Football and its continuity as a classless mass phenomenon in Germany and England: rethinking the bourgeoisification of football crowds

Abstract

Considering football’s popular notion of a working-class sport in England and Germany – at least in the 1950s – the shift towards present classless fandom in football is mainly explained by the genesis of a middle-class fan culture induced by the process of football’s accumulating (hyper-) commodification. However, this so-called ‘bourgeoisification thesis’ cannot be verified on the basis of empirical data – neither on the basis of the employment status of people attending football matches in the stadia of the top league clubs in England and Germany between 1977 and 2009 nor on the basis of representative data pertaining to the social-class profile of regular readers of German football magazines carried out in 1954. It is demonstrated that football has enjoyed continuous popularity among all social classes. Hence, the bourgeoisification of football fandom can basically be ascribed to the inter- and intra-generational upward mobility in postmodern societies induced by socio-structural change.

Notes

1. Schulze, Erlebnisgesellschaft.

2. Ibid.

3. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans and Flaneurs’; and Giulianotti, Football: A Sociology of the Global Game. Giulianotti analyses the starting point of football’s commodification in the 1960s. He terms the more intensive dynamics of commodification from the 1990s onward ‘hyper-commodification’. His understanding of commodification and application of the terms ‘commodification’ and ‘hyper-commodification’ are adopted in this paper.

4. In the following, the term ‘class’ refers to the original understanding of (occupational) class theory as well as to the German concept of ‘Schicht’. It is worth noticing that the term ‘class’ traditionally has been used in English research literature, while the notion ‘Schicht’ has been predominantly applied in German research literature. Indeed, these terms are related to different concepts. For further details, see Burzan, Soziale Ungleichheiten. Nevertheless, noticeable similarities justify a synonymous application of the two different concepts in this article. However, this mainly refers to the analytical distinction between the terms working/proletarian class and middle/bourgeois class in class theory, Arbeiterschicht and bürgerliche Schicht in the concept of ‘Schicht’ respectively, which is considered mainly in this article, and similarly to the analytical trychonomy of working class – middle class – upper class and Arbeiterschicht – Mittelschicht – Oberschicht respectively.

5. E.g. Dubai, ‘Neoliberalization of Football’.

6. See Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans and Flaneurs’; and Fürtjes, ‘Der Fußball und seine Kontinuität als schichtenübergreifendes Massenphänomen’, 55–6.

7. The term ‘classless’ is used in the meaning of ‘cuts across all classes’.

8. E.g. Mason, Association Football; and Eisenberg, ‘Deutschland’.

9. See Vamplew, Pay Up and Play the Game; and Luh, ‘Fußball als Massenphänomen’.

10. Bausenwein, Geheimnis Fußball; Fishwick, English football and society; Eggers, Fußball in der Weimarer Republik; Gehrmann, Fußball-Vereine-Politik; Hering, Im Land der 1000 Derbys; Mason, Association Football; Russell, Football and the English; Schulze-Marmeling, Der gezähmte Fußball; Wagg, The Football World; and Walvin, The People’s Game.

11. Gehrmann, Fußball-Vereine-Politik, 41 et seq.; and Fishwick, English football and society, 66 et seq.

12. Eggers, Fußball in der Weimarer Republik, 48 et seq.; Hering, Im Land der 1000 Derbys, 114 et seq.; and Mason, Association Football, 226 et seq.

13. Eisenberg, ‘Der Weg des Fußballs um die Welt’, 56–7.

14. (Bundesliga scandal); see Merkel, ‘Football Fans and Clubs in Germany’, 362.

15. ‘Gemeinnützigkeitsregelung’, see Gehrmann, ‘Ein Schritt nach Europa’.

16. See e.g. Wagg, The Football World.

17. Giulianotti, Football: A Sociology of the Global Game, 40.

18. Taylor, ‘Football Mad’; and Taylor, ‘Soccer Consciousness and Soccer Hooliganism’.

19. Critcher, ‘Football Since the War’.

20. Lindner and Breuer, ‘Sind doch nicht alles Beckenbauers’.

21. See Eisenberg, ‘Der Weg des Fußballs um die Welt’, 56–7.

22. Digel and Burk, ‘Zur Entwicklung des Fernsehsports in Deutschland’; Großhans, Fußball im deutschen Fernsehen; and Leder, ‘Vom Verlust der Distanz’.

23. Bleeker-Dohmen et al., ‘Sind wir so unwichtig?’, 506–7.

24. Merkel, ‘Football Fans and Clubs in Germany’.

25. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans and Flaneurs’.

26. Boyle and Haynes, Football in the New Media Age.

27. Crabbe and Brown, ‘You’re Not Welcome Anymore’.

28. See Taylor, The Association Game, 363; Holt and Mason, Sport in Britain; King, ‘New Directors, Customers, and Fans’; King, ‘The Lads’; Dubai, ‘Neoliberalization of Football’; Duke, ‘Local Tradition Versus Globalisation’; Williams, ‘Der “Neue Fußball” in England’; and Nash, ‘Contestation in Modern English Professional Football’.

29. E.g. King, The End of the Terraces.

30. Nash, ‘Contestation in Modern English Professional football’; see also Crabbe and Brown, ‘You’re Not Welcome Anymore’, 34–9; and Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, Followers, Fans and Flaneurs’, 25.

31. Holt and Mason, Sport in Britain, 4.

32. Giulianotti, Football: A Sociology of the Global Game, 35; King, End of the Terraces, 103 et seq.; and Taylor, The Association Game, 363–4.

33. Großhans, Fußball im deutschen Fernsehen; König, Fankultur; Schulze-Marmeling, Fußball. Zur Geschichte eines globalen Sports; Aschenbeck, Fußballfans im Abseits; Bleeker-Dohmen et al., ‘Sind wir so unwichtig?’; Lenhard, Vereinsfußball und Identifikation in Deutschland; Merkel, ‘Football Fans and Clubs in Germany’; and Pfaff, ‘Erlebniswelt Fußball-Arena’.

34. Aschenbeck, Fußballfans im Abseits, 18.

35. Gabler, Die Ultras; Merkel, ‘Football Fans and Clubs in Germany’.

36. Giulianotti, Football: A Sociology of the Global Game; and Redhead, Post-Fandom and the Millennial Blues. Aschenbeck describes this type as ‘kritischen fußballzentrierten Fan’ (critical football-centric fan).

37. Taylor, The Association Game, 364.

38. Duke, ‘The Sociology of Football’.

39. Malcolm et al., ‘The People’s Game?’; Stollenwerk, Sport-Zuschauer-Medien; and Waddington et al., ‘The Social Composition of Football Crowds in Western Europe’.

40. Malcolm et al., ‘The People’s Game?’

41. Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research, The FA Premier League National Fan Survey 2001; F.A. Premier League, National Fan Survey Report: 2005/06 Season; and F.A. Premier League, National Fan Survey Summary Report: 2007/08 Season.

42. Stollenwerk, Sport-Zuschauer-Medien, 73. I wish to thank Dr. Hans Stollenwerk who provided me the samples from 1997 onward. Earlier samples are published in Stollenwerk, Sport-Zuschauer-Medien. Further information is available in Table 1.

43. Working class: ‘skilled manual’ ‘semi skilled manual’ and ‘unskilled’ in the English samples; ‘Arbeiter’ and ‘Facharbeiter’ in the German samples; middle class: ‘Professional’, ‘Intermediate’ and ‘Skilled Non-manual’ in the English samples; ‘Selbständige’, ‘Freiberufler’, ‘Angestelle’ and ‘Beamte’ in the German samples.

44. Gehrmann, Fußball-Vereine-Politik, 57.

45. Waddington et al., ‘The Social Composition of Football Crowds in Western Europe’.

46. Schümer, Gott ist rund, 192.

47. Further information see Hagenah and Meulemann, ‘Sozialer Wandel und Mediennutzung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland’.

48. Fürtjes, ‘Der Fußball und seine Kontinuität als schichtenübergreifendes Massenphänomen’, 65; Fürtjes and Hagenah, ‘Der Fußball und seine Entproletarisierung’.

49. This is the result of the range calculation based on the data sample from 1954.

50. See Fürtjes and Hagenah, ‘Der Fußball und seine Entproletarisierung’, 296.

51. The occupation profile covers nearly all respondents. For people other than full-time employees the job of the householder was registered. For the retired the former employment was registered.

52. The classification was conducted by the interviewer themselves. The document ‘Der Zeitschriftenleser 1954’ by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Leseranalyse provides some more information and can be requested by the author.

53. Fürtjes and Hagenah, ‘Der Fußball und seine Entproletarisierung’.

54. For further details, see Fürtjes, ‘Gentrifizierung des Stadionpublikums’.

55. Lash and Urry, The End of Organised Capitalism.

56. Mason, Association Football, 42–3; Tischler, Footballers and Businessmen, 71 et seq.; and Vamplew, Pay Up and Play the Game, 161 et seq.

57. Mason, Association Football, 44–5.

58. Fishwick, English Football and Society, 29; and Vamplew, Pay Up and Play the Game, 161.

59. Mason, Association Football, 151.

60. Fishwick, English Football and Society, 62.

61. Ibid., 56–7.

62. Russel, Football and the English, 56.

63. Mellor, ‘The Social and Geographical Make-up of Football Crowds’, 25.

64. Taylor, The Association Game; Tischler, Footballers and Businessmen; and Vamplew, Pay Up and Play the Game.

65. Taylor, The Association Game, 118 et seq.

66. Malcolm, ‘Football business and football communities’.

67. Wagg, The Football World, 35.

68. Mason, Association Football.

69. Gehrmann, Fußball - Vereine – Politik.

70. Schulze-Marmeling, Der gezähmte Fußball, 22–3.