Making a difference: the power of football in the community

Abstract

This paper seeks to contribute to the debate on the changing relationship between professional football clubs and their local populations by examining ‘football in the community' schemes and the emergence of the ‘community stadium'. In particular, the paper challenges popular arguments about the annexation of ‘community' to the continued commodification of football, instead arguing that football has a salience that can be used to support inclusion programmes in education, health and other social arenas. Using a case study of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club and its charity, Albion In The Community, the paper argues that increasing separation between the ‘business' of football and the ‘service' of community is a viable pluralistic form that offers strong and sustainable connections between local communities and their football club. The development of community stadia, first at Colchester and now at Brighton, further underpin this relationship by concretizing ideas of community space against the increasingly fluidity of social life.

Notes

1. Cameron, ‘Big Society Speech’.

2. Bauman, Liquid Modernity; Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World; Liquid Fear; and Liquid Modern Challenges to Education.

3. Blackshaw, ‘Contemporary Community Theory and Football’.

4. McGuire, ‘Football in the Community: Still “The Game's Best Secret”?’ and Brown et al., ‘The Social and Community Value of Football’.

5. Bauman, Liquid Modernity and Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World.

6. Priban, ‘Theorising Liquid Modernity and its Legal Context’.

7. Brown, Not for Sale? The Destruction and Reformation of Football Communities in the Glazer Takeover of Manchester United and Blackshaw, ‘Contemporary Community Theory and Football’.

8. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism.

9. Bauman, Liquid Modern Challenges to Education.

10. Bauman, Liquid Modernity; Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World; and Liquid Fear.

11. Abrahamson, ‘Liquid Modernity’.

12. Rojek, Decentring Leisure; Roberts, Class in Modern Britain; and Bramham, ‘Rojek, the Sociological Imagination and Leisure’.

13. Lee, Liquid Modern Challenges to Education.

14. Ibid., 65.

15. Bauman, Liquid Modernity.

16. Blackshaw, ‘Contemporary Community Theory and Football’.

17. Ibid., 325.

18. Bauman, Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World.

19. Bauman, Liquid Fear.

20. Blackshaw, ‘Contemporary Community Theory and Football’, 338.

21. Bourriaud, Postproduction and Relational Aesthetics.

22. Blackshaw, ‘Contemporary Community Theory and Football’.

23. Bale, ‘The Changing Face of Football: Stadiums and Communities’, 92.

24. Frank and Steets, ‘Football, Space and the Built Environment’, 1.

25. Belanger, ‘Sports Venues and the Spectacularization of Urban Spaces in North America’.

26. King, ‘The New European Stadium’, 21.

27. Spirou, ‘Cultural Policy and the Dynamics of Stadium Development’.

28. Pinto et al. ‘Sheffield Divided or United?’.

29. Burdsey, British Asians and Football.

30. Chase and Healey, ‘The Spatial Externality Effects of Football Matches and Rock Concerts’.

31. Eckstein and Delaney, ‘New Sports Stadiums, Community Self-esteem, and Community Collective Conscience’.

32. Penny and Redhead, ‘We're not Really Here: Manchester City, Mobility and Placelessness’; Brown, ‘“Come Home”’; and Edensor and Millington ‘Going to the Match’.

33. Frank and Steets, ‘Football, Space and the Built Environment’, 7.

34. Blackshaw, ‘Contemporary Community Theory and Football’. 340.

35. Mellor, ‘The Janus-Faced Sport’, 322.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Brown et al. ‘English Professional Football and its Communities’.

39. Spaaij, ‘The Social Impact of Sport’, 1110.

40. Etzioni, ‘The Spirit of Community’.

41. Cameron, ‘Big Society Speech’.

42. Brown et al. ‘The Social and Community Value of Football’.

43. Watson, ‘Football in the Community: What's the Score?’; Leeke, ‘Current Issues in Football’; Duggan, ‘Raising Achievement and Aspirations Through Football’; Institute of Community Cohesion, ‘The Power of Sport. Sport and Cohesion Toolkit’; and McGuire, ‘Football in the Community: Still “The Game's Best Secret”?'.

44. Mellor, ‘The Janus-Faced Sport’, 320.

45. Watson, ‘Football in the Community: What's the Score?’

46. Ibid., 117.

47. Coalter et al. The Role of Sport in Regenerating Deprived Urban Areas.

48. Watson, ‘Football in the Community: What's the Score?’, 446

49. McGuire, ‘Football in the Community: Still “The Game's Best Secret”?’, 339.

50. Institute of Community Cohesion, ‘The Power of Sport’.

51. Ibid., 2.

52. Spaaij, ‘The Social Impact of Sport’.

53. Ibid., 1111.

54. Coalter et al. The Role of Sport in Regenerating Deprived Urban Areas.

55. Ibid.

56. Mellor, ‘The Janus-Faced Sport’.

57. Ibid., 321.

58. McGuire, ‘Football in the Community: Still “The Game's Best Secret”?’.

59. See Watson, ‘Football in the Community: What's the Score?’; McGuire, ‘Football in the Community: Still “The Game's Best Secret”?’; and Brown et al. ‘The Social and Community Value of Football’.

60. Brown et al. ‘The Social and Community Value of Football’.

61. Walters and Chadwick, ‘Corporate Citizenship in Football’.

62. Mellor, ‘“The Janus-Faced Sport”’, 318.

63. Ibid.

64. Ibid., 319.

65. Duggan, ‘Raising Achievement and Aspirations Through Football’.

66. See Arsenal Study Support Centre, Annual Evaluation Report: PfS Programme.

67. Coalter et al. The Role of Sport in Regenerating Deprived Urban Areas.

68. Ibid.

69. Sugden, ‘Teaching and Playing Sport for Conflict Resolution and Co-Existence in Israel’.

70. Gray and Seddon, ‘Prevention Work with Children Disaffected from School’.

71. Ibid., 65.

72. Coalter et al. The Role of Sport in Regenerating Deprived Urban Areas.

73. Ibid., 7–48.

74. Gray and Seddon, ‘Prevention Work with Children Disaffected from School’.

75. Ibid.

76. Coalter et al. The Role of Sport in Regenerating Deprived Urban Areas.

77. Gray and Seddon, ‘Prevention Work with Children Disaffected from School’, 70.

78. Barton and Pretty, ‘What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health?’.

79. Coalter et al. The Role of Sport in Regenerating Deprived Urban Areas, 85.

80. Mellor, ‘“The Janus-Faced Sport”.

81. See Stake, The Art of Case Research, for a review of single case intrinsic case methodology.

82. Tellis, ‘Application of a Case Study Methodology’.

83. Perry, ‘A New Community Stadium at Falmer’.

84. Russell and McGuigan, ‘An Exploration of Digital Creativity Used to Engage and Motivate “Hard-to-Reach” Learners in Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties (BESD) Schools’.

85. AITC, Inspiring and Educating Through the Power of Football and Let's See What Football Can Do.

86. Perry, ‘A New Community Stadium at Falmer’.

87. AITC, Inspiring and Educating Through the Power of Football and Let's See What Football Can Do.

88. AITC, Strategic Plan 2010–2012, 8.

89. Stake, The Art of Case Research.

90. UK National Ecosystem Assessment, UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis of the Key Findings.

91. Bauman, Liquid Fear and Liquid Modern Challenges to Education.

92. Bauman, Liquid Fear.

93. Belanger, ‘Sports Venues and the Spectacularization of Urban Spaces in North America’.

94. Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics.

95. Lee, Liquid Modern Challenges to Education.

96. Sam and Scherer, ‘Fitting a Square Stadium into a Round Hole’.

97. Blackshaw, ‘Contemporary Community Theory and Football’.

98. Ibid.

99. See also Zagnoli and Radicchi, ‘The Football-Fan Community as a Determinant Stakeholder in Value Co-creation’, for a discussion of the relationships between AC Fiorentina and its fan community.

100. Bale, ‘The Changing Face of Football’.

101. Brown, ‘Come Home’ and Coman ‘A Punk Football Fairy Tale’.