1st Edition
The Ultras A Global Football Fan Phenomenon
Over the last 50 years, the ultras have become the most widespread, outspoken and spectacular form of football fandom across the globe. Whilst the ultras phenomenon began in Italy, then spread across Southern Europe into Northern Europe, it is now the dominant style of fandom in North Africa, South East Asia and East Asia and is spreading into North America and Australia. This spectacular style of fandom has been spread through global media, social media and increased travel, where fans can view, engage and interact with a range of fans from across the globe and bring various local dimensions to their fandom. This volume brings together a range of articles about the ultras' style of football fandom. It is designed to be an introduction: a first account of ultras for the uninitiated. What follows are analyses and accounts of ultras in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Turkey, Israel, North America, Australia, Indonesia and Croatia. Not only does this volume demonstrate the prevalence of the ultras' style of fandom across the globe, it shows how football becomes an important cultural arena to see the intersections of globalization and localism.
This book was originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society.
Introduction
Mark Doidge and Martin Lieser
1. Openers, witnesses, followers, and ‘good guys’. A sociological study of the different roles of female and male ultra fans in confrontational situations
Bérangère Ginhoux
2. Polish ultras in the post-socialist transformation
Radosław Kossakowski, Tomasz Szlendak and Dominik Antonowicz
3. Ultras in Turkey: othering, agency, and culture as a political domain
Yağmur Nuhrat
4. ‘The East’ strikes back. Ultras Dynamo, hyper-stylization, and regimes of truth
Daniel Ziesche
5. The (Re)Constitution of football fandom: Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem and its supporters
Netta Ha-Ilan
6. Ultras in Indonesia: conflict, diversification, activism
Andy Fuller and Fajar Junaedi
7. ‘Supporters, not consumers.’ Grassroots supporters’ culture and sports entertainment in the US
Markus Gerke
8. Social agency and football fandom: the cultural pedagogies of the Western Sydney ultras
Jorge Knijnik
9. Carnival supporters, hooligans, and the ‘Against Modern Football’ movement: life within the ultras subculture in the Croatian context
Benjamin Perasović and Marko Mustapić
10. Ethnography and the Italian Ultrà
Matthew Guschwan
Biography
Mark Doidge is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Brighton, UK. His research focuses on political activism among football fans across Europe, particularly anti-racism and supporting refugees, and the broader political identities associated with football fandom. He is the author of Ultras: The Passion and Performance of Contemporary Football Fandom (2020), Collective Action and Football Fandom (2018) and Football Italia (2015).
Martin Lieser is an independent scholar and Senior Concept Manager at a Munich-based sports marketing agency. Before transitioning into business, he pursued a PhD in Japanese Studies from the University of Vienna, Austria. Throughout his studies his research has focused on sports culture and more particularly on the social and cultural dimensions of football fandom in Japan.
