View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of East Anglia digital repository ‘I mainly come for the pies’ An ethnographic study of contemporary football culture. "This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived there from must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution.” Author: Oliver Brooks AMA Research Degree. 24 th November 2014. UEA no. 3567044 Contents. Abstract. Page. 2 Chapter 1. Introduction Page. 3 Chapter 2. Literature Review Page. 13 Chapter 3. Methodology: Changing Formation Page. 42 Chapter 4. Norwich City: ‘The best pies in the league’ Page. 57 Chapter 5. MK Dons: Fear and Loathing in Milton Keynes Page. 88 Chapter 6. Chelsea: ‘Champions of Europe.’ Page.117 Chapter 7. Pub. Page.149 Chapter 8. Conclusion Page.188 Bibliography. Page.198 Appendix A Page.213 Appendix B Page.225 1 Abstract. This thesis endeavours to develop a more nuanced understanding of contemporary football culture. As such my research adopts a consumer-oriented cultural studies approach to analyse the ways in which modern ‘consumer’ fans negotiate their position within football culture and the power operating upon them as they do so. Drawing on data from unique ethnographic research I argue that modern fans engage in processes of complex discursive negotiation, constructing their identities at the juncture of the hegemonic discourses that surround football culture: capitalism and tradition, but also their individual understanding of how they are expected to enact fandom. I argue that modern fans are able to negotiate the discourses of capitalism and tradition operating upon them to enact their own power and identity within football culture. As such, this thesis seeks to advance debates about collective identity formation and the scope of representation within contemporary football culture. In doing so, my research contributes to football scholarship’s long tradition of making perceptive social commentaries, drawing on football culture to contribute to wider debates concerning capitalism and collective identity formation. 2 Chapter 1: Introduction. Millions of people in our county love their football and love their football clubs. Our national game will only succeed in the long term if the voices of the fans are heard… and they are given the chance to play their part. (Ed Miliband 2014) #YouAreFootball As I exited the tube at Fulham Broadway to conduct my pilot study with Chelsea fans (27/9/11), employees of Barclays Bank approached me. As the official sponsor of the Premier League, Barclays had just started its ‘#YouAreFootball campaign,’ an initiative started by the bank to ‘thank real football fans’ (Barclays 2011) by giving them the opportunity to win match day tickets and recoup travel expenses. To be in with a chance of winning tickets, I was asked to tell Barclays what football meant to me to ‘help them celebrate the passion of real fans’ (Barclays 2011). Barclays (2011) emphasise the centrality of the fan to football culture as suggested by the branding of their campaign ‘#YouAreFootball,’ a slogan that along with their rationale of engaging with the individual passions of fans, positions fans as active agents within football culture. The epigraph similarly encapsulates this idea of autonomy, Miliband (2014) positioning fans as active agents that exercise their voice and ‘play their part’ in shaping football culture. Taking the Barclays campaign into account, this idea of an active, participatory fandom seems constitutive of Barclays’ (2011) conception of a ‘real football fan,’ yet there is a slight caveat to this. To identify as a ‘real fan,’ and to take part in the competition, participants had to be in possession of a match day ticket. While the campaign would seem to acknowledge the constitutive role of the fan within football culture, it is required that the fan is active in consumption , ‘buying into’ football’s culture of capitalism and supporting its affiliated companies. The bank’s definition of the ‘real football fan’ works with the assumption that fans accept contemporary football’s culture of capitalism, ‘real’ fans acknowledging their position as consumers within the culture. Barclays’ (2011) conception of the ‘real football fan’ looks to 3 naturalise the game’s 1 modern capitalism and the relationship of producer and consumer between fan and football club, however the concept of the ‘real football fan’ is shrouded in conflicting discourse within football culture. Indeed, while Barclays (2011) clearly recognise modern football as a developed capitalist industry, there is significant opposition to the game’s modern capitalism and the subsequent consumer fan identities that have developed as a result of this process. Explaining my thesis to ‘Richard’ (19/6/12) 2 a contact I made conducting research in ‘MG’s,’ a popular sports bar in Norfolk 3, he questioned its significance and representativeness: Your research is looking at those that can afford to go to football matches, not fans. The real fans can’t afford to go to games anymore and have been put off by the circus surrounding it these days. Real football fans don’t go to matches anymore so I don’t think there’s much point (in you) going to matches (to conduct research) it’ll all be the same thing (2012). Barclays (2011) use rhetoric that alludes to the active consumerism of fans within football culture yet ‘Richard’ denies their fandom, positioning them as passive consumers, ‘your research is looking at those that can afford to go to football matches, not fans (emphasis added).’ Similarly, while Barclays implore consumer fans to ‘share their passions’ about football, ‘Richard’ denies consumer fans’ individuality and subjectivity. He suggests that their fandom will be figured by their relationship of consumerism to their clubs and thus my ethnographic observations within the stadium will ‘all be the same thing.’ My research operates against the assumption that football culture has historically operated free from capitalism 4 and subsequently looks to understand the individual pleasure and motivations of modern consumer fans, exploring how they understand the way in which they are positioned within football culture, how they articulate their fandom and negotiate the ways in which they are narrowly represented. 1 ‘The game,’ is a term used throughout the thesis. ‘The game’ is used as an umbrella concept to capture the idea that live football is an ‘event’ that extends beyond the action on the pitch. The participants suggest that they have different motivations for attending live matches; pleasures are found in club catering, in socialising with like-minded people, meeting family, drinking and in purchasing merchandise. It is this wider idea of football as an ‘event,’ as a leisure industry that I draw upon in use of the term. 2 See appendix A. 3 ‘MG’s’was recommended to me as a site for analysis by self identified ‘pub fans’. See chapter seven. 4 See Literature Review for expansion. 4 Fundamentally ‘Richard’ (2012) mobilises the concept of the ‘real football fan,’ in opposition to Barclays (2011) and the concept of the consumer fan. He argue that ‘real fans don’t go to matches anymore,’ insinuating that they have become both economically and ideologically disenfranchised; ‘Real fans can’t afford to go to games anymore’ they are ‘put off by the circus surrounding it these days’ (Richard 2012). This notion refers to the cultural changes that have happened within football culture since the early 1990s, said to mark football cultures’ assimilation with modern capitalism, when the FA made concerted attempts to attract new demographics to the sport: women, families and the middle classes (see Fynn & Guest 1994; Lee 1998; King 2002; Imlach 2005). To achieve this, the terraces were removed and an all seating policy was introduced while ticket prices were increased concomitant with the game’s embourgeoisement, to assimilate football with wider leisure industries. ‘Richard’ encapsulates the idea that this cultural reorientation of the game precipitated alterations in the physical experience of watching live football matches but also, significantly, the ‘type’ of fan that these changes attracted. Fundamentally he argues that as consumers, contemporary fans cannot be considered ‘real,’ with individual fan identities. A tension is apparent within football culture. While the game has developed through different phases of capitalism 5, ‘Richard’s’ (2012) understanding of modern football culture as ‘capitalist football culture’ is demonstrative of a large counter discourse that decries the loss of the traditional experience of attending football matches and the traditional fan identities of the working class men that occupied the terraces. This tension is reflected in the way in which Barclays (2011) and ‘Richard’ mobilise the concept of the ‘real football fan’. As suggested, while Barclays emphasise the centrality of consumer fans within the culture, framing their fandom as active consumerism, ‘Richard’ juxtaposes their passive consumption to the knowing abstinence of the ‘traditional fan’ (see Ingle 2005), framing consumer fans as hollow, ersatz and corporate dupes. The way in which ‘Richard’ (2012) creates opposition between consumer fans and traditional fans emphasises the centrality of both capitalist and traditional