Politics,resistance and patronage: the African boycott of the 1966 World Cup and its ramifications

ABSTRACT

The 1966 World Cup Finals are remembered primarily for on-field events, not least the host’s capture of the Jules Rimet trophy, the performances of the minnows of North Korea in reaching the quarter-finals and the Eusebio-inspired exploits of the tournament’s other debutants, Portugal. What is less prominent in this history but more significant in impacting the longer-term trajectory of the World Cup and the global game, are events off the field of play, specifically the decision of African nations to boycott the qualifying rounds of the tournament. This paper assesses the circumstances behind this boycott, both within FIFA and in the highly charged political climate that characterized the immediate post-colonial era. Particular attention is paid to the role of Ghana as the boycott's chief architect. Thereafter, I explore some of the intended and unintended consequences of the boycott, including its contribution to an ongoing transformation in the global governance of football.     

Historical Frameworks and Sporting Research

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a wealth of research into how the game of association football developed. However, rather than establishing a common theme this research has led to competing theories with the debate dividing opinion on how the game of football was developed and propagated. While debate is healthy, the approach taken by some could lead to fellow academics looking to those engaged in sport history as unprofessional. This paper seeks to propose a way forward with academics working towards an all-encompassing history of the sport, by suggesting the adoption of a framework based on the work of Fernand Braudel, where indepth analysis of individual events is combined with the identification of transformational cycles. The paper concludes by suggesting that historians interested in soccer’s early history work together within the framework to develop a more detailed and all-encompassing early history of the sport. This framework will not claim that either the orthodox or revisionist view is accurate, instead it will determine how best to work those debates into an all-encompassing approach while searching for detailed evidence on what was actually occurring at local levels.     

Gender,photography and women’s football in England: the Portsmouth Ladies FC, 1916–1918

ABSTRACT

Founded in 1916, the Portsmouth Ladies FC were one of many women’s football teams active during the First World War. Building upon the work of Jean Williams, Patrick Brennan and Ian Nannestad, this article seeks to broaden our knowledge of the development of women’s wartime football. Its principal sources are images held by National Football Museum, the Pompey History Society, along with newly digitised newspapers. This article explores two aspects of the club’s history. Firstly, it presents an overview detailing the team’s origins, playing record, the types of games they played, including games against male teams, and the role of Councillor Tom Langdon in organising and promoting their activities. Secondly, it will explore the significant photographic coverage afforded to the team, in particular by the Portsmouth Evening News photographer Joseph Stephen Cribb. It will be argued that the club’s history helps develop the chronological development of women’s football in World War On. It will also be argued that visual depictions of the team show both an increasing interest in the women’s game, and also the limits and gendered nature of that interest.     

From Mitropa Cup to UEFA Cup: the role of UEFA in the establishment of a European scale in football, 1927–1972

ABSTRACT

Since the 1920s, many European exchanges began to exist in the domain of football. However, it was during the 1950s that a European scale was established primarily due to the creation of UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) in 1954, which quickly organized the first European tournament in the game’s history– The European Champions Clubs’ Cup. The present essay argues that Europeanization of the game has to be understood in a long-term perspective. The papers examines the creation and development of three competitions as key defining events, which represented different stages of the Europeanization of the game: Mitropa Cup (created in 1927), European Champion Clubs’ Cup (created in 1955) and UEFA Cup (created in 1971). Thus, afocus on these cases can help us better understand the background of the Europeanization of the game which happened during the 1990s.     

The up-front legacies of France 2019: changing the face of ‘le foot féminin’

ABSTRACT

The drive to develop women’s football in France, a game 100 years old albeit one long-stigmatised, was thrust into high gear in 2011. Since then, a confluence of events and cultural changes, from on-field results and officials’ investment of greater resources to winning the 2019 World Cup host bid, greater mediatisation of women’s players, and more – including the spectacular 2010 meltdown of Les Bleus in South Africa – have combined to energise and grow the game. This newfound dynamism was unforeseen a decade ago and illustrates some of France’s biggest World Cup legacies: the up-front investments underpinning the sport’s development during the 2010s, and the ways the country has repackaged itself as a champion of women’s football and women in football, forever changing the face of ‘le foot féminin’.     

‘Not Merely an Isolated Game’: Women’s Association Football in Australia

ABSTRACT

Australia has participated in the world-wide growth of women’s football particularly since the 1970s, but long before that the game was played recreationally and competitively by women in Australia. Women have struggled to overcome active opposition to their taking part in the sport and neglect of their achievements which are considerable. This article provides an outline of the history of the game both nationally and in its international context. It also tries to capture the experience of some of the pioneers of the women’s game and its modern practitioners, revealing some of the ways in which overt and covert discrimination still hinders recognition of their achievements.     

Women’s association football (soccer) in Brisbane,Queensland 1921–1933: new perspectives on early competition

ABSTRACT

In September 1921, two representative women’s teams played association football (soccer) on the Brisbane Cricket Ground in Queensland, Australia. The crowd size, approximately 10,000, was not commensurate with those attending matches featuring Dick, Kerr Ladies in England during the same period, but it was nonetheless a significant crowd at a match now widely acknowledged as Australia’s first public game of women’s association football. New evidence suggests it may have been the first between representative female association football sides, with players selected from local teams.

Contemporary accounts note the match as a single event. Regular organised competition did not occur until the early 1970s, but led to the formation of a national association in 1974. An overview of current literature and new archival research highlights the emergence of a strong culture around woman’s association football that begins before the Brisbane Cricket Ground match. The evidence presents a possible imbalance between what occurred and what has been recorded, and suggests a much more prolonged, if somewhat fragmented, engagement with association football between 1921 and 1933 in southern Queensland. The emergence of competition in Brisbane in the 1920s foregrounds the city’s – and, with it, Queensland’s – contribution to the history and development of Australian women’s football.     

Virtual Patriot Games: American Football in The Times of London, 1888–1910

Abstract

This study examines the American football press coverage in the Times of London from 1888 to November 1910. The time span covers the paper’s first mention of the game to the first game played in England. This period also coincides with increasing anxiety about the strength of the British Empire and unwanted American influences. During this time, athletic contests between the two nations turned into sites for the construction of national identities. Adapting the sport scholar Emma Poulton’s concept of ‘mediated patriot games’, the author argues that the American football coverage of the Times of London could be considered ‘virtual patriot games’, as the absence of domestic American football teams did not allow for direct competition. Two related narrative elements. The stories in the Times framed gridiron football as the pastime of the ‘other’, including translating rules and comparing the merits of rugby and American football. The reports also focused on the American game’s violence, confirming older traditions in British imaginations of America. Advancements in communication technologies, especially the telegraphic wire, were critical for the immediacy with which British readers consumed American sporting news. Contrary to current scholarship, British interpretations of American culture through gridiron football developed much earlier than the post-1970s information age.     

The Super Bowl at 50 or L

Abstract

In the short span of a half-century the Super Bowl has grown from a modest championship game between two football leagues into an outsized mid-winter holiday co-produced by the National Football League and the combined efforts of the American advertising and television industries. It has grown from a one-day into a two-week festival featuring a vast range of events, parties, and a championship football game. Fifty years on, half of the population of the United States and a worldwide television audience participate in Super Bowl activities and festivities either live or virtually. Television, marketing, and a wide range of media platforms have aided and abetted the growth of this celebration of football and consumption. Although there are many ways to describe the Super Bowl it is the nineteenth century vocabulary of the economist Thorstein Veblen that best captures its essence. In Veblen’s words it is a case of ‘conspicuous consumption’ now running on steroids.     

‘We Will Try Again,Again, Again to Make It Bigger’: Japan,American Football,and the Super Bowl in the Past,Present, and Future

Abstract

This study is to analyse how the Japanese have traditionally received and currently perceive the Super Bowl, and for this purpose, it aims to locate the position of American football in Japanese history, society, and culture. It explores the game’s history and then examine the degree of its spread among Japan’s sporting population. A two-dimensional approach of historical study and inter-game comparison gives context to the analyses of reference frequency and contents of news media, followed by speculative discussions of what the near future of Japan’s American football would be like. To conclude, it clarifies the ways the Super Bowl has been received and is now being perceived by two groups: The first group is the general people who see the Super Bowl as the convenient and useful medium by which they could learn effectively about American culture through the one-night mania for ‘conspicuous consumption’. The second group comprises American football experts and enthusiasts, including 13,000 athletes and their OBs, coaches, trainers, and other staff members of the leagues and associations as well as the general sports fans. For this group, the Super Bowl is the apex of their favourite sport to which only a selected talented few could join.     

Israel–Malaysia Relations and the Place of Football

Abstract

While seeking to establish their respective international positions following their foundation, Israel and Malaysia also interacted with each other. However, in light of the Israeli–Arab conflict, and mainly due to Malaysia’s domestic considerations and geo-political interests, the interactions remained limited and official relations were not established. This study relies on the notion that sport is potentially an important tool for engagement between states. It examines contemporaneous Israeli and Singapore press and brings together the various episodes and voices pertinent to the way Israel–Malaysia relations unfolded through football until the 1970s. The paper offers an historical perspective on the relations by focusing on a game that was highly popular in both countries. I argue that, while considering the various limitations that were involved, the Prime Minister of Malaysia and President of the Asian Football Confederation, Tunku Abdul Rahman, cautiously maintained the football channel with Israel open. Accordingly, in light of the significantly low-level of other means of contact, football functioned as a carefully managed yet meaningful line of communication by involving a prime minister, senior sports administrators, athletes, football fans, journalists, and sports readers. The essay thus contributes a case study to the emerging body of literature on football relations between states.     

The making of modern soccer: a product of multiple interdependencies

ABSTRACT

Over the past two decades, academics have robustly debated the early history of the game of football. Initially, support polarized around two conflicting paradigms, the predominance of public school influence against the impact of a more working class subculture. However, in recent years, scholars have concluded that this simplistic account lacks the depth of research required to clarify the more subtle nuances involved in the topic. In short, the undertaking of more locally based studies has revealed the sport’s history to be a far more multifaceted narrative. These apparently disjointed yet crucial local events, moments and memories in the early history of the game thus provide a nuanced perspective to trace the roots of modern soccer. In this article there will be an attempt to locate the state of play and endeavour to examine briefly more recent contributions and potentially move forward what has, to some, become an esoteric exercise.     

Marketization Impact on the Relationships Between Supporters and Football Clubs

Abstract

This article examines the concept of corporate governance, in particular the stakeholder context to analysis the relationship between football clubs in China and their local supporter groups for the purpose of gaining insight of its transitional football industry. This mainly qualitative interview-based study focuses upon the process of football marketization in China, with particular emphasis upon the research question: How has marketization impacted the relationship between supporters and football clubs? Along with an examination of the country’s wider social background, cultural influences to illustrate the impact of football marketization on the development pattern of the Chinese game and the specific characteristics of China’s fan culture under its so called socialist market economy.     

The Perils of Blowing the Whistle: Match-Fixing in Scotland and Australia, 1920s to 2015

Abstract

Two family stories shed some light on changes in the character and causes of corruption in football in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. My grandfather was a central figure in an alleged match-fixing episode in Association football in Scotland in the third decade of the twentieth century, while I was a peripheral figure in one in Australia in the last. I came across another one while researching the story of the Croatian soccer clubs in Victoria in the post-Second World War years. I also observed very closely an attempt to fix a series of matches by introducing a number of players into a team on behalf of overseas betting interests in the twenty-first century. Reflecting on these cases is a way of trying to understand how the forms and the drivers of match-fixing have changed in the twenty-first century. The three earlier episodes seem very old fashioned in the context of globalization, the commodification of sport, international gambling syndicates, and systematic corruption at the heart of the world game.     

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.     

‘You look like a machito!’: a decolonial analysis of the social in/exclusion of female participants in a Colombian sport for development and peace organization

Abstract

This article critically explores the relationship between the gendered nature of sport in Colombia and girls and young women’s social in/exclusion in football (soccer) through the lived experiences of female participants involved in a local Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) organization. Building on 6 months of ethnographic fieldwork and Lave and Wenger’s theory of Community of Practice (CoP), I explore the complex and connected gendered social elements that constrain girls and young women’s participation. Analyzing these processes and mechanisms through a decolonial lens, I reveal the existence of colonial residues that perpetuate and reinforce females positioning as peripheral actors in sport. The findings demonstrate how female participants are required to negotiate spaces with contradictory gendered meanings and confirm that social transformation within masculine structures is difficult to achieve. This research encourages SDP researchers to further engage with decolonial theory.     

‘We’re the lassies from Lancashire’: Manchester Corinthians Ladies FC and the use of overseas tours to defy the FA ban on women’s football

ABSTRACT

The FA banned women’s football from the grounds of Association-affiliated clubs in 1921, on the grounds that the organisation perceived that football was ‘unsuitable’ for women and too much money raised for charity had been absorbed in player expenses. But women continued to play. This article analyses how Manchester Corinthians Ladies Football Club, which had been formed in 1949, was able to sustain a varied range of overseas tours and domestic matches in spite of the ban. Using a range of methods, including oral history, family history interviews, a reunion of the surviving players and player memorabilia, firstly, the article provides a history of Corinthians and Nomads from 1949 onwards. Secondly, the article uses oral history to reflect what the players felt about playing for the club and particularly its overseas tours, and charity work. Not all of the players are represented due to constraints of space, but this is an introduction to a larger ongoing project to reclaim the teams’ history. Finally, the article argues that it is important to examine the 1950s and 1960s, decades when women’s football was an unregulated activity, in order to understand that which followed once the FA ban was lifted in 1969.     

Constructing football through magic: an ethnographic study of football supporters

This article presents an analysis of football supporters as magicians based on the theory of magic developed by Marcel Mauss. The research was conducted in co-operation with a local football club from Sweden called Malmö FF. Taking into consideration how the supporters see their position in the club and their contribution, it is possible to explain their behaviour and involvement in terms of a collective phenomenon that requires a clearly stated objective and is achieved through technical elements. The extensive usage of props, language and symbols is supposed to influence the reality according to the wishes of the user. This article follows previous research of modern phenomena in terms of magic as presented by Thomas O’Dell (O’Dell, Spas and the Cultural Economy) and Peter Pels (Pels, Magic and Modernity, 183–99). Such approach can explain how the engagement and the unique relationship are still possible in a highly commercialized and commoditized world of modern football.     

From Butlins to Europe: Fodens Ladies in the 1960s and 1970s

ABSTRACT

Emerging out of the shadows cast over women’s football following its marginalisation by the Football Association in the inter-war years, Fodens Ladies, formed at a lorry manufacturing plant in Sandbach, Cheshire, contributed to a new vibrancy in the game between 1960 and 1980. Emulating many similar works-based predecessors, the team established itself as one of the pioneers of a female football revival and provided a public arena for several prominent international players of the period. From its early days playing charity matches the company team became a regular participant in the Butlin’s Cup, winning it in 1969 and 1970, before beating Southampton in the 1974 Mitre Cup final. The team also undertook overseas tours with team members receiving only minimal support from the company. This paper draws on private personal archives, company records, holdings at the National Football Museum, national and local newspapers, and an in-house magazine, The Foden News, to situate the team within the context of Fodens Ltd and the wider context of women’s football in the 1960s and 1970s. The paper concludes by signposting the next phase of research, which will explore in detail the biographies of key individuals involved in the Fodens team during this period.     

On the worlds of football and the core of the game

Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior’s transfer fee of 222 million euros clearly indicates that the lifeworld of professional football proves the well-known ideal of eleven friends, all from the same hometown, to be a romantic notion of the past. When players are measured by their market value, when clubs are capital investments and when football matches are marketed as spectacular events, the question arising no longer is whether amateur football and professional football have moved apart, but rather how big the gap has become. Is there still any connection between the lifeworld of amateur football and professional football or are these now disparate worlds? To answer this question it is essential to determine whether, despite the obvious invariants between amateur football and professional football, there is still a common core of the game that connects the two worlds. This core may be in the contingency of playing football as a specific form of result uncertainty and uncertainty in action, which are sought voluntarily and intentionally. The reward for the players is not to be found in the intended result (i.e. the victory) but in experiencing that the means taken to reach the aim (generally the movement actions of the players) gain in value to the extent where achieving the aim of the action is unpredictable. In 1995, Seel called this aesthetic value of actions in sport “a celebration of inability”. In conclusion, it is the telic of the autotelic that represents the constitutive prerequisite for the special fascination of football, and in this respect it is possible from a cultural perspective to assign educational value to the game of football. Football will continue to fascinate players as well as the spectators as long as its core—the telic of the autotelic—can be experienced in football’s various lifeworlds.