Table Of ContentFootball, Fandom and Consumption
Modern football is an industry and capitalism is its engine. However, this book
argues for a more nuanced understanding of contemporary football culture and
the (self-)identity of football fans.
Drawing on original ethnographic research conducted with fans at all levels,
from international to lower league, the book explores the tensions between fans
as consumers and ‘traditional’ football cultures, arguing that modern football fans
are able to negotiate the discourses of capitalism and tradition operating upon
them to enact their own power and identity within football culture.
Featuring case studies of Norwich City, MK Dons and Chelsea fans, this
is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport and society or
cultural studies.
Oliver Brooks is Tutor in the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and
Communication Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK.
Critical Research in Football
Series Editors:
Pete Millward, Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Jamie Cleland, University of Southern Australia
Dan Parnell, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Stacey Pope, Durham University, UK
Paul Widdop, Leeds Beckett University, UK
The Critical Research in Football book series was launched in 2017 to showcase the
inter- and multi-disciplinary breadth of debate relating to ‘football.’ The series
defines ‘football’ as broader than association football, with research on rugby,
Gaelic and gridiron codes also featured. Including monographs, edited collec-
tions, short books and textbooks, books in the series are written and/or edited
by leading experts in the field, whilst consciously also affording space to emerging
voices in the area, and are designed to appeal to students, postgraduate stu-
dents and scholars who are interested in the range of disciplines in which critical
research in football connects. The series is published in association with the
Football Collective, www.footballcollective.org.uk.
Available in this series:
Fan Activism, Protest and Politics
Ultras in Post-Socialist Croatia
Andrew Hodges
Football, Fandom and Consumption
Oliver Brooks
Football, Fandom and
Consumption
Oliver Brooks
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Oliver Brooks
The right of Oliver Brooks to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
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or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Brooks, Oliver (Lecturer) author.
Title: Football, fandom and consumption / Oliver Brooks.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon, New York NY : Routledge, [2019] |
Series: Critical research in football | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018046359 | ISBN 9780367142650 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780429030987 (master ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Soccer–Social aspects–England. | Soccer–Economic
aspects–England. | Soccer fans–Psychology–England. | Consumption
(Economics)–Social aspects–England. | Capitalism–Social aspects–England.
Classification: LCC GV943.9.S64 .B77 2019 | DDC 796.334041–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018046359
ISBN: 978-0-367-14265-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-03098-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Mute, Baz and Roo—Thank you for the support.
Contents
Preface viii
1 Introduction: #YouAreFootball 1
2 The people’s game? 10
3 Changing formation 35
4 Norwich City: ‘The best pies in the league’ 46
5 MK Dons: Fear and loathing in Milton Keynes 71
6 Chelsea: ‘Champions of Europe’ 96
7 ‘IN-GER-LAND’: Ethnography in the pub 122
8 Conclusion: They think it’s all over 149
Appendix A 157
Index 158
Preface
This book endeavours to develop a more nuanced understanding of contempo-
rary football culture. As such, the research adopts a consumer-oriented cultural
studies approach to analyse the ways in which modern ‘consumer’ fans negotiate
their position within football culture and the power operating upon them as they
do so. Drawing on data from ethnographic research I argue that modern fans
engage in processes of complex discursive negotiation, constructing their identi-
ties at the juncture of the hegemonic discourses that surround football culture:
capitalism and tradition, but also their individual understanding of how they are
expected to enact fandom.
I argue that modern fans are able to negotiate the discourses of capitalism and
tradition operating upon them to enact their own power and identity within foot-
ball culture. As such, this book seeks to advance debates about collective identity
formation and the scope of representation within contemporary football culture.
In doing so, this research contributes to football scholarship’s long tradition of
making perceptive social commentaries, drawing on football culture to contrib-
ute to wider debates concerning capitalism and collective identity formation.
Introduction Introduction
Chapter 1
Introduction
#YouAreFootball
As I exited the tube at Fulham Broadway to conduct my pilot study with
Chelsea fans (27 September 2011), employees of Barclays Bank approached
me. As the official sponsor of the Premier League, Barclays had just started its
‘#YouAreFootball campaign,’ an initiative started by the bank to ‘thank real
football fans’ (Barclays 2011) by giving them the opportunity to win match day
tickets and recoup travel expenses. To be in with a chance of winning tickets,
I was asked to tell Barclays what football meant to me to ‘help them celebrate the
passion of real fans’ (Barclays 2011).
Barclays (2011) emphasise the centrality of the fan to football culture as
suggested by the branding of their campaign ‘#YouAreFootball,’ a slogan that
along with their rationale of engaging with the individual passions of fans, posi-
tions fans as active agents within football culture. Taking the Barclays campaign
into account, this idea of an active, participatory fandom seems constitutive of
Barclays’ (2011) conception of a ‘real football fan,’ yet there is a slight caveat to
this. To identify as a ‘real fan,’ and to take part in the competition, participants
had to be in possession of a match day ticket. While the campaign would seem to
acknowledge the constitutive role of the fan within football culture, it is required
that the fan is active in consumption, ‘buying into’ football’s culture of capitalism
and supporting its affiliated industries.
The bank’s definition of the ‘real football fan’ works with the assumption that
fans accept contemporary football’s culture of capitalism, ‘real’ fans acknowledg-
ing their position as consumers within the culture. Barclays’ (2011) conception
of the ‘real football fan’ looks to naturalise the game’s1 modern capitalism and
the relationship of producer and consumer between fan and football club, how-
ever the concept of the ‘real football fan’ is shrouded in conflicting discourse
within football culture. Indeed, while Barclays (2011) clearly recognise modern
football as a developed capitalist industry, there is significant opposition to the
game’s modern capitalism and the subsequent consumer fan identities that have
developed as a result of this process.
