Suchergebnisse

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Contributors -- Introduction -- PART I History -- 1 History and football -- 2 The historical significance of locality and regional identity to football -- 3 Association and rugby football: two codes, one historiography -- 4 'The girls of the period playing ball': the hidden history of women's football, 1869-2015 -- 5 The Football Trust as a mechanism of industry change -- 6 Football and gambling -- 7 Football and heritage -- 8 Football and museums -- PART II Organisation -- 9 Football and governance -- 10 Football sponsorship

Football is widely referred to as the 'beautiful game'. This gives the impression that the sport can be aesthetically appreciated by its human observers. However, while many people might acknowledge that some of the physical movements made by top level football players exhibit grace, even beauty, this does not equate to football being accepted as a form of culture comparable to other areas of human activity described collectively as 'the arts'. While this article takes an interest in philosophical inquiry into the aesthetic possibilities of football, it is primarily concerned with a sociological explanation as to how football has become 'artified'. In doing so, the article draws upon the concept 'artification' as developed by Roberta Shapiro and Nathalie Heinich. The approach is not concerned with definitions of art according to aesthetic criteria or notions of appreciation, but with 'how and under what circumstances art comes about'. This requires examining football in relation to discernible 'constituent processes' of artification. For reasons explained in the article, the contextual focus is on the artification of football in England. Artification is not a closed and finished matter. In that it can be said to have occurred, artification must be balanced against 'de-artification' in the form of potentially countervailing tendencies. Such consideration is taken up in the conclusion, via reflection upon the damaging impact of the excesses of commercial organisational control. Overall, artification is advocated as a sociological model that offers insight into the cultural significance of football in contemporary life.

The article draws on ethnographic fieldwork done with the Bad Blue Boys (BBB), a group of young, male, Australian/Croatian soccer fans who reside in the western suburbs of Sydney. The group, which uses soccer support to parade a rugged nationalistic identity, is examined as an aggressive masculine youth subculture. Social practices indicative of misogyny and homophobia are outlined. The extent and manner of ethnic influence on these attitudes is addressed. The article follows Segal's approach of looking at a form of masculinity specific to a group rather than an overarching or monolithic masculinity. The article concludes with a consideration of Elias's concept of the "civilizing process" as developed in the work of Eric Dunning and his associates at the University of Leicester. This consideration is grounded in a comparison of their study of the Kingsley Lads with that of the BBB.

The paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken with a group of young men known collectively as the Bad Blue Boys (BBB)1. These young men use the supporting of a soccer team (Sydney United in the national league) as a means of parading nationalistic allegiance to their parent's homeland, Croatia. Given the history of crowd conflict at Australian soccer matches and the current trends within soccer officialdom to move the sport away from its traditional affiliation with ethnic communities, it is inevitable that the BBB have come into confrontation with agents of social authority, such as the police, during an afternoon at the football. The participant observation aspect of the research is used to discuss the interaction between the police and the BBB at soccer matches, while interviews with members of the BBB are recounted to reveal group attitudes held about the police.The paper is written to articulate with other academic contributions which have investigated the relationship between youth from non‐English speaking backgrounds (NESB) and the police in contemporary Australian urban contexts. A leading contributor to such studies, Janet Chan, has commented, 'Australian research specifically on police‐ethnic youth relations [paints] a negative portrait' (Chan 1994, p. 176). The portrait painted by the present study is intended for comparison with such research. At the outset it must be stressed that the findings are peculiar to the study and that no great claim is made for extrapolation. However, this is not to say that the study does not reflect trends in relations between NESB youth and police in Australian cities. On the contrary, a conclusion will be drawn which argues that ethnographic studies of particular ethnic youth groupings and subcultures facilitate a social mapping of police youth relations.

This article uses elements of postmodernist spatial theory to explain aspects of ethnic identity among a group of soccer `hooligans' who follow a traditionally Croatian-based team in Australia's premier soccer competition. While not supporting the practices of vilification evident in the group, the article seeks to understand the significance of such practices from the subcultural perspective of its members. To this end Soja's concept of `Thirdspace' and Bhabha's related concept of `third space' are used to explain how members of the group found a metaphorical space within the soccer stadium to construct a unique social identity.

This paper reviews contemporary scholarship on football subcultures which may be described as `new ethnographies'. The key authors discussed are Gary Armstrong and Richard Giulianotti. It is argued that their studies of `hooligans' articulate with other current ethnographic work, and provide insights into the social identities of supporters which have not been visible within scholarship to date. This is not to dismiss the value of other research but to highlight the innovative nature of Armstrong's and Giulianotti's contributions. The paper also argues for the importance of recognizing the distinction between academic ethnographies and `native' accounts when studying football subcultures.