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Abstract
This paper focuses on ten travelogues written by football fans during four FIFA World Cup tournaments (1994–2006), and explores how attendance at the World Cup Finals is represented in popular literary form. Outlining the history of travel writing and the lack of attention given to it by historians, this paper situates the book-format football travelogue in its literary and historic context. Relevant to the historian, ethnographer, literary scholar and sociologist, these football travelogues provide an opportunity to scrutinize the fans’ perspective of the world's largest single sporting event. The paper reviews the written styles and content and identifies five common themes. A historic and literary analysis is undertaken to reveal both commonalities and divergence, and ways of seeing that typically resulted in the presentation of cultural stereotypes. It is concluded that travelogues, written by fans, offer opportunities to both construct and extend a literary discourse on football fandom.
Notes
1. Nick Hornby, Fever pitch (London, 1992); Pete Davies, All played out. The full story of Italia '90 (London, 1990). Terrance Blacker, ‘Fan fare’, Sunday Times, 15 Nov. 1993, pp. 6–8.
2. See Jeffrey Hill, Sport and the literary imagination (Oxford, 2006), pp. 113–32; Merritt Moseley, ‘Nick Hornby, English football and Fever pitch’, Aethlon, 11 (2) (1994), pp. 87–95.
3. Steve Redhead, Post-fandom and the millennial blues: The transformation of soccer culture (London, 1997), pp. 88–92. See also Anthony King, The end of the terraces. The transformation of English football in the 1990s (Leicester, 1998); Raymond Boyle and Richard Haynes, Power play. Sport media and popular culture (London, 2000), pp. 177–86; Simon Kuper, Football against the enemy (London, 1994).
4. Illustrating USA academics’ work on sports literature, see Tom Dodge, A literature of sports (Lexington, MA, 1980); Robert Higgs, Laurel and thorn. The athlete in American literature (Lexington, KY, 1981); Michael Oriad, Dreaming of heroes. American sports fiction 1868–1980 (Chicago, 1982); Michael Oriad, ‘A linguistic turn in sport history’, in Murray G. Phillips, ed., Deconstructing sport history. A postmodern analysis (Albany, NY, 2006).
5. John Hughson, ‘Among the thugs. The “new ethnographies” of football supporting subcultures’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 33 (1) (1998), pp. 43–57; Richard Giulianotti, ‘Back to the future: An ethnography of Ireland's football fans at the 1994 World Cup Finals in the USA’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 31 (1) (1996) pp. 323–44; Mike Weed, ‘The story of an ethnography: The experience of watching the 2002 World Cup in the pub’, Soccer and Society, 7 (1) (2006), pp. 76–95; Mike Weed, ‘The pub as a virtual football fandom venue: An alternative to “being there”?’, Soccer and Society, 8 (2) (2007), pp. 399–414; Roy Hay and Tony Joel, ‘Football's World Cup and its fans – reflections on national styles: A photo essay on Germany 2006’, Soccer and Society, 8 (1) (2007), pp. 1–32; Martin Curi, ‘Samba, girls and party: Who were the Brazilian soccer fans at a World Cup? An ethnography of the 2006 World Cup in Germany’, Soccer and Society, 9 (1) (2008), pp. 111–34; Tim Crabbe, ‘Fishing for community: England fans at the 2006 FIFA World Cup’, Soccer and Society, 9 (3) (2008), pp. 428–38; John Efron, ‘Critique of pure football’, Sport in History, 28 (1) (2008), pp. 123–50.
6. Hill, Sport and the literary imagination.
7. Don Watson, Dancing in the streets. Tales from World Cup City (London, 1994).
8. Colin Ward, Well frogged out. The fans’ true story of France '98 (London, 1998); Eddy Brimson, Tear gas and ticket touts. With the England fans at the World Cup (London, 1999); Mark Palmer, Lost in France. The story of England's 1998 World Cup (London, 1998); Christian Smyth, Lost in France. Frontline dispatches from the World Cup '98 (London, 1998).
9. Simon Moran, We are Nippon. The World Cup in Japan (Hyogo, Japan, 2002); David Willem, Kicking. Following the fans to the Orient (London, 2002); Chris England, No more Buddha only football (London, 2003).
10. Jamie Trecker, Love and blood. At the World Cup with the footballers, fans and freaks (Orlando, Florida, 2007); David Winner, Around the world in 90 minutes (+ extra time and penalties) (London, 2007)
11. Patrick Holland and Graham Huggan, Tourist with typewriters. Critical reflections on contemporary travel writing (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), p. vii.
12. Edward Marriott, ‘Where the trail goes cold – the end of travel writing’. Prospect, January 2003, available online at http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=5467, accessed 7 July 2008.
13. Ken Plummer, Documents of life 2. An invitation to a critical realism (London, 2001). Examples of popular Internet travel blog sites can be found at Travelbog.org; Travelpod.com; and getjealous.com.
14. Maria Lourdes Lopez Ropero, ‘Travel writing and postcoloniality: Caryl Phillips's The Atlantic Sound’, Atlantis, 25 (1) (2003), p. 53.
15. Anna Stella Karlsdottir Stubseid, ‘Travelogues as Indices of the Past.’ The Journal of Popular Culture, 26 (4) (1993), pp. 89–100; Ropero, ‘Travel writing and postcoloniality,’ pp 51–62. In football travelogue literature, this trend is evident in the work of Charlie Connelly, Stamping grounds: Exploring Liechtenstein and its World Cup dream (London, 2005); Giles Goodhead, Us v them: Journeys to the world's greatest football derbies (London, 2003); Andy Sloan, 23 sweet FAs. Around the world with a football table (London, 2006).
16. Bill Bryson, P.J. O'Rourke and Michael Palin have all achieved sustained commercial success with their humorous, irreverent travel writing.
17. Holland and Huggan, Tourist with typewriters.
18. Rachel Alsop, ‘The uses of ethnographic methods in English’, in Gabriele Griffin, ed., Research methods for English studies (Edinburgh, 2005). See also Holland and Huggan, Tourist with typewriters, p. viii. See also the academic journals Journeys. The International Journal of Travel & Travel Writing; and Studies in Travel Writing.
19. Alsop, ‘The uses of ethnographic methods’.
20. Richard Keeble and Sharon Wheeler, eds, The journalistic imagination: Literary journalism from Defoe to Capote and Carter (London, 2007).
21. Alsop, ‘The uses of ethnographic methods’.
22. John van Maanen, ‘An end to innocence: The ethnography of the ethnography’, in John van Maanen, ed., Representation in ethnography (London, 1995).
23. Holland and Huggan, Tourist with typewriters, p. 12.
24. Helen Carr, ‘Modernism and travel (1880–1940)’, in Peter Hulme and Tim Youngs, eds, The Cambridge companion to travel writing (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 70–86. See also Holland and Huggan, Tourist with typewriters, p. 10.
25. Holland and Huggan, Tourist with typewriters, p. 9.
26. Debbie Lisle, The global politics of contemporary travel writing (Cambridge, 2006).
27. Andrew Sparkes, Telling tales in sport and physical education. A qualitative journey (Leeds, 2002). See also Margarete Sandelowski, ‘The proof of the pudding’, in J. Morse, ed., Critical issues in qualitative research methods (London, 1994), pp. 46–63.
28. See footnote 5.
29. Sparkes, Telling tales.
30. ‘Literaturization’ as used by Redhead, Post-fandom and the millennial blues.
31. Winner, Around the world in 90 minutes. His over-ambitious plans were constrained by a limited budget, flight delays and illness.
32. Moran, We are Nippon, p. 39.
33. Smyth, Lost in France. Smyth is clearly the guiltiest of this. Sent by an English football magazine and given a complimentary car by one of the sponsors, he proceeded to spend most of the following fortnight drunk and missing games.
34. Don Watson, Dancing in the streets. ‘Sports writers not journalists’: see Palmer, Lost in France, p. 27.
35. Smyth, Lost in France, and Palmer, Lost in France, are narratives heavily based on player and manager comments made during press conferences.
36. All the writers are British apart from Trecker, Love and blood, who is from the USA. Moran, We are Nippon, and Willem, Kicking, both state they can speak Japanese.
37. This was demonstrated when comparing the accounts offered by Moran, We are Nippon (who was living in Japan and spoke the language), and England, No more Buddha, who knew little of the host language or history.
38. Press accreditation: see Trecker, Love and blood, p. 160. England, No more Buddha, Ward, Well frogged out, and Brimson, Tear gas, often employed humour based on negative stereotypes.
39. Smyth, Lost in France, p. 119.
40. Ward, Well frogged out; Brimson, Tear gas and ticket touts.
41. Ward, Well frogged out, p. 91.
42. See also Andrew Jennings, Foul!: The secret world of FIFA: Bribes, vote rigging and ticket scandals (London, 2006).
43. Many of the tickets being offered by the touts were claimed to be have originally been allocated to corporate sponsors, with Korea/Japan 2002 and Germany 2006 seeing the ticket allocation reported as being 20–30 per cent available to the public, 40 per cent to the international football associations and 30 per cent to official sponsors.
44. Moran, We are Nippon, p. 87.
45. England, No more Buddha.
46. Maurice Roche, Mega-events and modernity: Olympics and expos in the growth of global culture (London, 2000).
47. Watson, World Cup city, p. 71.
48. Winner, Around the world in 90 minutes.
49. Trecker, Love and blood, p. 233.
50. See Richard Giulianotti, Norman Bonney and Mike Hepworth, eds, Football violence and social identity (London, 1994); Richard Giulianotti, ‘Football and the politics of carnival. An ethnographic study of Scottish football fans in Sweden’, International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 30 (2) (1995), pp. 191–220.
51. Brimson, Tear gas and ticket touts, p. 22.
52. Ward, Well frogged out; Brimson, Tear gas and ticket touts.
53. Moran, We are Nippon; Willem, Kicking.
54. Smyth, Lost in France, p. 63.
55. Smyth, Lost in France, p. 68.
56. Holland and Huggan, Tourists with typewriters
57. Debbie Lisle, The global politics of contemporary travel writing.
58. England, No more Buddha p. 45
59. Winner, Around the world.
60. Jane Ribbins, ‘Facts or Fictions? Aspects of the use of auto/biographical writing in undergraduate sociology. Sociology, 27, (1993), pp. 81–92.
61. Ribbins, ‘Facts or Fictions?
62. Brimson, Tear gas and ticket touts, p.7
63. Footballing examples include Harry Pearson, The Far Corner. A mazy dribble through North-East football (London, 1995); Tim Parks, A Season with Verona (London, 2003). Non-football examples include John Feinstein, A good walk spoiled: Days and nights on the PGA tour (London, 1996); Robert Twigger, Angry white pyjamas (London, 1997); Norman Mailer, The fight (London, 2000); H.G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights (London, 2005); Mike Marquesee, War minus the shooting: A journey through South Asia during cricket's World Cup (London, 1996).
64. See Mike Cronin, ‘The Gaelic Athletics Association's Invasion of America, 1888: Travel narratives, microhistory and the Irish American ‘other’.’ Sport in History. 27 (2) (2007) pp. 190–216.
65. Peter Preston, cited in Raymond Boyle and Richard Haynes, Power play. Sport media and popular culture (2000), p. 185.
66. Don Watson, Dancing in the streets. Tales from World Cup City (London 1994), p. 9.