‘Why do I want to go and watch that?’ English non-league football fans in the Premier League era

Abstract

There has been plenty of recent academic work on sports fandom, especially football fandom, but very little empirical work on the experiences and motivations of supporters of non-league, non-professional clubs. This article addresses that omission in an interview-based study of a sample of male supporters drawn from the English club, Bradford Park Avenue. It asks how and why, in the late-modern era of spectacularized and globalized sport, such minor football clubs continue to exercise such a hold over the imagination and loyalty of local male fans. We analyze the distinctive attractions for fans of traditionality, sociality and belonging, horizontal relationships with club players and officials, the relative lack of regulation at non-league level of the fan experience, and the economic incoherence of elite football. The paper ends by considering the dilemma faced by many non-league fans: chasing the possibility of promotion and success, or settling for a satisfying and familiar existence in the lower reaches of the sport.

Keywords:

• Non-league fans
• masculinity
• Bradford PA
• sociality
• belonging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In a record 13-0 Newcastle United league defeat of Newport County.

2 For much of its history, the fate of Football League clubs who finished at or near the bottom of the league at the end of the season was decided by a vote by clubs in that division. Non-league clubs who had finished top of feeder leagues where also candidates for this relegation/promotion by election procedure. It was custom, however, for Football League clubs to vote in favour of retaining their fellow League members, thus offering a safety net for weaker clubs and a barrier to promotion to those from outside the league. This election practice was changed in 1986.

3 Left to go to seed and by now heavily wooded, in 2013 the site of the old Bradford stadium drew the attention of artists, archeologists and football enthusiasts, who began a funded dig to unearth its football memories, producing a much-lauded book in the process Terraces from the old ground were excavated and the on-pitch findings included a nappy pin - later revealed to be an emergency repair to the elastic in the shorts of club goalkeeper Chick Farr, who played for Park Avenue between 1934 and 1950. See Pidd (2017).

4 Called The Bromley Boys, directed by Steve Kelly and starring well known British comedy actors Martine McCutcheon and Alan Davies, one reviewer described how the film ‘lovingly transports us back to the tatty football terrace of our youth, rekindling that first flush of infatuation with the beautiful game.’ Set in the 1960s, it is actually a quite cheesy rite-of-passage comedy of hand-knitted football scarves, generational family tensions, and a first, geeky teenage love for one’s failing local football club - and a potential new girlfriend.