Football is undoubtedly the sport with the largest following in the world, attracting billions of fans across the globe. These fans play an integral part in determining the identity of the football club they support. Many studies have focused on the intense rivalry between clubs, their fans and the opposing identities they represent. However, little attention has been paid to examples of cooperation between rival fans. This book is the first to explore antagonistic cooperation in football; the idea that rival fans can work together despite their animosity. With examples from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Croatia, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, the UK, the US and Zimbabwe, this book brings together case studies on rival fans working together and explores how and why such cooperation takes place. Showcasing original research from a team of international football scholars, it sheds new light on the social and political complexities of contemporary football fan culture. Football Fans, Rivalry and Cooperation is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in football studies, the sociology of sport, sport and politics, or sport and social theory.

In a unique first, Celtic Minute by Minute takes you through the Hoops' matchday history and records the historic goals, penalty saves, sendings off and any other memorable moment and crucially, the minute it happened in. From Celtic's early beginnings and successes to the days of Scottish and European trophies; from the Jock Stein and Billy McNeill era through to the domestic domination of more recent times under Martin O'Neill, Brendan Rodgers and Neil Lennon, learn about the club's most historic moments or simply relive some truly unforgettable moments from Celtic's glorious past. You will also discover just how many times a crucial goal has been scored in the same minute over the years. From goals scored in the opening few seconds to the last-gasp extra time winners that have thrilled generation of fans at Parkhead or around the world. Celtic Minute by Minute has it all with countless goals from Dalglish to Larsson and from Nicholas to Petrov.

Iceland is a tiny Nordic nation with a population of just 330,000 and no professional sports leagues, and yet its soccer, basketball and handball teams have all qualified for major international tournaments in recent years. This fascinating study argues that team sport success is culturally produced and that in order to understand collective achievement we have to consider the socio-cultural context. Based on unparalleled access to key personnel, including top coaches, athletes and administrators, the book explores Icelandic cultural capital as a factor in sporting success, from traditions of workmanship, competitive play and teamwork to international labour migration and knowledge transfer. The first book to focus specifically on the socio-cultural aspects of a small nation's international sporting success, this is an original and illuminating contribution to the study of the sociology of sport. Sport in Iceland: How small nations achieve international success is fascinating reading for team sport enthusiasts, coaches, managers and organisers, as well as for any student or scholar with an interest in the sociology of sport, strategic sports development, sports policy or sports administration.

Football is the most popular sport in the world. Globalisation and commercialisation of the game, however, have created new conflicts and challenges. This book explores the role of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) within the rising significance of football in Asia, drawing on three key theoretical perspectives: globalisation, neo-institutionalism and governance, as well as comprehensive data from interviews and archive material. It explores the organisational structure of AFC, its decision-making processes, relations with other actors, and policies put forward. To understand the specificities AFC has faced in its 60-year history, the broader historical, political, economic, socio-cultural and geographic contexts of football in Asia are taken into account.

Football fans are passionate and devoted followers. They are also creators and dissenters, performers and producers. This volume analyses football fandom through the media that fans use to construct fandom itself. Media is the lifeblood of modern life; it is the canvas on which ideas are spread, communities are formed and identities are expressed. Today's fan has an unprecedented variety of tools in which to express their passion, commune with others, and become a fan in front of local, regional and global audiences. The football stadium has always been rife with symbolism. Colourful scarves and communal songs and chants evoke and display local pride and distinguish us from them. The Italian football stadium has a particularly rich history as a place of collective celebration, mourning, support and political dissent. Over time, Italian fans have integrated print, radio and television into their rituals of fandom while modern digital media allows fans to publicise their identities to global audiences. This volume addresses the beauty and humour as well as the fear and anger that are conveyed in the spectrum of media as fans attempt to assert themselves as material and spiritual 'owners' of the club of their affection. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Soccer & Society.

This book focuses on the advent of professional football in Liverpool and, in particular, the formation of Everton and Liverpool football clubs and their development prior to World War I. This book details the factors that led to the early dominance within Liverpool of Everton FC, and addresses the complexity of the dispute within that club leading to the later formation of Liverpool FC by expelled club members. This book also highlights, via a comparative study, the different patterns of ownership and control that emerged within the two clubs between their incorporation as limited liability companies in 1892. This book was originally published as a special issue of Soccer & Society.

In Football and Accelerated Culture, Steve Redhead offers a new and challenging theorisation of global football culture, exploring the relationship between sport and culture in a rapidly shifting world. Incorporating cutting-edge concepts, from accelerated culture and claustropolitanism to non-postmodernity, he reflects on the demise of working class football cultures and the rapid media globalisation of 'the people's game'. Drawing on international empirical research and a unique and ground-breaking study of football hooligan memoirs, the book delves into a wide array of disciplines, examining fascinating topics such as the relationship between music and football; hooligans and ultras; the rise of social media and anti-modern football movements; and ultra-realist criminology. Football and Accelerated Culture offers a new way of thinking about sporting cultures that expands the boundaries of physical cultural studies. As such, it is important reading for anybody with an interest in the culture of sport and leisure, social theory, communication studies, criminology or socio-legal studies.

As the world's most popular game, soccer is unique in its ability to reflect and impact culture, society, and politics. Beyond Soccer: International Relations and Politics as Seen through the Beautiful Game provides students with a new and innovative way to learn about political science and international relations. It uses soccer players, officials, fans, and organizations to teach political science concepts-such as geopolitics, discourses, and sovereignty-and IR theories-including realism, liberalism, and feminism. This text also incorporates three common soccer discourses to highlight the possibilities of soccer as a tool for unity and social change, as a defender of established power, and as simultaneously a mechanism used by established power and an engine for social resistance. With exercises, discussion questions, and keywords included in each chapter, Beyond Soccer is a worthwhile and accessible educational tool. Primarily written for undergraduate students of all levels, this book will be valuable in political science, international relations, cultural studies, and sociology courses.

All Crazee Now is the story of English football and its footballers in the 1970s, a decade that saw the start of the move from the 'old-fashioned' game towards the modern Premier League era; a transition that accelerated throughout the decade. Much of what we recognise in today's game is rooted in the seventies - including diverse ethnicity and multi-nationalism in club teams; the rise of commercialism; the cult of the manager; the end of the player-next-door; and the demand for victory ahead of individualism. The beginning of the decade remains the period in English football that supporters felt more connected than anytime previous or since. By the time the Thatcherite 1980s were dawning, the way had been paved for a rapid evolution towards 21st-century football. More than just a chronicle of trophy winners, star players and personalities, it offers a study of the tactical, philosophical, social, cultural, economic and political landscape that shaped football throughout a turbulent period for a nation and its favourite sport.

The fighting McAteers: that's how the McAteer family of title-winning boxers were known throughout Birkenhead, across the Mersey from Liverpool. But for eleven-year-old Jason McAteer, growing up in the shadow of Liverpool FC, football became the dream. After signing with Bolton Wanderers at the age of twenty-one, the call to the international scene followed with the Republic of Ireland and, soon after, to his beloved Liverpool FC. The dream had become a reality. From his time with the Irish World Cup squad of 1994 to those tumultuous days in Saipan in 2002; on through his decision to leave Liverpool for Blackburn Rovers; his move to Sunderland, and the depression he fell into after finishing his professional career with Tranmere Rovers, Jason McAteer looks back with characteristic honesty and humour on his life - the jokes, the matches, and the personalities. This is the real Jason McAteer: a little bit bruised, a little bit battered. But still fighting.

This book presents a synthesis of the work on early football undertaken by the authors over the past two decades. It explores aspects of a figurational approach to sociology to examine the early development of football rules in the middle part of the nineteenth century. The book tests Dunning's status rivalry hypothesis to contest Harvey's view of football's development which stresses an influential sub-culture outside the public schools. Status Rivalry re-states the primacy of these latter institutions in the growth of football and without it the sport's story would remain skewed and unbalanced for future generations.

Spanish soccer is on top of the world, at international and club level, with the best teams and a seemingly endless supply of exciting and stylish players. While the Spanish economy struggles, its soccer flourishes, deeply embedded throughout Spanish social and cultural life. But the relationship between soccer, culture and national identity in Spain is complex. This fascinating, in-depth study shines new light on Spanish soccer by examining the role this sport plays in Basque identity, consolidated in Athletic Club of Bilbao, the century-old soccer club located in the birthplace of Basque nationalism. Athletic Bilbao has a unique player recruitment policy, allowing only Basque-born players or those developed at the youth academies of Basque clubs to play for the team, a policy that rejects the internationalism of contemporary globalised soccer. Despite this, the club has never been relegated from the top division of Spanish football. A particularly tight bond exists between fans, their club and the players, with Athletic representing a beacon of Basque national identity. This book is an ethnography of a soccer culture where origins, nationalism, gender relations, power and passion, lifecycle events and death rituals gain new meanings as they become, below and beyond the playing field, a matter of creative contention and communal affirmation. Based on unique, in-depth ethnographic research, this book investigates how a soccer club and soccer fandom affect the life of a community, interweaving empirical research material with key contemporary themes in the social sciences, and placing the study in the wider context of Spanish political and sporting cultures. Filling a key gap in the literature on contemporary Spain, and on wider soccer cultures, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in sport, anthropology, sociology, political science, or cultural and gender studies.

Association football is now the global sport, consumed in various ways by millions of people across the world. Throughout its history, football has been a catalyst as much for social cohesion, unity, excitement and integration as it can be for division, exclusion and discrimination. A Sociology of Football in a Global Context examines the historical, political, economic, social and cultural complexities of the game across Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America. It analyses the key developments and sociological debates within football through a topic-based approach that concentrates on the history of football and its global diffusion; the role of violence; the global governance of the game by FIFA; race, racism and whiteness; gender and homophobia; the changing nature of fans; the media and football's financial revolution; the transformation of players into global celebrities; and the growth of football leagues across the world. Using a range of examples from all over the world, each chapter highlights the different social and cultural changes football has seen, most notably since the 1990s, when its relationship with the mass media and other transnational networks became more important and financially lucrative.

Have we matched Wembley 1966 and 2022, or lost again on penalties? As a football fan in the Home Nations, there is at least one thing of which you can be sure. Even if sometimes other countries play it better than us, they'll forever have to thank Britain for the fun, the excitement, the tragedy, the triumph, the pain, the pleasure and the sheer gloriousness of the best sport in the world. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, it was Britain that first spread the beautiful game across the world. Cornish miners took football skills along with their pasties to Mexico; Iraqi football legend Ammo Baba learnt the game at an RAF base; the Buenos Aires Cricket Club gave the world Argentine football; and Romanian dentist Iuliu Weiner got not one an English education but a passion for football too. This is a book about football, yes, but it is also a book about all the countries of the world, about shared passion and shared humanity. It's how Britain brought football to the world.

Eddie Hapgood, Footballer is the extraordinary story of a young unknown from Bristol who became Arsenal and England captain and a national hero, in the dark days of the 1930s. His impact is so enduring that when the millennium dawned, the public voted him one of the greatest sportsmen of the century. That glorious legacy was painfully achieved. Hapgood considered football an art and played it joyously as part of a team, but he struggled when politics, class and money threatened to undermine him and corrupt football. By the late 1930s, the ugly shadows of fascism, Nazism and looming war were bearing down on the beautiful game. Hapgood found himself in a public fight for justice and respect, while behind the scenes he protected his family with dedication, love and humour. In this gripping memoir, his daughter Lynne Hapgood pulls together the various threads - success, celebrity, tragedy and vindication - to reveal the real Eddie Hapgood. She examines the nature of sporting greatness and its impact on fans and family.

Football, or soccer, is unquestionably the world's most popular and influential sport. There is no corner of the globe in which the game is not played or followed - indeed, more countries are affiliated to FIFA, football's governing body, than to the United Nations - and it has therefore become a significant component of our international social, cultural, political and economic life. The Routledge Handbook of Football Studies is a landmark work of reference, going further and deeper than any other book in considering the historical and contemporary significance of football around the world. Written by a team of leading international sport studies scholars with particular research interests in football, the book covers an impressively broad range of disciplines, from history, sociology, politics and business, to philosophy, law and media studies. The central section of the book examines key themes and issues in football studies, such as the World Cup and international competition, governance and ownership, fandom, celebrity, and the historical links between soccer and other football codes.A concluding section offers in-depth surveys of the history and contemporary culture and organisation of football in each of the regional confederations, from UEFA to CONCACAF. The Routledge Handbook of Football Studies is an essential tool for any advanced student or scholar undertaking social scientific research in football or sport studies, or any practitioner, administrator or policy-maker working in football, and is a fascinating read for any serious football fan.

What does it mean when a hit that knocks an American football player unconscious is cheered by spectators? What are the consequences of such violence for the participants of this sport and for the entertainment culture in which it exists? This book brings together scholars and sport commentators to examine the relationship between American football, violence and the larger relations of power within contemporary society. From high school and college to the NFL, Football, Culture, and Power analyses the social, political and cultural imprint of America's national pastime. The NFL's participation in and production of hegemonic masculinity, alongside its practices of racism, sexism, heterosexism and ableism, provokes us to think deeply about the historical and contemporary systems of violence we are invested in and entertained by. This social scientific analysis of American football considers both the positive and negative power of the game, generating discussion and calling for accountability. It is fascinating reading for all students and scholars of sports studies with an interest in American football and the wider social impact of sport.

As the world's most popular game, soccer is unique in its ability to reflect and impact culture, society, and politics. Beyond Soccer: International Relations and Politics as Seen through the Beautiful Game provides students with a new and innovative way to learn about political science and international relations. It uses soccer players, officials, fans, and organizations to teach political science concepts-such as geopolitics, discourses, and sovereignty-and IR theories-including realism, liberalism, and feminism. This text also incorporates three common soccer discourses to highlight the possibilities of soccer as a tool for unity and social change, as a defender of established power, and as simultaneously a mechanism used by established power and an engine for social resistance. With exercises, discussion questions, and keywords included in each chapter, Beyond Soccer is a worthwhile and accessible educational tool. Primarily written for undergraduate students of all levels, this book will be valuable in political science, international relations, cultural studies, and sociology courses.

1992 to 2022 was a period like no other for West Ham United. Taking in the rise of the Premier League, promotion, relegation, European nights and so much more, Daniel Hurley looks at key moments in West Ham's recent history from a fan's perspective, remembering joy and despair in equal measure along his journey as a football supporter from child to adult. The Games That Made Us is the story of an unforgettable period in West Ham's history told through the club's 50 most important matches over the past 30 years, with each game put into context and the consequences examined. From Dicks to Di Canio, Harewood to Antonio, Redknapp to Allardyce, The Games That Made Us tells tales of last-minute winners and last-second heartbreak, of trips to Cardiff, 5-4 victories and 4-2 defeats, plus more matches against Wimbledon than you would expect. Find out how a former manager once gave Daniel a transfer exclusive, why his son's first game was possibly the worst debut in history and why John Hartson ruined his 14th birthday.

Where the Cool Kids Hung Out is the story of the UEFA Cup's glory years, when it was a tournament that boasted a stronger field of teams than its senior siblings, the European Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup. Since then it has drifted into its poor current form as the Europa League, the Champions League having siphoned off most of Europe's biggest clubs. Yet the UEFA Cup enjoyed some very stylish years, no more so than during the two-legged final period. It was an era when Ipswich Town swept to glory, Liverpool conditioned themselves to conquer the continent, Tottenham Hotspur twice captured the cup and Dundee United came agonisingly close. It was also a time when Borussia Monchengladbach made their name, Real Madrid regenerated as a force and Serie A came to dominate. Drawing on an encyclopaedic knowledge of the tournament plus interviews with players, journalists and fans who lived and loved the competition, Steven Scragg brings you the definitive account of the UEFA Cup's halcyon days.

The sports agent has become a highly significant figure in contemporary sport business. The role of the agent is essential to our understanding of labour markets and labour relations in an increasingly globalised sports industry. Drawing on extensive empirical research into football around the world, this book explains what agents do, how their role has changed, and why this is important for future sport business. Offering analysis from economic, legal, social and historical perspectives, the book explores key topics such as: the history of sports agents including the emergence of the modern agent in US sport typologies and demographic profiles of agents in football valuations and organisational analysis of leading European agents and agencies relations between agents and clubs future directions for research into sports agents. Focusing on the major European leagues, this book goes further than any other in illuminating an important but under-researched aspect of contemporary sport business. It is a valuable resource for any student, researcher or policy-maker with an interest in sport business, sport management, sport policy, the economics of sport or labour economics.

This book highlights the latest advances in coach education and development through collaborative research co-ordinated by the English Football Association, the only national governing body of sport to run a coaching research programme. Advances in Coach Education and Development presents the first set of studies generated by this programme that display how research has informed policy and practice within the FA. Divided into three parts, each investigates an aspect of this programme such as the FA's coaching education and development provision, its commitment to developing the developer, and how its coaches put their knowledge into practice. Each chapter includes sections that examine current issues, suggest considerations for other governing bodies and pose key questions including: What can other governing bodies learn from the FA's programme? What is the best way to capture and compare different coaching systems? How can other organisations optimise success within their coach education and development programmes? How can future research continue to unpack and understand the complex role of coach educators? Bringing together a unique set of studies covering every level of football, from elite to grassroots, this book is essential reading for any serious sports coaching student, researcher or coach educator.