Two decades and little change: British Asians,football and calls for action

Only ten British Asian professional footballers are competing in England out of approximately 4000 despite there being a population of 3.6 million in England and Wales. Just six British Asian footballers between the ages of 16 to 18 years old were attached to the 72 Football League academies in 2009 out of over 1300 players. There is only one British Asian coach out of the 522 senior football coaches in England. These figures speak volumes and are the reason why academics, campaign groups and key stakeholders have investigated, and attempted to combat, the British Asian football exclusion. This work will offer a detailed academic review of over 20 years of research in this field before adding new empirical data. It critically analyses several reform strategies that have been created by key stakeholders. Finally, I will present various recommendations for reform which are borne out of a decade of primary research.     

You’ll never watch alone: media and community in the sports bar

This paper positions itself within the ongoing debate about the impact of media on community generated by Robert Putnam’s research. Accordingly, the increasing availability of sophisticated means of communication has led the progressive substitution of indirect interactions for direct interactions in shared space, thereby eroding an essential basis of community. In contrast, other theoretical perspectives have presented communication technologies as either enhancing community by altering the field of possible social interactions or incapable of replacing direct interactions. This debate is addressed through an ethnography of fans who gathered at a sports bar to watch the World Cup. Observations revealed that while televised broadcasts served as a primary motivation for attendance and a centrepiece of subsequent interactions, patrons did not watch alone; they watched with each other.