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Abstract
In this article I use an autoethnographic methodology in order to outline my experiences as a football fan. My stories suggest that I have become disillusioned with the processes of standardization and rationalization that, according to Cornel Sandvoss, result in contentless football clubs. Such clubs eliminate their substantive links to actual places and communities as they search for new markets and fans from across the globe. In what I argue is an act of resistance against the above processes, my journey takes me to watch Athletic Bilbao, a club which, because of a philosophy of selecting only local players for its first team, maintains very strong links with its local community.
Notes
1. Foster, ‘Dreaming of Pelé’.
2. I calculated the distance between Bilbao and the West Midlands using the route finder tool at www.AA.com.
3. Castillo, ‘Play Fresh, Play Local’.
4. Ibid.
5. Giulianotti, Football, 123.
6. Crolley and Hand, Football, Europe and the Press, 6; Castillo, ‘Play Fresh, Play Local’.
7. Miller et al., Globalization and Sport.
8. Castillo, ‘Play Fresh, Play Local’, 680.
9. Ibid.
10. Castillo, ‘Play Fresh, Play Local’, 682
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. MacClancy, ‘Nationalism at Play’, 195–96.
14. Shulman, ‘The Last Genuine Local Team’.
15. Cited in Shulman, ‘The Last Genuine Local Team’.
16. Castillo, ‘Play Fresh, Play Local’.
17. Sparkes, Telling Tales in Sport and Physical Activity; Malcolm, The Sage Dictionary of Sports Studies.
18. Richardson, ‘New Writing Practices in Qualitative Research’.
19. Sparkes, ‘Autoethnography and Narratives of Self’.
20. For examples of ethnographic studies, see Denison and Reinhart, ‘Introduction’; Fleming and Fullagar, ‘Reflexive Methodologies’; Sanders‐Bustle and Oliver, ‘The Role of Physical Activity in the Lives of Researchers’; Sparkes, ‘Exploring Body Narratives’; Tsang, ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’; Zanker and Gard, ‘Fatness, Fitness, and the Moral Universe of Sport and Physical Activity’.
21. Sparkes, ‘Autoethnography and Narratives of Self’.
22. See Zanker and Gard, ‘Fatness, Fitness, and the Moral Universe of Sport and Physical Activity’; Tsang, ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’; Fleming and Fullagar, ‘Reflexive Methodologies’.
23. See Fleming and Fullagar, ‘Reflexive Methodologies’; Sparkes, ‘Exploring Body Narratives’; Sparkes, ‘Autoethnography and Narratives of Self’; Zanker and Gard, ‘Fatness, Fitness, and the Moral Universe of Sport and Physical Activity’.
24. Tsang, ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’.
25. Bochner and Ellis, ‘Talking Over Ethnography’, 24.
26. Holman Jones, ‘Autoethnography’, 765.
27. Zanker and Gard, ‘Fatness, Fitness, and the Moral Universe of Sport and Physical Activity’, 52.
28. Sparkes, ‘Autoethnography and Narratives of Self’.
29. Zanker and Gard, ‘Fatness, Fitness, and the Moral Universe of Sport and Physical Activity’.
30. Fleming and Fullagar, ‘Reflexive Methodologies’; Tsang, ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’; Zanker and Gard, ‘Fatness, Fitness, and the Moral Universe of Sport and Physical Activity’.
31. Jarvie, Sport, Culture and Society; Robertson, Globalisation; Rowe, ‘Sport and the Repudiation of the Global’.
32. Giulianotti, Football.
33. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
34. Ibid.; Williams, ‘Rethinking Sports Fandom’; Ritzer, The McDonaldisation of Society.
35. Bale, Sport, Space and the City, 179.
36. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves; The Rothmans Football Yearbook for the Citation1999–2000 season reveals that Nicky Butt was born in Manchester; that Gary and Phil Neville were born in Bury; and that Paul Scholes was born in Salford.
40. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves; Giulianotti, Football.
41. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
42. Rowe, ‘Sport and the Repudiation of the Global’.
43. Andrews and Ritzer, ‘The Grobal in the Sporting Glocal’.
44. Miller et al., Globalization and Sport; Jackson and Andrews, ‘Between and Beyond the Global and the Local’; Thompson and Soos, ‘Youth Sport in New Zealand and Hungary’.
45. Williams, ‘Rethinking Sports Fandom’; Duke, ‘Local Tradition Verses Globalisation’; Hughson and Free, ‘Paul Willis, Cultural Commodities and Collective Sport Fandom’.
46. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves, 164.
47. Ibid.
48. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves, 162.
49. Hutchins, Rowe and Ruddock, ‘It’s Fantasy Football Made Real’.
50. Bale, Sport, Space and the City; Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
51. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
52. Castillo, ‘Play Fresh, Play Local’.
53. Smart, ‘Resisting McDonaldization’; Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
54. Smart, ‘Resisting McDonaldization’, 17.
55. Smart, ‘Resisting McDonaldization’.
56. For discussion on these acts of resistance, see Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves; Andrews and Ritzer, ‘The Grobal in the Sporting Glocal’; Williams, ‘Rethinking Sports Fandom’; Duke, ‘Local Tradition Verses Globalisation’; Hughson and Free, ‘Paul Willis, Cultural Commodities and Collective Sport Fandom’.
57. Bale, Sport, Space and the City; Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
58. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves.
59. For discussion around resistance in ethnographic studies see Fleming and Fullagar, ‘Reflexive Methodologies’; Sanders‐Bustle and Oliver, ‘The Role of Physical Activity in the Lives of Researchers’; Tsang, ‘Let Me Tell You a Story’.
60. Sandvoss, A Game of Two Halves; Castillo, ‘Play Fresh, Play Local’.