The limits of loyalty to professional football teams and the attraction of non-league football: A case study of Worcester City FC

ABSTRACT

This paper questions traditional notions of supporter loyalty and monogamy through reporting research into a group of football fans who identify as supporters of Worcester City FC and a professional football team. Whilst it is not uncommon for non-league fans to also identify with a professional team, extant research is yet to qualitatively explore the relationship such fans have with two different football clubs. Through interviews with a sample of 10 fans from the Worcester City FC Supporters’ Trust, the research explored erosion of the relationship with their professional team and the Premier League and the attraction of Worcester City and non-league football. Participants expressed disillusionment with ‘modern football’ but also discontent with some aspects of Worcester City. However, supporting Worcester City provided participants with satisfactions, meanings and identities embedded in the distinctive phenomenologies of non-league football that are largely absent from experiences supporting their professional team.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the participants who gave up their time to take part in the study and to the two reviewers who provided constructive feedback necessary for completion of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Curley and Roeder, ‘English soccer’s mysterious worldwide popularity’, 81.

2. http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm (accessed May 28, 2019).

3. Figure calculated based on data from http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk and https://www.premierleague.com/excluding Tottenham Hotspur (due to use of 2 stadiums).

4. Williams, ‘Football fandom, celebrity cultures and “new” football in England’, 110.

5. https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/non-league-day-football-gosport-borough-bath-city-real-ale (accessed May 20, 2020), and https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/football-revolution-as-disillusioned-fans-head-for-the-non-league-9810932.html (accessed May 28, 2019).

6. Duke, ‘The drive to modernization and the supermarket imperative: who needs a new football stadium?’, 133.

7. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/feb/07/premier-league-clubs-extend-30-cap-away-tickets-three-seasons (accessed July 10, 2019).

8. Turner, ‘Football without fans is nothing’, 129.

9. King, End of the terraces, 161.

10. Bale, Sport, space and the city and Penny and Redhead, ‘We’re not really here’.

11. Edensor, ‘Producing atmospheres at the match’.

12. Kennedy and Kennedy, ‘A political economy of the English Premier League’.

13. Ibid, 63.

14. Giulianotti, Football: A sociology of the global game.

15. Putra, ‘“Your Neighbors Walk Alone (YNWA)”’.

16. Duke, ‘Local tradition versus globalisation’.

17. Ibid.

18. Andrews and Ritzer, ‘Sport and prosumption’, 360.

19. Ritzer, ‘Prosumer capitalism’.

20. Andrews and Ritzer, ‘Sport and prosumption’, 359.

21. Brown, ‘“Our club, our rules”’.

22. Gómez-Bantel, ‘Football clubs as symbols of regional identities’, 692.

23. Maderer and Holtbrügge, ‘International activities of football clubs’.

24. Edensor and Millington, ‘Branding football and local embeddedness’.

25. Maderer and Holtbrügge, ‘International activities of football clubs’.

26. Cleland et al., ‘Friendships, Community Ties, and Non-league Fandom’, 76; see also: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/football-revolution-as-disillusioned-fans-head-for-the-non-league-9810932.html (accessed May 28, 2019).

27. Jones, ‘A model of serious leisure identification’.

28. Ibid, 295.

29. Lock et al., ‘In the absence of achievement’.

30. Mainwaring and Clark, ‘We’re shit and we know we are’, 118.

31. Ibid, 120.

32. Lawrence, ‘We are the boys from the Black Country’, 294.

33. Brown, ‘Not for sale’?; and Brown, ‘‘Our club, our rules’.

34. Brown, ‘‘Our club, our rules’, 357.

35. Kiernan and Porter, ‘Little United and the Big Society’ and Kiernan, ‘Exit, voice and loyalty’.

36. Millward and Poulton, ‘Football fandom, mobilization and Herbert Blumer’.

37. Porter, ‘Loyal to what?’.

38. Williams and Caulfield, ‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’.

39. Cleland et al., ‘Friendships, Community Ties, and Non-league Fandom’.

40. Ibid, 82.

41. Ashmore, ‘Of other atmospheres’.

42. Williams and Caulfield, ‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’.

43. Ibid, 15.

44. See Ashmore, ‘Of other atmospheres’; and Cleland et al., ‘Friendships, Community Ties, and Non-league Fandom’.

45. Connell, ‘Groundhopping: nostalgia, emotion and the small places of football’.

46. Ibid.

47. Sandvoss, A game of two halves.

48. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, followers, fans, and flaneurs’, 33.

49. Ibid.

50. Tapp and Clowes, ‘From “carefree casuals” to “professional wanderers”’.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Gibbons and Nuttall, ‘“True fan= watch match”?’, 531.

54. Ibid.

55. Cleland et al., ‘Friendships, Community Ties, and Non-league Fandom’.

56. Williams and Caulfield, ‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’.

57. Creswell, Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches.

58. Matthews and Ross, ‘Research methods’.

59. Creswell, Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches.

60. Bryman, Social research methods.

61. Braun and Clarke, ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’.

62. Braun et al., ‘Using thematic analysis in sport and exercise research’, 197.

63. Roulston, ‘Analysing Interviews’, 305.

64. Braun and Clarke, ‘Using thematic analysis in psychology’, 87.

65. http://www.worcestercityfc.org/a/worcester-city-history-40834.html (accessed June 17, 2019).

66. Ibid.

67. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/22297373 (accessed June 17, 2019).

68. http://www.worcestercityfc.org/a/worcester-city-history-40834.html (accessed June 17, 2019).

69. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39900826 (accessed June 17, 2019).

70. https://www.nonleaguematters.co.uk/divisions/214/ (accessed June 18, 2019).

71. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/26/all-english-football-below-national-league-level-to-be-voided (accessed May 20, 2019).

72. See King, End of the terraces; Edensor, ‘Producing atmospheres at the match’; Kennedy and Kennedy, ‘A political economy of the English Premier League’.

73. Giulianotti, Football: A sociology of the global game.

74. Gómez-Bantel, ‘Football clubs as symbols of regional identities’.

75. Sandvoss, A game of two halves.

76. See Duke, ‘The drive to modernization and the supermarket imperative’; Williams, ‘Football fandom, celebrity cultures and “new” football in England’; Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization & Football.

77. Duke, ‘The drive to modernization and the supermarket imperative’.

78. Gómez-Bantel, ‘Football clubs as symbols of regional identities’.

79. Williams and Caulfield, ‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’.

80. See Lawrence, ‘We are the boys from the Black Country’ and Mainwaring and Clark, ‘We’re shit and we know we are’.

81. Connell, ‘Groundhopping: nostalgia, emotion and the small places of football’.

82. Cleland et al., ‘Friendships, Community Ties, and Non-league Fandom’.

83. Williams and Caulfield, ‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’, 15.

84. Ashmore, ‘Of other atmospheres’.

85. Ritzer, ‘Prosumer capitalism’.

86. Brown, ‘Our club, our rules’, 355.

87. See Ashmore, ‘Of other atmospheres’; Cleland et al., ‘Friendships, Community Ties, and Non-league Fandom’; Connell, ‘Groundhopping’; and Williams and Caulfield, ‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’.

88. See Tapp and Clowes, ‘From “carefree casuals” to “professional wanderers”’ and Tapp, ‘The loyalty of football fans’.

89. Tapp, ‘The loyalty of football fans’.