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Fear and Loathing in World Football
The quickest entry-point into most local cultures anywhere on earth is to be found in talking football. Historically, football is one of the great cultural institutions, and, like education and the mass media, has played a key role in shaping and cementing senses of national identity throughout the world. However, the nature of intra-nation hostility, which may be based in football or which may use the game as an arena for antagonisms, has yet to be analyzed. Football today is more global than ever before. Teams, clubs and regions increasingly establish cultural identities through rivalries and opposition. Such rivalries invariably have deep historical antecedents enforced by prejudice, myth or religious conflicts, economic inequalities, or, perhaps most profound, class and ethnic divisions.
Issues of disorder and violence are routine by-products of the game the world over, and aggression, or the threat of it, characterizes many matches both minor and major. In short, football at all levels can become a site for symbolizing and expressing a variety of tensions. This timely volume fills a gap in the current literature on sport as the most extensive and incisive collection yet published on issues relating to football around the world. It uncovers and investigates the conflicts apparent in football rivalry by gathering together a series of in-depth case studies that span the football world.
Issues of disorder and violence are routine by-products of the game the world over, and aggression, or the threat of it, characterizes many matches both minor and major. In short, football at all levels can become a site for symbolizing and expressing a variety of tensions. This timely volume fills a gap in the current literature on sport as the most extensive and incisive collection yet published on issues relating to football around the world. It uncovers and investigates the conflicts apparent in football rivalry by gathering together a series of in-depth case studies that span the football world.
318 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 27, 2022
This 2001 text on rivalries in international football is somewhat dated and, for those who are looking for a book that examines the subject from a sporting perspective, rather more academic than expected. The collection of essays brought together in this volume are wide ranging in subject, unified in theme and vary in engagement with the reader. To try and form an evaluation of the book in toto requires one to balance out the interests of the prospective reader, the sociological language of each article and the authors, and the insights offered into football as a global experience. It is this reviewer's opinion that, for the most part, Armstrong and the contributing authors succeed in meeting prospective readers' expectations with an interesting mix of scholarly writing and anecdotal observations.
That 'Fear and Loathing in World Football' attempts to develop a wide ranging and multi-faceted approach to how football can both exemplify and support social divisions, self-perpetuating or imposed, is a fascinating subject. As almost every article articulates there is no simplistic 'us versus them' paradigm when one considers the animosity between soccer clubs and their supporters. Class, race, political views, religion, geography, culture, history and patronage are but some of the factors involved in the documented rivalries, and by assumed extension many that aren't listed. It is readily apparent that for all its relative simplicity as a global sport, football offers incredibly complex and unique paradigms as social constructs.
This is most readily seen in those articles in this book that look at specific issues per football rivalries in Northern Ireland, Australia, Malta, Norway, Cameroon and Hungary. It is rather surprising to read of the complex sub-strata of antagonism or rivalries developed in each of these contexts. For example, the analysis of Lindfield FC in Northern Ireland is an intriguing essay on how Loyalist politics, money, sectarian values and trans-national issues have influenced the positioning of that club in the football consciousness of the relevant national football scene.
It is those articles that address the smaller football nations or markets that have the most value for the reader, in that the issues explored by each author are definitely less well known than those involving (for example) Scotland's Celtic vs Rangers, or England's Manchester United, or Italy's Juventus. The article on Malta's football culture and rivalries was quite a revelation and deserves reading in and of itself, outside the wider context of this book.
There are some issues that detract somewhat from the readability of the book. Those articles that are overly concerned with sociological theory (most notably that focused on Juventus) are very obtuse for the non-academic, non-theory focused reader. It is understandable that there is some desire for each contributor to include an intellectual or academic framework for their submission, however in the process of expending too much energy and writing in this avenue the authors lose the immediacy of the 'real world' experiences of the situations they are examining. Thankfully it is not a prominent problem with 'Fear and Loathing in World Football', so non-academic readers of this book won't be too disenfranchised from the text.
The age of the book is also an issue, and in the discussion of the examples of Glasgow Rangers, Manchester United and the Croatian clubs of Australia one can find some glaring issues with how the context that is described has become outdated or even passe. Having said that, the historical analyses still have value as they are both useful for background considerations for more contemporary discussion of football rivalries, and they retain valid principles that are not necessarily redundant.
It is hard to say who the audience is for this text, and how receptive they might be. 'Fear and Loathing in World Football' is definitely configured with an academic level of textual and cognitive complexity, however it addresses a subject that is of interest to many general football fans. Perhaps because it has the potential to meet both targets the edited nature of the volume means that it will sometimes disappoint the more scholastic audience, at other times it will befuddle the average punter.
Is 'Fear and Loathing in World Football' a great book? No, not really. However it is interesting, provocative and informative , taking on a subject that deserves plenty more attention. Football is not the world game because it is played everywhere; it is the world game because it both represents and creates the world itself.
That 'Fear and Loathing in World Football' attempts to develop a wide ranging and multi-faceted approach to how football can both exemplify and support social divisions, self-perpetuating or imposed, is a fascinating subject. As almost every article articulates there is no simplistic 'us versus them' paradigm when one considers the animosity between soccer clubs and their supporters. Class, race, political views, religion, geography, culture, history and patronage are but some of the factors involved in the documented rivalries, and by assumed extension many that aren't listed. It is readily apparent that for all its relative simplicity as a global sport, football offers incredibly complex and unique paradigms as social constructs.
This is most readily seen in those articles in this book that look at specific issues per football rivalries in Northern Ireland, Australia, Malta, Norway, Cameroon and Hungary. It is rather surprising to read of the complex sub-strata of antagonism or rivalries developed in each of these contexts. For example, the analysis of Lindfield FC in Northern Ireland is an intriguing essay on how Loyalist politics, money, sectarian values and trans-national issues have influenced the positioning of that club in the football consciousness of the relevant national football scene.
It is those articles that address the smaller football nations or markets that have the most value for the reader, in that the issues explored by each author are definitely less well known than those involving (for example) Scotland's Celtic vs Rangers, or England's Manchester United, or Italy's Juventus. The article on Malta's football culture and rivalries was quite a revelation and deserves reading in and of itself, outside the wider context of this book.
There are some issues that detract somewhat from the readability of the book. Those articles that are overly concerned with sociological theory (most notably that focused on Juventus) are very obtuse for the non-academic, non-theory focused reader. It is understandable that there is some desire for each contributor to include an intellectual or academic framework for their submission, however in the process of expending too much energy and writing in this avenue the authors lose the immediacy of the 'real world' experiences of the situations they are examining. Thankfully it is not a prominent problem with 'Fear and Loathing in World Football', so non-academic readers of this book won't be too disenfranchised from the text.
The age of the book is also an issue, and in the discussion of the examples of Glasgow Rangers, Manchester United and the Croatian clubs of Australia one can find some glaring issues with how the context that is described has become outdated or even passe. Having said that, the historical analyses still have value as they are both useful for background considerations for more contemporary discussion of football rivalries, and they retain valid principles that are not necessarily redundant.
It is hard to say who the audience is for this text, and how receptive they might be. 'Fear and Loathing in World Football' is definitely configured with an academic level of textual and cognitive complexity, however it addresses a subject that is of interest to many general football fans. Perhaps because it has the potential to meet both targets the edited nature of the volume means that it will sometimes disappoint the more scholastic audience, at other times it will befuddle the average punter.
Is 'Fear and Loathing in World Football' a great book? No, not really. However it is interesting, provocative and informative , taking on a subject that deserves plenty more attention. Football is not the world game because it is played everywhere; it is the world game because it both represents and creates the world itself.
August 13, 2018
A couple of the essays were a treat, especially in how targeted and unique they were. Worth a buy on used if you see a topic that's in your wheelhouse -- and you'll wind up learning something more from some of the others.
December 3, 2017
An interesting book of essays which vary in quality as usual with this sort of book. Written in 2000 so some of the issues raised are bit out of date
April 27, 2011
Collection of essays pertaining to rivalry in world football, from Britain to Mexico. For the academically-inclined and/or the more cerebral of football fans.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews