’s official records and contemporary press articles, this work examines the overlooked yet discernible linkages between rising match-fixing allegations and the VFL’s decision to eschew amateurism and embrace professionalism. It argues that Australian football offers an instructive historical perspective of a sporting body tackling mounting concerns over corruption, taking back the ascendency by amending its rules to better govern over dishonest players and duplicitous club officials, thereby growing its popularity and restoring public perception of its integrity in the process.     

Relative age effects in Australian Football League National Draftees

Abstract

This study examined the birth distribution for adolescent (i.e. <20 years) and mature age players (i.e. ≥20 years) selected in the Australian Football League (AFL) National Draft between 2001 and 2012. Birth-date information was accessed for all first time AFL national draftees and players were then classified as either adolescent (N = 736) or mature age (N = 70) draftees. Chi-squared analysis showed a clear bias in the birth distribution of adolescent draftees towards players born in the first part of the classification period for both quartile (P < 0.001) and half-year (P < 0.001) compared to the Australian national population. There was a reverse relative age effect (RAE) for mature age draftees, with a significant bias towards players born in the latter part of the selection period for both quartile (P = 0.047) and half-year (P = 0.028) compared to the Australian national population. The selection bias towards relatively older players in adolescent AFL draftees may be related to advanced physical and psychological maturity, and exposure to higher-level coaching compared to their younger counterparts. The reverse RAE in mature age draftees is a novel finding and supports the need for strategies to encourage continued participation pathways for talented Australian football players born later in the selection year.     

The cultural transition of Indigenous Australian athletes’ into professional sport

This article reports on a study that inquired into the journeys of sixteen Indigenous Australian athletes from their first touch of the footy to the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) that identified two distinct stages of their journeys. These were: (1) the development of expertize and of a distinctly Aboriginal style of play from their first touch of a footy to around the age of thirteen and, (2) a process of cultural transitioning toward and into the AFL and NRL. This article takes an interdisciplinary approach to focus on the second stage of transitioning into the world of professional sport and sport as business. Identifying this as a process of cultural transitioning from local Aboriginal culture to the culture of professional sport provided insight into this transitioning process while illuminating the profound importance of culture in this process. It also helped identify the ways in which tensions between local approaches to ‘footy’ as play and cultural expression and professional sport as work, within the global culture of sport-as-business, were manifested in the challenges that the participants had to overcome. This article thus contributes to knowledge about Indigenous development of sporting expertize, of the specific challenges they face in transitioning into the global culture of commodified sport and how they succeed from a cultural perspective.     

Acting as one: understanding the actions of the banned Essendon 34

In January 2016, 34 past and present players from the Essendon Football Club were found guilty of being injected with banned peptide, Thymosin Beta 4, while participating in Essendon’s supplements programme in 2011 and 2012. The release of the Court of Arbitration of Sport’s (CAS) summary of findings raised questions about the actions and intent of the participating players. In particular, the CAS highlighted concerns that the players showed a lack of due diligence and curiosity and acted in a secretive nature. This article seeks to provide a means of understanding the actions of the 34 Essendon players who willingly participated in Essendon Football Club’s supplements programme by viewing them as active participants of a community. In doing so it becomes clear that the actions of the Essendon 34 were not unusual, but that a cultural shift within Australian Football League clubs may be needed to ensure a crisis like it never occurs again.     

Criminalizing songs and symbols in Scottish Football: how anti-sectarian legislation has created a new ‘sectarian’ divide in Scotland

Since the 1990s, the regulation of football fans has increasingly shifted from the policing of actions to the policing of words. With this in mind, this article looks at the impact of the anti-sectarian ‘industry’ in Scotland. In particular, it looks at the impact that legislation in Scotland, that criminalized football fans’ songs and chants, has had on Glasgow Celtic, and especially Glasgow Rangers, supporters. The article is based on participatory action research with football supporters in Glasgow who were opposing the Offensive Behaviour at Football Bill, in 2011. Through this work, two issues became necessary to address; firstly, the impact of the anti-sectarian ‘industry’ in Scotland, which has grown precisely at a time when sectarianism appears to be declining, and secondly, the emergence of a new tension, divide or form of intolerance, which is developing amongst fans (particularly Glasgow Rangers fans), that has been created by this anti-sectarian industry.     

FIFA及CAS规则在中国足球职业联赛球员合同纠纷中的实务应用——以球员合同争议管辖为视角

擅要：国际足坛每年发生大量的球员合同纠纷。近年来,随着中国足球整体环境的改善,多家俱乐部加大投入,引进高水平外援,大大提升了中国足球职业联赛的水平。但与此同时,中国足球职业联赛中球员与俱乐部之间的合同纠纷也不断升级。球员合同属于劳动合同,中国的劳动合同争议有专门的管辖机关,即劳动争议仲裁委员会,并可上诉至法院,适用的法律为中国的《劳动合同法》。而在足球领域,球员工作合同纠纷是由国家足协、国际足联乃至国际体育仲裁院进行管辖,适用的规则为国家足协或国际足联相关规则。因此,当球员合同纠纷发生在中国职业联赛中时,如何结合我国当前的立法及国际足联关于足球行业的内部规定,选择恰当的纠纷管辖机构,是实践和理论中一个具有挑战性且意义深远的课题。文章结合笔者在处理这些足球运动员合同纠纷过程中积累的实务经验,分析中国足球职业联赛中不同类型的球员合同纠纷的解决方式及管辖权,以保护中国职业联赛中球员及俱乐部的利益,促进中国足球与国际足球在法律制度层面上的融合与接轨。     

In pursuit of becoming a senior coach: the learning culture for Australian Football League coaches

Background and Purpose: Given the turbulent and highly contested environment in which professional coaches work, a prime concern to coach developers is how coaches learn their craft. Understanding the learning and development of senior coaches (SCs) and assistant coaches (ACs) in the Australian Football League (AFL – the peak organisation for Australian Rules Football) is important to better develop the next generation of performance coaches. Hence the focus of this research was to examine the learning of SC and AC in the AFL. Fundamental to this research was an understanding that the AFL and each club within the league be regarded as learning organisations and workplaces with their own learning cultures where learning takes place. The purpose of this paper was to examine the learning culture for AFL coaches.

Method: Five SCs, 6 ACs, and 5 administrators (4 of whom were former coaches) at 11 of the 16 AFL clubs were recruited for the research project. First, demographic data were collected for each participant (e.g. age, playing and coaching experience, development and coach development activities). Second, all participants were involved in one semi-structured interview of between 45 and 90 minutes duration. An interpretative (hierarchical content) analysis of the interview data was conducted to identify key emergent themes.

Results: Learning was central to AFL coaches becoming a SC. Nevertheless, coaches reported a sense of isolation and a lack of support in developing their craft within their particular learning culture. These coaches developed a unique dynamic social network (DSN) that involved episodic contact with a number of respected confidantes often from diverse fields (used here in the Bourdieuian sense) in developing their coaching craft. Although there were some opportunities in their workplace, much of their learning was unmediated by others, underscoring the importance of their agentic engagement in limited workplace affordances.

Conclusion: The variety of people accessed for the purposes of learning (often beyond the immediate workplace) and the long time taken to establish networks of supporters meant that a new way of describing the social networks of AFL coaches was needed; DSN. However, despite the acknowledged utility of learning from others, all coaches reported some sense of isolation in their learning. The sense of isolation brought about by professional volatility in high-performance Australian Football offers an alternative view on Hodkinson, Biesta and James' attempt in overcoming dualisms in learning.     

Comparison of athletic movement between elite junior and senior Australian football players

This study compared the athletic movement skill between elite Under-18 (U18) Australian football (AF) and senior Australian Football League (AFL) players. The U18 sample (n = 13; 17.7 ± 0.6 years) were representatives of an elite talent development programme. The AFL players were classified accordingly; Group 1 (1–4 AFL seasons; n = 20; 21.2 ± 1.9 years) and Group 2 (>5 AFL seasons; n = 14; 26.3 ± 2.6 years). Participants performed an athletic movement skill assessment, inclusive of five foundational movements. Each movement was scored across three assessment points using a three-point scale. Total score for each movement (maximum of nine) and overall score (maximum of 63) were used as criteria. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to test the effect of developmental group (three levels) on the criteria. Receiver operating curves were built to examine the discriminant capability of the overall score. A significant effect of developmental group was noted, with the U18 sample having a lower mean total score for four of the five movements. Overall scores of 49/63 and 50/63 discriminated the elite U18 sample from Group 1 and Group 2, respectively. U18 players may have less developed athletic movement skills when compared to their senior AFL counterparts.     

Caught between passion for the game and the need for education: a study of elite-level female football players in Denmark

This article focuses on the passion of Danish elite-level female football players for the game and the challenges they face. How do they manage to combine the tough demands of a football life with the need for education? A quantitative survey (2010) was sent out to female players in the Danish 3F Ligaen and Danish national team players. The findings indicate challenges faced by players in pursuing their passion, as they struggle to combine everyday life, education and work with a football career, either as amateurs or on a playing contract. In the light of the Scandinavian sport model inspired by Victor Pestoff, we may be operating with a different form of elite in women’s football in Denmark. Future focal points for clubs and the Danish Football Association are to continue supporting the players’ passion for the game and Team Denmark’s focus on ‘the whole human being’ in athletes.     

Relationship between leg stiffness and lower body injuries in professional Australian football

Leg stiffness is a modifiable mechanical property that may be related to soft tissue injury risk. The purpose of this study was to examine mean leg stiffness and bilateral differences in leg stiffness across an entire professional Australian Football League (AFL) season, and determine whether this parameter was related to the incidence of lower body soft tissue injury. The stiffness of the left and right legs of 39 professional AFL players (age 24.4 ± 4.4 years, body mass 87.4 ± 8.1 kg, stature 1.87 ± 0.07 m) was measured using a unilateral hopping test at least once per month throughout the season. Injury data were obtained directly from the head medical officer at the football club. Mean leg stiffness and bilateral differences in leg stiffness were compared between the injured and non-injured players. There was no difference between the season mean leg stiffness values for the injured (219.3 ± 16.1 N x m(-1) x kg(-1)) and non-injured (217.4 ± 14.9 N x m(-1) x kg(-1); P = 0.721) groups. The injured group (7.5 ± 3.0%) recorded a significantly higher season mean bilateral difference in leg stiffness than the non-injured group (5.5 ± 1.3%; P = 0.05). A relatively high bilateral difference in leg stiffness appears to be related to the incidence of soft tissue injury in Australian football players. This information is of particular importance to medical and conditioning staff across a variety of sports.     

Asymmetries in scheduling slots and game-day revenues: An example from the Australian Football League

This article investigates three related questions: first, whether the Australian Football League exhibits attendance asymmetries across the available playing slots; second, whether various subgroups of teams in the AFL have equal access to the more highly attended time slots; and, third, whether asymmetries in the first two phenomena can drive meaningful asymmetries in match-day revenues across clubs. We find that asymmetries exist not only across the various playing slots, but also in various teams’ access to the more highly attended slots. Further, by providing some novel estimates of revenue streams from television and gate receipts, we show that these asymmetries can drive substantial differences in game-day revenues. A key implication is that scheduling should be treated with the same critical analysis as the many other factors that affect the financial performance of clubs.     

上海女足2012年联赛期间比赛跑动特征分析

目的：通过对上海女足2012年联赛中比赛活动特征的分析,了解上海女足比赛中的跑动特点及体能状况;通过与国内最高水平比赛、国家队及其他世界强队的对比分析,了解与高水平运动队之间的差距,寻找到上海女足训练的突破点,为上海女足在第12届全运会中夺取金牌提供有效的科技支撑.方法：通过已取得专利的自主研发的足球训练负荷监控系统对上海女足2012年联赛上海赛区上海—大连、上海—长春的两场比赛进行跑动负荷的测试.结果：（1） 2012年联赛期间上海赛区的比赛与国外高水平运动队相比,上海女足运动员高速跑和冲刺跑的距离及所比重偏少.（2）上海女足在2012年联赛中不同位置运动员在比赛中整体跑动能力存在差异,边后卫和中场球员总跑动距离最多,而边前卫和边后卫的高强度及以上跑动距离最多,前锋高强度以上跑动距离最少.（3）上海女足在2012年联赛前准备期高强度的有氧间歇训练不足,导致联赛期间体能贮备不足.结论：我国女足联赛水平较低、对抗性不强,上海女足运动员联赛期间的跑动能力与国内最高水平比赛及世界强队相比存在一定的差距,今后的训练必须加强高强度的有氧间歇训练.     

‘Brand Israel’: hasbara and Israeli sport

Until relatively recently, the state of Israel was preoccupied with its military security and paid little attention to cultural politics. However, the emergence of other ‘battlegrounds’ has seen a shift to ‘soft power’ in an attempt to generate a more benevolent global image. This paper spotlights an international sporting event which ordinarily attracts very limited interest from the mainstream media. However, when held in Israel, it created much greater interest. The paper identifies the UEFA’s Men’s U-21 tournament, held in Israel in 2013, to assess how different groups responded to the event: celebratory by the host nation and its supporters, the Israeli Football Association and UEFA; critical amongst Palestinians and their supporters in the international community. The paper identifies how the Israeli state is using ‘hasbara’ in an attempt to arrest its deteriorating international image and shows how the concept is empirically operationalized (‘hasbara in action’).     

Getting Generation Y to attend: Friends,interactivity and half-time entertainment

People from Generation Y, given their number and stage in the family life-cycle, represent a key emerging audience for major sports. The study focussed on the effect of friends and half time enhancements on likely attendance at matches. The sport domain was the Australian Football League (AFL), the elite Australian rules football competition. The enhancements being tested were half-time entertainments based on performers from well-known television talent shows, Australian Idol and It Takes Two. Scenarios with and without interactive participation, based on short messaging service (SMS) messages, were tested. The study used a general population sample of 909 Generation Y people in a traditional AFL market and one where AFL is not the major winter competition. Previous attendance and sport orientation were the major influences on attendance at major sports, including the AFL. Friends influenced likely attendance at a game, but no effects were found for half-time entertainments. People who attended matches with friends typically had social activities before and after the game. This suggested that one promotional strategy to expand existing markets was to find and engage the social networks of existing fans, making sport attendance a broader part of an overall social event.     

A novel sleep optimisation programme to improve athletes’ well-being and performance

Objectives: To improve well-being and performance indicators in a group of Australian Football League (AFL) players via a six-week sleep optimisation programme. Design: Prospective intervention study following observations suggestive of reduced sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness in an AFL group. Methods: Athletes from the Adelaide Football Club were invited to participate if they had played AFL senior-level football for 1–5 years, or if they had excessive daytime sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale [ESS] >10), measured via ESS. An initial education session explained normal sleep needs, and how to achieve increased sleep duration and quality. Participants (n?=?25) received ongoing feedback on their sleep, and a mid-programme education and feedback session. Sleep duration, quality and related outcomes were measured during week one and at the conclusion of the six-week intervention period using sleep diaries, actigraphy, ESS, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Profile of Mood States, Training Distress Scale, Perceived Stress Scale and the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. Results: Sleep diaries demonstrated an increase in total sleep time of approximately 20?min (498.8?±?53.8 to 518.7?±?34.3; p?<?.05) and a 2% increase in sleep efficiency (p?<?0.05). There was a corresponding increase in vigour (p?<?0.001) and decrease in fatigue (p?<?0.05). Conclusions: Improvements in measures of sleep efficiency, fatigue and vigour indicate that a sleep optimisation programme may improve athletes’ well-being. More research is required into the effects of sleep optimisation on athletic performance.