The Purist/Partisan Spectator Discourse: Some Examination and Discrimination

ABSTRACT

The spiralling discourse of sport spectatorship is a compelling development within recent sport philosophy. It is argued that the conceptual foundations of the purist and partisan carry problems. The purist carries the dubious baggage of traditional aesthetics and should be supplanted by the aesthetically neutral cognoscente. The partisan, especially as unpacked by Mumford, is a chimera. Partisanship contains a regard for the excellences of the practice within its own logic. It is argued also that Mumford’s picture of ‘frenetic’ partisanship and ‘tranquil’ purism is over-dichotomised and that partisan response to opposition excellence, and to the plays of one’s own side, is nuanced according to context. The essay also proposes the new concept of the deep partisan, who has a deep and heavily cognitivised love of his club and an intimately connected equivalent love of the excellences of the practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Purist
• partisan
• cognoscente
• deep partisan

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank, for feedback and encouragement, Emily Ryall, Steffan Borge Andrew Edgar and two anonymous reviewers at Sport, Ethics and Philosophy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. One eminent Scottish sport journalist, writing in the early 1990s, lamented the improbability of ‘a sporting heaven shorn of its blood and bruises’. However, sport without blood and bruises makes no sense even as an ideal.

2. The ‘aesthetic’ sports are a naturally plausible site of such entailment. Best (1978, 103–5) distinguishes ‘aesthetic’ and ‘purposive’ sports. The definition of the former is that there is no end specifiable independently of the means, with the latter defined by the presence of an independently specifiable end.

3. For discussion of skill and other performance-relevant qualities, see Davis (2007), Kretchmar and Elcombe (2007) and Breivik (2016).

4. Poignant illustration is offered by the now-defunct Brighton and Hove Albion fanzine, And Smith Must Score, which harps back in its title to an excellent chance striker Gordon Smith had to score a late and probably decisive goal in the 1983 FA Cup final against Manchester United (who won the replay 4–0).

5. I would like to thank Emily Ryall, whose informal conversation helped touch off and inform this section.

6. At the Jock Stein Testimonial between Celtic and Liverpool in Glasgow in 1978, with Liverpool leading 3–2 in the latter stages, some Liverpool fans close to me were audibly urging Celtic to an equaliser.

7. Of Paul Gascoigne’s momentous free kick for Tottenham Hotspur in the 1991 FA Cup semi-final, Arsenal fan Nick Hornby (1992, 134) rues, ‘it was simply astonishing, one of the most remarkable goals I have ever seen … but I wish with all my heart that I had not seen it, and that he had not scored it’. It is likely that all Arsenal fans feel likewise and that some would feel differently had the match been much less significant.

8. Memorable illustration is provided by Nick Hornby’s (1992, 115) reaction (‘AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH’) to Arsenal’s winning goal in the dying seconds of the 1979 FA Cup Final, after they had surrendered a two-goal lead with five minutes left.

9. Hornby’s (1992, 150) experience in season 1983–84 of his secondary affinity, Cambridge United, is instructive: ‘After a while, when winning a game appeared to be an option that had somehow become impossible, we began to adjust to a different order, and look for things that would replace the satisfaction of winning: goals, draws, a brave performance in the face of overwhelmingly hostile fortune … these all became causes for quiet, if occasionally self-mocking celebration’.

10. See, for instance, Armstrong and Giulianotti (eds.) (1999, 2001) and Kuper (1994).

11. Tottenham Hotspur’s status as Arsenal’s North London rivals (see Endnote 7) would have heightened the obstacles to appreciation of Gascoigne’s free kick for most, if not all, Arsenal fans.

12. Returning by train to Edinburgh after attending the 1986–87 Scottish League Cup Final between Rangers and Celtic, which Rangers won 2–1, I overheard a group of Rangers fans enthuse about Celtic’s equalising goal. This would have been unlikely had Celtic won and was very unlikely to be the case when the goal was scored. Conversely, Nick Hornby (see Endnotes 7 and 11) and his co-Arsenal fans would have been more likely to retrospectively appreciate Gascoigne’s free kick had Arsenal won the match, and more so had they gone on to win the FA Cup.

13. Football’s phenomenon (for instance) of reserve teams, third teams, youth teams, the ‘boys’ club’, etc. provides another site of nuanced partisanship. The same might apply to the women’s teams, which are often in the present day a part of major football clubs.

14. A few hours after attending a memorable 4–4 draw (league match) between Rangers and Celtic in March 1986 (in which Celtic were twice two goals ahead and played more than half of the match with ten men), I pondered with the Celtic fan who joined me whether the match was, all things considered, a better experience than if Celtic had won. We thought it might be (especially if the contrast were an unremarkable win), and when Celtic went on to win the league, we were categorically glad the match had taken the course it did and ended level. That is sufficient to demonstrate that a partisan fan can, in context, prefer to draw than win a match, and furthermore, that the match might be against their arch rivals. I have anecdotal evidence that other fans on both sides felt likewise. Other partisan sport fans are likely to have equivalents.

15. See Endnote 9.