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’.     

From Sportswear to Leisurewear: The Evolution of English Football League Shirt Design in the Replica Kit Era

The football shirt is of iconic significance, defining a club's visual identity through its role as sporting uniform and fan identifier, providing a canvas for commercial interactions and increasingly acting as the focus of nostalgia and collector culture. In this article we focus on the football shirt's extension from sportswear to a replica product worn as cross-generational leisurewear. We first consider how a replica's authenticity, its principal attribute, exists in objective, constructive and existential contexts. We then demonstrate how the subsequent focus of kit manufacturers and clubs on satisfying these differing interpretations of authenticity has influenced football shirt design. For two decades, replica kits were marketed as sportswear to children, with attempts to enhance the football shirt's authenticity through distinctiveness and exclusivity leading to copyrighted designs, manufacturer's logos and increased patterning. However, as the replica football shirt became adult leisurewear, the changing customer base led to retrospective and recycled shirt designs proclaiming a club's distinct identity through its heritage, fulfilling fans' nostalgic interpretations of a club's authentic kit, and reflecting fans' use of replica shirts to display their authenticity as a genuine fan. These ideals have also inspired a parallel retro-replica industry and, we argue, caused stagnation in the development of the aesthetic elements of contemporary kit design, which had previously demonstrated innovation interspersed with periods of consolidation, but had taken few retrospective turns. Genuine innovation in football shirt design has increasingly become restricted to technological advances and marketing strategies.     

Manchester and the Emergence of an Association Football Culture, 1840–1880: An Alternative Viewpoint

This paper provides a critique of the article by Gary James and Dave Day on ‘The Emergence of an Association Football Culture in Manchester, 1840–1884', published in Sport in History. We suggest an alternative interpretation of Manchester's football history during this period, arguing that Association football was a minor form of football in a city largely dominated by the rugby code. Furthermore, by employing an artificial construct of Manchester the authors have produced the wrong answer to the wrong question. Rather than trying to prove that Manchester developed an important Association football culture, we suggest they ought to have addressed the question of why such a culture did not exist. The contribution to the development of Association football of three isolated ‘transitory’ clubs in a city as large as Manchester is certainly not ‘substantial’. Subsequently, James and Day also fail to exploit fully their evidence for early football in the Manchester area by omitting to relate this properly to the much wider ongoing debate surrounding the origins of football. Conversely, there is ample evidence that ‘substantial’ Association football developments actually occurred in East Lancashire, centred on Bolton, Blackburn and Darwen, developments that are scarcely noted in James and Day's account.     

体育构建上海形象的途径及机制研究

随着全球化进程的进一步加速,城市形象问题业已成为城市规划发展的重点,也越来引起国际城市关系研究者的重点关注。体育在提升城市内涵,树立城市形象方面具有特殊作用。上海建设全球化体育城市的目标,为城市形象塑造带来了新的机遇,如何通过体育构建及塑造上海城市形象,其具体途径及机制也被提上重要议程。本研究认为,体育构建上海城市形象的路径可以包含以下几个方面：（1）强调政府主导地位;（2）以体育实力地位培育城市形象领导力;（3）走体育赛事战略发展之路;（4）以体育产业经济接轨巩固城市形象凝聚力;（5）以体育文化交流提升上海城市形象感染力。     

历届世界足球锦标赛情况分析与中国足球队首次征战世界杯决赛前景预测

世界杯是世界最高水平的足球比赛 ,从 1930年首届举办以来共进行了十六届。在即将由日、韩共同承办的第十七届世界杯决赛 ,中国足球队首获参赛权。本文通过对世界杯赛况及中国队前景的科学分析与预测 ,供足球工作者借鉴参考     

基于百度指数的校园足球网络关注度时空特征研究

随着校园足球进入深化改革初期，我国足球事业面临着前所未有的机遇和挑战，校园足球的关注度如何，哪些人群在关注，什么因素制约了校园足球的关注度，这些都应是在本时期研究的内容。利用百度指数的大数据平台，基于我国校园足球的现状，从定量角度，分析我国校园足球关注度的时空特征及其影响因素。研究发现：校园足球的关注度基本呈稳步上升的趋势，在2015年出现最高峰；校园足球的关注度与各省市区的国民生产总值（GDP）、足球特色学校数量等因素存在正相关的关系；全国31个省市区对校园足球的关注度差异较大，出现三级“阶梯”状分布。建议：各省市区应出台校园足球配套政策，保障校园足球的发展；加强区域之间的交流与合作，实现优质资源共享；大力建设足球特色学校，引导校园足球的发展。     

关于增强中国女子足球国际竞争力的初步思考

以当今世界女子足球发展水平和中国女子足球所处现状为基点,在比较中国与欧美女子足球主要优、劣势的基础上,对如何尽快增强中国女子足球国际竞争力和保持持续发展,提出一些看法。     

Cover Stories: English Football Magazine Cover Portrait Photographs 1950–1975

Charles Buchan's Football Monthly and Goal were two mass-circulation football magazines. This comparative case study of the portraits of professional footballers featured on their covers in the first years of their publication, the early 1950s and late 1960s respectively, situates this type of football portrait photograph in its historical context, tracing its origins in art and early photography, as well as discussing the cultural and social influences which contributed to its changing format. Such photographs are considered not as isolated artefacts, but as part of a series or sequence in which significant periods of continuity or change can be discerned. The potential audiences for these visual images, as well as the ambiguities and complexities of discerning their interpretation and reception by contemporaries, are analysed. These photographs, it argues, alongside other sources, reveal how some of professional football's advocates, at specific historical moments, attempted to promote an elevated image of its protagonists as embodiments of a particular style of admirable working-class masculinity, the model professional.     

建筑的隐喻：巴萨足球美学在中国接受者视野中的价值呈现

足球是功利性很强的竞技项目,其中的普世价值观为冠军所缔造。巴萨足球所阐释的纯美的足球源于巴塞罗那这座非凡的城市。巴塞罗那的建筑呈现出丰富多彩的层级性美学,城市本身就是一座艺术与魔幻之城。从艺术与城市性格互动性的层面说,高迪无疑影响了巴塞罗那的城市性格,而巴萨的城市性格又锻造了巴萨的艺术足球。高迪改变了一座城市的性格和地位,也潜移默化地左右着巴塞罗那人的思维规程。巴塞罗那人对巨星的依赖心即与他们对高迪的崇敬心理不无关系。高迪和巴塞罗那之城寄寓着一种共同的喻体。现代足球是城市的产物,现代中国的反复变革性的城市建设思路对足球的负面作用也很大,它致使中国的足球美学丧失了稳定性,而以巴塞罗那为代表的欧洲城市则普遍坚持保守主义的理念。中国足球的相对低位和城市文明的低位状态有一定关联度。     

青训、文化与风格：一场有关中国足球问题的对话

包括足球在内的中国男子三大球项目在最近一段时间出现了滑坡现象,其中足球成绩的下滑最为明显。足球是世界第一运动,在中国的影响也很大。自媒体时代,球迷在网络上发表了诸多意见,这些意见折射出了球迷们的质疑之情。从各方面反馈的信息来看,中国足球的成绩与中国球迷的心理预期相距较远,而造成如此局面的动因并未得到彻底的清理。与董路的对话围绕本主题展开,探讨了足球在中国发展的基本规律,并认为:完善并发展中小学足球体系,构建一种更为有益、有效、有为的中国式足球青训体系是中国足球发展的唯一出路。     

Kicking Around International Sport: West Germany's Return to the International Community Through Football

In 1948, the American Military Government worked with Swiss soccer officials to organise Germany's first post-war international matches, three simultaneous German–Swiss intercity games. The American occupation authorities viewed these games as part of their broader efforts to help teach Germans about democracy, as a way for the international community to begin the process of reaccepting Germany and as a way to raise funds for charitable purposes tied to the reconstruction efforts. These games received tremendous popular support in Germany and Switzerland from football officials, the general public and the press. These German–Swiss games also facilitated Germany's return to the international community by forcing one of the most powerful international sport federations to address Germany's exclusion. Through a combination of materials from military governments, football federations and the press, this article examines how states used the internationalism of sport to obtain diplomatic aims. With these three intercity matches, football provided a venue for Germans to participate in relations with other countries while Germany itself remained excluded from the traditional international relations of diplomats.     

Football Museums: History,Identity, and Connection

Abstract

With an increasing number of museums of popular culture, the portrayal of the ‘pop’ and everyday life experiences has linked museums more closely with projections of identities. Engaging with one of world’s most popular sports, football museums enhance the possibilities of reaching a wider public and of providing forums for issues of history and identity. Based on research conducted at the National Football Museum in Manchester and the Linzi Football Museum in Zibo, a cross-cultural study of how football museums represent the history of football, construct identities, and promote communications between different football cultures is provided. By examining the exhibiting practices, activity programmes, cultural settings of the two football museums, as well as connections between them, this article joins continuing efforts to understand the interpretations of football culture, with objectives of introducing the usually ignored Linzi Football Museum to the football world and communicating the development of football museums to a wider audience.     

从北京奥运会足球比赛看中国足球和世界主流球队之间的差距

中国国奥男子足球队在北京奥运会足球比赛上的表现大家看得清清楚楚,虽然国奥队在比赛前国人都寄予了厚望,但通过三场比赛,我们看到了中国足球同世界足球的差距,特别是同世界二流球队的比赛,我们的体力、技战术水平、足球意识都与世界二流球队有一定的差距,更不用说和世界主流球队的差距了。本文主要从国奥队技战术水平、心理素质、足球意识等方面阐述中国足球与世界足球的差距,让我们看到中国足球的不足,以及如何学习国外先进的足球理念和技术,并能在实际运用中加以消化和利用。     

The success culture of Nordic football: the cases of the national men’s teams of Norway in the 1990s and Iceland in the 2010s

Abstract

Every now and then – but with surprising regularity – small nations break through to the international level in sports and attract the attention of the global sports world. This paper focuses on two such occasions in men’s international football: the Norwegian national team in the 1990s and Iceland’s national team in the 2010s. We conducted case studies of the two teams, which consisted of interviews, observation of games and published material. The key emerging themes were how sport successes in Norway and Iceland took place amid the developing professionalism of sport, and how both teams built on important elements from amateurism and professionalism in their successful sporting conquests. We argue that some of the team’s characteristics were founded in a specifically Nordic mentality, which at the right time with the right message manifests in great achievements. Finally, the study follows the decay of the Norwegian national team in the new millennium and suggests that Icelandic football could face the same decline in results as Norway did 20 years earlier.     

Playing left wing; from Sunday League socialism to international solidarity. A social history of the development of Republica Internationale FC

Republica Internationale FC is a socialist football club that is part of a broader international network of like-minded alternative grassroots clubs. Collectively the members play and campaign worldwide on a variety of issues in a variety of settings. This article reveals how the club has struggled to define and sustain itself more than 30 years. It explores what socialist football is, how the club was conceived and nurtured, how it is organized and how the international network was cultivated. It spans the clubs operations from the Sunday League mundane to the international spectaculars. It tracks how the club has adapted to confront many social and political challenges. It examines external and internal ideological conflict, the club's successes and setbacks, and how gender transforms the club. The article critically evaluates the club's credibility. It offers an insight into how leftist culture can flourish and be sustained in grassroots sport.     

Not just Any Wintry Afternoon in England: the curious contribution of C.R.W. Nevinson to ‘football art’

This paper considers the painting Any Wintry Afternoon in England (1930) (AWA) by the prominent artist and social commentator C.R.W. Nevinson (1889–1946). The painting is one of few, and perhaps the best-known, by an English fine artist to take football as its subject matter during the first 40 years of that sport's professional existence. The paper concentrates on gaining an understanding of this painting within the context of Nevinson's biography. Of course, a painting may well be admired by viewers without any knowledge of the painter at all, and no issue is taken in the paper with the possibility of totally independent readings. But from an art-history and cultural-history perspective, knowledge of a painter's biography is significant in allowing for consideration of the artwork as a product of its time. In the case of AWA, knowledge of Nevinson's hostility to sport supports the view of a leading critic, on the occasion its of its exhibition, that the painting was intended as a satire on the mass popularity of football in England in the 1920s. Forearmed with this knowledge, wariness can be taken against subsequent attempts to locate AWA within a genre of ‘football paintings’ that represent an enthusiasm for the game. Nevinson's earlier involvement with Futurism had acquainted him with that movement's tendency to take aspects of popular culture as inspiration for art. But Nevinson took football as a derisory subject matter rather than inspiration and in doing so put AWA at odds with the contemporaneous visual representations of football that had begun to appear in popular mediums such as postcards and film. Yet, contrary to some wishful interpretations though it may be, AWA, owing to its very contrariness, remains an important historical image in the visual representation of football as popular culture.     

我国足球体制中存在的问题及解决措施分析

足球是世界各国第一大的体育运动项目,随着经济的快速发展,世界各国已经对足球相当的重视。现阶段我国足球体制中还存在着许多问题没有解决,抑制了中国足球与世界接轨的脚步,近些年中国足球取得的成绩少之又少,整体水平呈下降趋势,这就要求相关部门对足球进行改革,提出切实可行的措施,推进中国足球向前发展。     

Scandinavian women’s football: the importance of male and female pioneers in the development of the sport

ABSTRACT

The importance of female and male pioneers in the development of women’s football in Scandinavia is in focus, where some of the female pioneers’ experiences presented. Sif Kalvø from Western Norway was the first known Scandinavian female football player who played abroad in Italy in 1971, and she was one of the pioneers. She was dependent on door openers in Norway and abroad. The door openers role, in making professional football possible; how the professional contracts came through; and why the Scandinavian female footballers went global in the early phases, discussed. To study this the Norwegian Mother of Women’s football, Målfrid Kuvås, and other female pioneer footballers are in-depth interviewed. Kuvås’ large collection of scrapbooks with media coverage, letters and other correspondence from the 1960s to 2000s are also studied. Qualitative in-depth interviews carried out, with five of the early professionals and five of the leaders involved in the migration processes. Secondary sources are academic literature and sport media. The dream about playing professional football, and to be able to live from football brought female players across the globe. Due to this, migration research is of interest when studying women’s football, and ‘push’- and ‘pull’- factors in migration are discussed.     

The Study of Discourse on Change in South Korean Football: Between Tradition and Modernity,from Colonial to Post-Colonial

This study seeks to understand the discourse on/and legitimisation of ‘change’ in Korean football. The paper asks the following questions: how has the South Korean post-colonial project for development and nation-state building shaped the discourse on football development in South Korea? How this change has been defined, diffused, imposed, debated and/or resisted in South Korean football? To respond to these questions, the paper examines the debates on modernity and modernisation in Korean society and in football. To this end, we trace some of the ways that colonial and post-colonial discourses have been appropriated in relation to South Korea's construction of ‘self’ and ‘otherness’, and in defining meanings about change – in the sense of reform, modernisation, rationalisation and professionalisation – of South Korean football.     

Football and Urban Expansion in São Paulo,Brazil, 1880-1920

Football is central to Brazilian society, its way of imagining itself and its position in the world. Existing accounts of the origins of football in Brazil in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries tend towards mono-causal explanations, highlighting the role of British pioneers and Brazilian enthusiasm for the game. This article argues for a multi-causal explanation, using a mixed methodology of archival research in Brazil and the UK, combined with spatial analysis through the development of GIS maps. Building upon the existing interpretations, it shows how important the historical contexts of dynamics of urban expansion and transport infrastructure development – both with considerable British influence – were to the establishment of football as Brazil's national sport.