Cleland, Jamie and Doidge, Mark and Millward, Peter and Widdop, Paul (2018) Collective Action and Football Fandom A Relational Sociological Ap- proach. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 3319731416 Downloaded from: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/624519/ Version: Submitted Version Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Please cite the published version https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk Collective Action and Football Fandom: A Relational Sociological Approach Palgrave MacMillan: Basingstoke. 2018 Jamie Cleland, Mark Doidge, Peter Millward and Paul Widdop 1 Contents Chapter One: Relational Sociology, Collective Action and Football Fandom Chapter Two: The Touchstones For Understanding Football Fans' Collective Actions: A Primer in Cultural Relational Sociology Chapter Three: Friendships, Community Ties and Non-League Fandom: Opting ‘Out’ From the Commercialization of the Premier League and ‘In’ to Leftist Political Scenes Chapter Four: 'Bringing City Home': Coventry City, Sisu Capital and the Ricoh Arena Chapter Five: Supporter Trusts as Collective Action: Swansea City in Focus Chapter Six: Ticket Prices Campaigns, Urban Space and Twitter: Social Networks and Storied Connections Chapter Seven: Football Supporters Across Europe: Co-operation and Solidarities in Networks of Fan Movements Chapter Eight: Conclusion: Connections More Than Matter! - Relational Understandings of Football Fans' Collective Actions 2 Acknowledgements Howard Becker published the first edition of Art Worlds in 1982. The book argued that although a piece of art might be credited to an artist (or occasionally a group of artists) it was the product of a collective enterprise of all who existed in, worked in or just interacted with an 'art world’. As such, the 'art world' and the development of fine art comprised of everyone involved in producing, commissioning, presenting, preserving, promoting, chronicling, criticizing, and all pieces. Far from being an individual piece of work, each painting, sculpture or composition was the product of the influences and ideas emerging from the networks of networks of networks made up of interactions. This book is credited to the four of us but is the product of the networks of networks of networks made up of interactions within and away from work that we keep. Acknowledgements have never been more clearly owed. So with this in mind, Jamie would like to acknowledge the love and support of his family, particularly his mum and dad who supported him financially during his postgraduate studies that set him up on a career in academia. He would also like to acknowledge the research collaborations with Ellis Cashmore, Kevin Dixon, Rory Magrath and Ted Kian that directly fed into this book. As this book highlights the relational aspects of football fandom, it is the product of so many relationships, both scholarly and fandom related. Consequently, Mark would like to thank so many of the fantastic fans he has met on his European and non-league journeys. There are too many to mention individually, but special mentions definitely need to go to Endi and Dani at Football Supporters Europe. Their tireless work has brought together so many people for the good of fans. At Dulwich Hamlet, Alex is an incredible force and without her, so much of this could not have been done. And last but not least, thanks to the Whitehawk Ultras who have shown what football fandom should be! Pete would like to express deep gratitude to family and friends. In particular, he would like to thank his partner, Anna who at the time of the first submission of the manuscript was almost 8 months pregnant with their first child. Less than a week after that submission, Layla Rose Millward arrived five weeks early and life had changed for the better. Anna probably could have done without this book project invading Pete's waking (and often sleeping) thoughts during the entire period they were expecting! Into the ‘academy’, Pete would like to warmly acknowledge colleagues at Liverpool John Moores University and past and present PhD researchers he has supervised, the discussions with whom have fed into many thoughts that grew in this book. Also thanks are due to Robin Canniford, Matthew David, Richard Giulianotti, Michael Halpin, John Hayton, Tim Hill, Laura Kelly, Neil King, Andrew Kirton, Susan O'Shea, Dan Parnell, Renan Petersen-Wagner, Emma Poulton, George Poulton and Karl Spracklen for their joint research enterprises with Pete on other research 3 project and outputs. Their work, and collegiality, has directly and indirectly fed into shaping his thoughts on the material across this monograph. Paul would like to this dedicate this book to Jayne, Heidi, Paddy, Elsie and Betsy. He would also like to thank his mam for her love and support, and to his Grandads Bill and Peter, they loved Burnley and Middlesbrough Football Clubs. Finally, he would like to thank Daniel Parnell, a great friend and scholar. In addition, we would like to collectively recognize the help and support offered by a number of friends and colleagues. Particular thanks in this regard are owed to Palgrave Studies in Relational Sociology series editor François Dépelteau for his support and patience in our delivery of this monograph and Nick Crossley for being a sounding board for ideas across this and connected projects. Gratitude is also due to both for their strong work in the field that influenced our thoughts in establishing a cultural relational framework to explore football fan movements. We would also like to thank the support received from the Football Collective, Political Studies Association Sports group, British Sociological Association Sport Study Group, and Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis, and not only on this book but throughout our academic life. Needless to say, extreme thanks are also owed to all of those journalists and football supporters who spoke to us and allowed us into their ‘social worlds’ to collect data in this research. We quite literally could not have produced this book without you. Jamie Cleland Mark Doidge Peter Millward Paul Widdop 4 Foreword The authors of this book are to be congratulated, not only because they have written a great book about a fascinating subject, nor even for their innovative cross-pollination of ideas from the sociology of leisure and sport, on one side, and social movement studies and the sociology of collective action on the other. They have done both of these things and should be congratulated for these achievements but no less important, in my view, is their decision to take relational sociology out of the realm of pure theory, where it still largely resides today, into application and empirical analysis. Theoretical innovations come thick and fast in sociology. There have been so many ‘turns’ in the last twenty years that we must all be a little dizzy. This makes sociology exciting and there are, of course, many reasons to value such innovations and evaluate them. I cannot help feeling a little disappointed, however, that so many of these revolutions leave the practice of sociology, as an empirical discipline, more or less unchanged. Our vocabulary changes as do the Gods to whom we express devotion in the ‘theory section’ of more or less everything we write, but other than that we carry on as before. Relational sociology has the potential to achieve much more than this and I believe that the authors of the present study are setting the ball rolling, if I can be allowed that pun, in the right direction. They make a strong, persuasive and fascinating case for using relational sociology to make sense of football, particularly collective action in football, discussing how and why these theoretical ideas are of use. More than this, however, they do so using case studies and empirical data, and employing methods, such as social network analysis, which exemplify relational sociology in action. They don’t just talk about relational sociology. They do it. The example will, I believe, inspire many others to follow. This is a genuine and significant step forward for relational sociology and hopefully one which will usher in a new phase in the development of the theory. Our understanding of football benefits considerably from this work but so too does our understanding of relational sociology. The various chapters of the book illustrate key concepts from relational sociology but also, inevitably, in applying them they sharpen them, 5 refine them and allow us to see them in a new and different light. In this way, moreover, the authors not only apply theory they do theory, in the field (or on the pitch), so to speak. I hope that relational theorists and social theorists more widely will see the book in this light and embrace the lessons it has for us all. This is a major study in relational sociology and deserves the attention and discussion that this description suggests. Nick Crossley Manchester 17th August 2017 6 Chapter One: Relational Sociology, Collective Action and Football Fandom Introduction Despite the grey skies it was the height of summer 2017 and, across many countries in Europe, it was association football's (hereafter football) 'close season'. There would be no competitive football matches in the UK for a full month and around a month had passed since the last ones took place - but this was 'fan activist' season. The week before, Pride in Football had run their 'Call It Out' conference - a meeting of supporters from across Europe engaged in challenging sexuality-themed prejudices at all levels of the sport. The following week, Football Supporters' Europe (FSE, see Chapter Seven) would run their Fans' Congress in the traditional rival cities of Gent and Lokeren in Belgium. Here, supporters from across the continent would get together to debate issues ranging from the ways in which they can help refugees to alternative approaches to the use of pyrotechnics at football matches.