Football Fans and Social Spacing: Power and Control in a Modernising Landscape (Leisure Studies in a Global Era)

This book is about the relationship between leisure and power. More specifically, it theorizes a group of supporters’ attempts to control social space within and around English football stadiums. Not only is football a popular leisure form, it is also one which has undergone a remarkable process of transformation during the last 30 years. Advance surveillance techniques, all seater-stadia, rising ticket prices, and a growing intolerance to expressive modes of fandom have all transformed the experience of watching the professional game. Through these five chapters, Ian Woolsey asks how the collective responses of travelling football supporters to these major societal currents and changes within the game; liquid modernity and the post-1989 transformation of English football, are managed via the distinct and oft-competing processes of social spacing in football. An important inspiration for the book is the work of Zygmunt Bauman, particularly his ideas on cognitive, aesthetic, and moral ‘spacings’ as a social production. Ian Woolsey’s powerful and persuasive application of these ideas not only extends Bauman’s focus on the ‘politics’ of power in public space to include a consideration of leisure but in so doing shows that ethnography, selectively conducted and theoretically informed, can provide data for a rich, sociological account of a football world. The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of sociology of leisure, sociology of sport, criminology, and cultural studies. Preface References Acknowledgments Contents 1 This Space Is Our Space Introduction Every Person Has Their Place A History of Cultural Struggle Consuming ‘Us’ Theoretical Framework Sheffield (Wednesday) Book Outline References 2 Cognitive Foundations Introduction On Belonging and Home Family Values: Finding Home Exeter Away On Interpretation and Shared Understandings Hermeneutic Communities Fostering Shared Understandings Knowledgeable Actors and the Absolute Spirit Doing Things Our Way: Loyalty, Singing, Standing, and Drinking Summary References 3 Cognitive Spacing: Defending the Hermeneutic ‘Community’ Introduction The Salesman Cometh—On Modernisation and Strangers Are You Dumping Me? Exclusion, Sanitisation, Community, and Tradition ‘It’s not Church’—Control, Banter, Boozing, and Swearing Bauman, Vorhanden, and the Right to Stand Up Let There Be Light: Phagic Strategies and the Promise of Salvation ‘It’s Who We Are’: Vorhanden and Ontological Security Ontological Security Nostalgia: A Home Without an Entrance? Summary References 4 Moral Spacing Introduction Moral Spacing: A Brief Overview Good Supporters/Bad Supporters? On Kierkegaard and False Dichotomies Saints and Rituals: Morality Without Guidelines Charity Begins at Home? What Is Moral Action? Where Have All the Real Men Gone? Right Place, Right Time: On Tradition, Maturity and Swearing Not in Front of the Children: Aesthetic ‘Eithers’, Moral ‘Ors’ On Violence and Morality Self-Alienation: What About Your Other Family? Resolving the Tension: Situationist Salvation We’re not All Wednesday Are We? On Belonging and Racism We’re All Wednesday Aren’t We? Summary/Reflection References 5 Aesthetic Spacing Introduction Coming Out to Play? Grey Hairs and Bloodshot Eyes A Day Out with the Gods: On Atmospheric Experiential Intensity A Day Out with the Lads: On Amusement and Morality Experiential Intensity, Drinking, and Brotherhood Heavenly Aesthetics: Searching for Novelty Novel Places Arrested Developments Caging the Congregation: On Policing and Modernisation Summary References 6 Away from Nothing Introduction The Final Whistle References Index