Demand and the reduction of consumer power in English football: a historical case-study of newcastle United fanzine, the Mag 1988–1999

ABSTRACT

Using a historically situated case study, this paper sets out to examine retrospective fan reactions towards the rise of commercialization at Newcastle United Football Club 1988–1999. Combining empirical evidence derived from a long serving NUFC fanzine with theoretical steer from the work of French Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this article explains how fans at NUFC contributed towards their subordinate position during this period as business strategy and neo-liberal philosophy took hold. The work demonstrates that fans (seduced by a new business strategy for the club) embraced the label ‘consumer’ in an attempt to strengthen their position as important stakeholders and concomitantly, to improve their relationship with club owners. But, as the popularity of Premier League football increased over time and demand for season tickets began to outweigh supply, less affluent fans found themselves to be priced out of the market as business minded club owner’s prioritized profit over fan loyalty.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Millward, P., ‘The Rebirth of the Football Fanzine: Using E-Zines as a Data Source’, Journal of Sport & Social Issues 32, no. 3 (2008): 299–310.

2. Gibbons, T., and K. Dixon, ‘Surf’s Up!’: A Call to Take English Soccer Fan Interactions on the Internet More Seriously’, Soccer & Society 11, no. 5 (2010): 599–613.

3. Dixon, K., ‘Learning the Game: Football Fandom Culture and Origins of Practice’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport 48, no. 3 (2013a): 334–348.

4. Wacquant, L. ‘Pierre Bourdieu’, Key Sociological Thinkers, 2nd. ed. R. Stones (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), 261–277.

5. Bourdieu, P. Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978).

6. Gibbons, T., K. Dixon, and S. Braye, ‘The Way It Was’: An Account of Soccer Violence in the 1980s’, Soccer & Society 9, no. 1 (2008): 28–41; Cleland, J., and K. Dixon, ‘Black and Whiter’s: The Relative Powerlessness of ‘Active’ Supporter Organization Mobility at English Premier League Football Clubs’, Soccer & Society 16, no. 4 (2015): 540–554.

7. Russell, D. Football and the English: A Social History of Association Football in England, 1863-1995 (Preston: Carnegie, 1997).

8. Horne, J. Sport in Consumer Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006).

9. Conn, The Football Business, 57.

10. Cashmore, E. Making Sense of Sport 5th. (London: Routledge, 2010).

11. King, A. The End of Terraces: The Transformation English Football in the 1990s (London: Leicester University Press, 1988), 49.

12. Guttmann, A. Sport Spectators (USA: Columbia University Press, 1986).

13. Rider, R. ‘Why Soccer Is into Injury Time’. The Times August 8, 1982, 8.

14. Smith, A., and B. Stewart, ‘The Travelling Fan: Understanding the Mechanisms of Sport Fan Consumption in the Sport Tourism Setting’, Journal of Sport and Tourism 12, no. 3-4 (2007): 155–181.

15. Dixon, K. Consuming Football in Late Modern Life (London: Ashgate, 2013b).

16. Millward, ‘The rebirth of the football fanzine’.

17. Ticher, M. Foul: Best of Footballs Alternative Papers 1972-1976 (Simon Schuster: London, 1987)

18. Domeneghetti, R. From the Back Page to the Front Room: Football’s Journey through the English Media (Huddersfield: Ockley, 2014), 184.

19. Harte, C. ‘The Fans Strike Back: Football Fanzines in Britain,1972-1992’, NASSH Proceedings (1993), 3.

20. Gray, D. Doing Research in the Real World 4th edition, (Los Angeles, USA: Sage, 2018), p.215.

21. Miles, M., M. Huberman, and J. Saldana. Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook 3rd edition, (London: Sage, 2013).

22. Bourdieu, P. Pascalian Meditations. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000).

23. TM September, Issue 2, 1988.

24. Moorehouse, H.F. ‘From Zines like These? Fanzines, Tradition and Identity in Scottish Football’, In Scottish Sport and the Making of the Nation: Ninety Minute Patriots ed. G. Jarvie and G. Walker, (Leicester: University of Leicester Press, 1994), 173–194.

25. King, A. The European Ritual (Surrey: Ashgate, 2002); Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves: Football, Television and Globalization, (London: Routledge, 2003); Crawford, Consuming Sport: Fans, Sport and Culture (London: Routledge, 2004).

26. Goldblatt, D. The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football (Falkirk: Penguin, 2015).

27. Williams, J. ‘The “New Football” in England and Sir John Halls, New “Geordie Nation”’, In Football and Regional Identity in Europe, S. Gehrmann. ed., Munster: Lit Verlag, 1997.

28. BBC North East News. ‘John Hall’s ‘Magpie Group’ Pledge. Newcastle Unites Future’. BBC North East News 1988, http://bit.ly/1eUPCVw (accessed August, 2015).

29. Tyne-Tees News. ‘John Hall Speaks in Relation to the Magpie Group’ 1988. http://bit.ly/1Jsuf72 (accessed April, 2015).

30. Goldblatt, D. The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football (Suffolk: Penguin books, 2010).

31. TM September1988, Issue 2, p.8.

32. TM September 1988, Issue 2, p.1.

33. TM February 1990, Issue 14, p.17.

34. Kennedy, P., and D. Kennedy. Football Supporters and the Commercialisation of Football: Comparative Responses across Europe (London: Routledge, 2013).

35. McGill, Football Inc. How Soccer Fans are Losing the Game (London: Vison Paperbacks, 2001).

36. TM January 1991, Issue 23, p.10.

37. TM September 1991, Issue 28, p.21.

38. TM December 1991, issue 31, p.2.

39. Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations.

40. TM February 1990, Issues 14 and 16, April 1990.

41. Ibid., p. 9.

42. Bryman, A. The Disneyization of Society (London: Sage, 2004).

43. Dixon, ‘Consumption’.

44. TM August 1990, Issue 18, p.14.

45. Wagg, S. ‘Fat City? British Football and the Politics of Social Exclusion at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, 1-25’, in British Football and Social Exclusion, S. Wagg. ed., Abingdon: Routledge, 2004. 1–25.

46. Boyle, R., and R. Haynes. Sport, the Media, and Popular Culture (Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000); Boyle, R., and R. Haynes. Football in the New Media Age (London: Routledge, 2004).

47. TM, September 1993, Issue 54, p.2.

48. Horton, E. Moving the Goalposts: Football’s Exploitation (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1997), 122.

49. Haynes, R. ‘Media’, in Studying Football, ed. E. Cashmore and K. Dixon, (London: Routledge, 2016). 113–132.

50. See TM, Issue 28, p.11; Issue 29, p.16; Issue 54, p. 2; Issue 59, p.9.

51. For a more in depth discussion of this issue see Lasch, The Degradation of Sport, the Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations; Boyle and Haynes, Sport in the Media and Popular Culture.

52. TM January 1994, p.52.

53. Giulianotti, Football: A sociology of the global game.

54. TM September 1993, Issue 54, p.3.

55. Kennedy and Kennedy, Football Supporters and the Commercialisation of Football.

56. TM, September 1993, issue 54, p.3.

57. TM, July 1994, Issue 65, p.3.

58. The bond was a successful financial venture, netting the club an extra £3.6 Million – see McGill, Football Inc. 219.

59. Giulianotti, R. Football: A Sociology of the Global Game, (Cambridge: Polity, 1999);Goldblatt, D. The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football (Suffolk: Penguin books, 2010); Crabbe, T., and A. Brown. ‘You’re Not Welcome Anymore: The Football Crowd, Class and Social Exclusion’, in British Football and Social Exclusion, S. Wagg. ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004). 26–46.; Morrow, S. The People’s Game? Football, Finance and Society (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2003).

60. TM, October 1994, Issue 69, p.15.

61. TM, September 1996, Issue 92, p.25.

62. Wagg, British Football and Social Exclusion.

63. McGill, Football Inc. How soccer fans are losing the game.

64. Conn, D. How the Geordie Nation Turned into a Cash Cow. The Guardian Online. (2006). http://bit.ly/1IP5vZJ (accessed August, 2015).

65. TM, October 1999, issue 127, 15.

66. King, End of the Terraces.

67. Giulianotti, Football: A sociology of the global game; Crabbe and Brown, ‘You’re not welcome any more: Football, class and social exclusion’; Morrow, The Peoples Game? Football, Finance and Society.

68. Taylor, Rt. Hon Lord Justice, ‘The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster: Final Report’. London: HMSO.

69. TM, October 1999, issue 127, 6.

70. BBC Sport, ‘United waive fans court costs’, 2000.

71. Conn, ‘How the Geordie Nation turned into a Cash Cow’.

72. TM, October 1999, Issue 127, p.8.

73. Goldblatt, The Game of Our Lives: The meaning and making of English Football.