Football and European Identity

by Liz Crolley, David Hand

Shifting European identities, cultural loyalties and divisions are often expressed more directly through attitudes to 'the people's game' game than in any other arena. This book examines European football journalism from throughout the last century to present a unique cross-cultural analysis of changing European national and regional identities. Building on detailed research into original language sources from across Western Europe, from the early 20th century to the present day, Football and European Identity traces this fascinating evolution. The resulting cross-cultural analysis of national identity in Europe provides the basis for a unique study of the interplay between football, society, politics and the print media, in three Part 1: Old Europe national identity in the football writing of England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain Part 2: Nations within a State examines the status of Corsican, Catalonian and Basque identities Part 3: New (Football) Worlds explores the response of Europe’s presses to the emergence of Africa, South East Asia and the USA as major forces in world football

Genres: Football

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2006

Reviews

[Arya Nasoetion]

I wished I had this book when I was finishing my master's thesis. I bet it would be very helpful.

[Kimberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was definitely interesting but I had a few problems with it. First, they were only really talking about Western Europe and then parts of Africa, the USA, Japan, and Korea. Calling it Football and European Identity was a misnomer. Their source material was almost exclusively from England, France, and Spain. The German chapter at least got a couple pages of self-image, Italy was reduced to two paragraphs. The majority of the book was "[x country] viewed by [England/France/Spain]." All of which would probably be fine but given the title it might have been nice to have some token shout-out to Eastern Europe and/or the (former) USSR.

Second problem: They have a small section on Africa but focused almost exclusively on how France perceived sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb. These sections necessarily reference colonialism, the chapter is even titled "The Colonial Shadow." Maybe it's growing up in the English-speaking west, but I think England got a couple sentences mention which is a pretty big omission if we're talking about colonialism and sport in Africa as a continent.

Third problem: They mention in the methodology at the beginning that they are only considering a couple news sources from each country. England has two papers (The Times, The Guardian), France has 5, Spain has 2. First, this seems skewed. Secondly, despite saying that these are their primary sources they pull mainly from one in each country. England, for example, is populated throughout with The Times and I rarely saw The Guardian. I realize that they have a huge time period to cover, but if it's going to be 90% one paper per country just state it outright.

Fourth problem: In the first chapters, actually dealing with Europe, they continually reference themselves and their book Football, Europe, and the Press. It was perhaps more evident because the references were in the text (MLA or APA style?) but I couldn't help but feel like they were just re-treading ground that they seem to have already gone over a few years prior. The five European countries that get a chapter in this one are the same as the other, and it examines the construction of identities (which, I guess are already formed for this book?). I'm not against self-citing, particularly when academic Football books are few and far between, but it was a bit excessive and made me question what was new about this book versus the old one. I don't intend on buying the other one to find out any time soon (one $80 book is enough, thanks).

I guess, long story short, it had moments that were interesting (my personal favourite section was "Nations within states") but overall was not enjoyable. Perhaps they just bit off more than they could chew. A narrower focus, both in time period and geography would have made this a more effective study.