1st Edition
Football and Popular Culture Singing Out from the Stands
Football is ubiquitous and a permanent fixture of modern life. More than a sport, it frequently manifests in broader popular culture. This book examines the significance of football for, and in, popular culture across a wide range of forms, including music, film, and social media.
Football and Popular Culture plots a new path in Football Studies, drawing on original research in countries including England, Brazil, Germany, Canada, and Yugoslavia. The book includes both historical and contemporary perspectives, exploring some of the most important themes in the study of sport and culture, including identity, nationalism, fandom, and protest. It presents diverse case studies ranging from sonic violence among Brazilian torcidas organizadas to fanled commemoration of the Munich air disaster, which together help us to better understand the intersection of sport, society, and popular culture.
This is fascinating reading for any student or researcher working in sport studies, cultural studies, media studies, sociology, or contemporary history.
PART I
Sound and violence in football culture 9
1 Kicking metaphors of the body around in the mediation of self and other: conceptual metaphor in the multimodal construction of football songs and chants 11
SIMON MCKERRELL
2 ‘You call this democracy?’: FC Saint Pauli supporters, football chants, and the police 25
MAX JACK
3 Sound, violence and gender performances in Brazilian football 39
PEDRO SILVA MARRA
4 Capital culture, political performance: listening to football in Ottawa 2014–2015 51
JORDAN ZALIS
PART II
Football and screen 69
5 Kicking, not screaming: an examination of football (soccer) and female footballers in Australian screen-based narratives 71
FREYA WRIGHT-BROUGH AND LEE MCGOWAN
vi Contents
6 European cinema and the football film: ‘Play for the people who’ve accepted you’ 87
SEÁN CROSSON
7 Football, fantasy, film: cinema and the cultural politics of fans’ imaginative investments in football stars 108
MARCUS FREE
PART III
Football and/as cultural identity 123
8 Yugoslav football and British popular culture 1975–1991: from Petar Borota to ‘Sexton’s Lions’ 125
DEJAN ZEC AND MILOŠ PAUNOVIĆ
9 Unwrapped: football fans and The Anfield Wrap 140
CIARÁN RYAN
10 The resuscitation of a babe: interrogating the fan-led virtual
dedicatory practices of Duncan Edwards 154
GAYLE ROGERS
11 ‘What’s he know about the Premier League?’: football media and the perpetuated archetypes of ‘Englishness’ 170
JONATHAN CABLE
Biography
Stephen R. Millar is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Martin J. Power is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland.
Paul Widdop is Senior Lecturer in Sport Business Management, Leeds Beckett University, UK.
Daniel Parnell is Senior Lecturer in Sport Business at the University of Liverpool, UK.
James Carr is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland.
