Professional Football and Its Supporters in Lancashire, Circa 1946-1985
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Professional Football and its Supporters in Lancashire, circa 1946-1985 Gavin Mellor Department of Historical and Critical Studies Thesis Presented at the University of Central Lancashire in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of Ph.D. January 2003 Abstract The academic study of Association Football and other sports is now regularly regarded as a valid and essential part of disciplines including psychology, history, philosophy, geography and sociology. The sociology and social history of Association Football in England for the period after the Second World War has, until recently, been dominated by the study of hooliganism and the recent commercialisation of the game. This has left a significant gap in the historiography of English foothall, particularly in terms of supporters' changing relationships with clubs in the period from 1946 onwards. This project has four principal aims. These are to assess the social make-up of post- war football crowds in Lancashire; to analyse the fall in attendances that occurred at • most Lancashire football clubs in the post-war period; to assess the developing relationship between football and social identity in post-war Lancashire; and to evaluate attempts to reconnect football clubs with football communities from the late l970s to the mid-1980s. The project is focused on Lancashire as this region provides an exceptionally good context for analysing post-war football supporters, containing both declining town-based clubs such as Preston North End and Blackpool, and big- city teams such as Liverpool and Manchester United. It centres on the period from circa 1946 to 1985 as most professional football clubs returned to normality after wartime dislocation in 1946, whilst the game underwent a number of fundamental changes after the Bradford City fire, Heysel Stadium disaster and other incidents that occurred in 1985. Through documentary analysis, the evaluation of socio-economic statistics, oral history interviews, and sociological debates concerning the respective influences of structure and agency on historical developments, the project produced a number of important conclusions. It was found that football crowds in the immediate post-war period were probably more heterogeneous than has previously been thought in terms of class, gender and geographical origins. It was also discovered that a variety of socio-economic influences including increasing affluence and consumption, rising marriage rates, geographical movement, increasing home ownership, and rising unemployment all acted as important factors in determining the frequency of people's football attendance in Lancashire at various points between 1946 and 1985. The project also found that football clubs were central agencies in producing feelings of local and regional identity in Lancashire in the 1940s and 1950s. However, it was noted that people came to construct their social and sporting identities differently from the early 1 960s onwards with the result that a bifurcation occurred between many football clubs and football communities. In the final section of the project, the successes and failures of responses to this situation are judged by studying formal football and community initiatives and changes in football fan culture in Lancashire in the l980s. These developments are used to partly explain how certain Lancashire football clubs and football communities came to be connected once more in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Dedicated to the memory of my Grandmother Edna Mellor (1926-2002) Contents Page Acknowledgements vi Tables vii Figures Yin 1 Introduction: Association Football in Lancashire: Neglected 1 Topics and Areas of Debate 1.1 Association Football, Social Sciences and the Humanities 1 1.2 The Aims of the Project 4 1.3 Lancashire and the North West of England 9 1.4 The Historical Importance of Lancashire in the Development of Association 15 Football 1.5 Outline of the Project 23 2 Methodology 30 2.1 Introduction 30 2.2 History and Sociology: Theory and Evidence 30 2.3 The Structure and Agency Debate 33 2.4 Data and Information Sources 38 2.5 Oral 1-listory - Opportunities and Problems 41 2.6 Conclusion 44 3 The Composition of Post-War Football Crowds in 47 Lancashire 3.1 Introduction 47 3.2 Football Supporters and Class 48 3.3 Football Supporters and Gender 53 3.4 Catchment Areas and 'Super-Clubs' 61 3.5 Conclusion 72 II 4 Changes in Football Attendances in Lancashire, 1946-1985 77 4.1 Introduction 77 4.2 The Post-War Attendance Boom at Lancashire football clubs 77 4.3 The Rise and Fall of Football Attendances in Lancashire 81 4.4 Contemporary Analyses of English Football Attendance Decline, 1946-85 88 4.5 Academic Studies of Attendance Decline in English Football, 1946-85 96 4.6 Football-Specific Factors in the Decline of Post-War English Football 97 Attendances 4.7 'Demand-Side' Arguments for Declining Interest in Post-War English 101 Football 4.8 Conclusion - Evaluation of Existing Theories and Approaches 104 5 Analysing Football Attendance Change in Lancashire, 1946- 110 85 5.1 Introduction 110 5.2 Social Influences on Football Attendances, 1946-1975 111 5.3 Social Influences on Football Attendances, 1975-85 131 5.4 Oral History Testimony on Reasons for Declining Attendances at Lancashire 138 Football Matches, 1946-85 5.5 Summary of Evidence 156 111 6 Football, Community and Social Identity in Lancashire, 165 1946-1960 6.1 Introduction 165 6.2 Football, Family and Friends: Football and Community as Experienced by 166 Oral History Respondents 6.3 Football and Community 173 6.4 Local Newspapers, the Creation of Community and the FA Cup 181 6.5 Football Heroes and the Creation of Community 195 6.6 Images of Lancashire 196 6.7 Lancashire Football Heroes 199 6.8 Football Supporters and 'Regional' Identity 209 6.9 Exceptions to Regional Support for Lancashire Football in the 1950s and 216 1960s 6.10 Reason for the Development of the Lancashire Regional Football Community 222 6.11 Conclusion 226 7 Football Fandom and the Decline of Communal Identities in 235 Lancashire, 1960-1985 7.1 Introduction 235 7.2 Local Identity and the Decline of Town-Based Lancashire Football Clubs 236 7.3 Emhourgeoisement, the Working Classes and Declining Local Identities 238 7.4 The Development of Manchester United as a Super-Club 246 7.5 The Importance of Glamour for the Growth of Manchester United 249 7.6 Post-War Partisanship in Football in Lancashire and the Decline of Regional 254 Identity 7.7 Cross-Club Support in the 1980s - A Case of Merseyside Exceptionalism 262 7.8 Reasons for the Breakdown of Regionalism 268 7.9 Conclusion 273 'V 8 Football, Community and Social Identity in Lancashire: the 279 1970s and 1980s 8.1 Introduction 279 8.2 Football and Community Schemes in the 1970s 280 8.3 Evaluating Early Football and Community Schemes 284 8.4 Football and Community Schemes in the 1980s 286 8.5 A Case Study of Football and Community Schemes: Preston North End 291 8.6 (Postscript) Football and Community Schemes in the 1990s 300 8.7 The Actions of Fans - The Development of Football 'Fanzines' 301 8.8 Conclusion 312 9 Conclusions and Future Directions 317 9.1 Introduction 317 9.2 Overall Conclusions and a Summary of Findings 317 9.3 Areas for Future Consideration 321 References and Sources 326 Appendix V Acknowledgements I am grateful to all those people who have helped in the completion of this project. I am particularly indebted to the following: Andy Gritt, Andrea Blackhurst and other postgraduate colleagues at the University of Central Lancashire in the early years of the project; the staff of the Department of Historical and Critical Studies at the University of Central Lancashire; the University of Central Lancashire for providing funding for the first two years of the project; the staff of the Football League, the Football Association and the National Football Museum, Preston; my oral history interviewees; the staff of the Lancashire Evening Post; library staff at Manchester Central Library, Blackburn Library, Bolton Library, and the British Library, Collindale; Liverpool Hope University College for providing funding and study leave for the project; Sport Studies colleagues at Liverpool Hope for all their support Steve Atkins for his aLivice on statistics; Paul Darby for his constant encouragement and &lvice; my parents and family for their patience; and Shileen Tarpey for her emotional support when things were not going well. I must reserve most thanks for Dave Russell, the project supervisor. Without his patience, understanding, support, knowledge, good humour and constructive criticism, this project could not have been completed. Dave believed in the project during difficult periods: that support will never be forgotten and will provide a model for how to approach student support during my own academic career. Gavin Mellor Manchester, January 2003 vi Tables Page 1.1 Lancashire Football League Clubs - 1888-1914 20 1.2 New Lancashire Football League Clubs - 1921-51 21 2.1 Dualisms in Social Theory 35 4.1 Percentage Change in Average Attendance for Lancashire 84 Football Clubs between 1946-47 and 1985-86 8.1 Arrests at English Football Matches, 1986-87 - 1991-92 289 8.2 Supporters' Perceptions of the Force of Impact of Preston 295 North End's Football in the Community Scheme, 1987 8.3 Has PNE's community scheme led you and/or people in your 297 family and friendship networks to attend Deepdale more regularly? 8.4 Respondents' perception of the effect of the football and 299 community scheme on the image of Preston