Inclusionary and exclusionary banter: English club cricket, inclusive attitudes and male camaraderie

Abstract

Sport has traditionally been a hostile environment for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people. More recently, however, research on a range of British sports has documented a considerable shift toward inclusivity for sexual minorities. Curiously, despite its global popularity, no research has yet measured attitudes toward homosexuality in cricket. By drawing on 12 semi-structured interviews with a club cricket team in the South East of England, we show inclusive attitudes toward homosexuality in sport and society. We also explore how forms of ‘banter’ among members of the club are complex and multifaceted. Accordingly, we propose that banter in grassroots cricket can be conceptualized into ‘inclusionary’ forms (incorporating how a close team relationship can facilitate inclusive forms of banter) and ‘exclusionary’ forms (incorporating jokes which transgress acceptable forms of banter). This research therefore acts as a point of departure for further investigations of the operation of banter across different levels of sport.

Keywords:

• Cricket
• masculinity
• homophobia
• homosexuality
• banter
• joking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Because matters are far more complex for transgender individuals, we eschew from using ‘LGBT’ in this article.

2 While not statistically the most popular, it is generally accepted by scholars that, due to its ‘supposed national character of the English people and the behaviour of those who play the sport’ (Malcolm 2013, 32), cricket is England’s national sport.

3 Although these were amended in 1774 – when reference to leg-before-wicket (LBW), middle stump and maximum bat width were first included – cricket’s original codification is generally regarded as being 1744.

4 Stonewall are widely regarded as the UK’s largest and most influential LGBT organization.

5 Noakes and Durandt (2000) explain that, in comparison to contact teamsports (such as football and rugby) – whose structure involves ongoing, often end-to-end movement – cricket is relatively mild as it involves long periods of being static.

6 This was accurate at the point of data collection (which was complete by the summer of 2017).