Anthony May

An ‘anti-sectarian’ act? Examining the importance of national identity to the ‘offensive behaviour at football and threatening communications (Scotland) act’

The 2010-11 football season in Scotland was affected by many incidents of violence and threatening behaviour. Fans of the two Glasgow clubs, Celtic and Rangers, were involved in the majority of these incidents. Players and officials of Celtic were targeted by Loyalist terrorists and sent bullets through the post. The Scottish government felt that many of the incidents were motivated by religious, ethnic, and national hatred, and introduced an Act of Parliament in order to tackle the problems that had arisen. The ‘Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act’ came into law on 1 March 2012, representing a governmental judgement that Scottish football is negatively affected by inter-communal tension. The Act criminalises violent incidents and threatening behaviour related to the expression of religious hatred towards football fans, players, and officials. It also explicitly targets expressions of hatred on ethnic and national grounds. This is significant because in the contemporary era, much of what is termed ‘sectarianism’ in Scotland is directly related to national identity, particularly British and Irish identities. The modern iconography of Celtic and Rangers has comparatively little to do with religion, and relates to differing visions of Scotland, the United Kingdom, and the island of Ireland. Incidents that are termed ‘sectarian’ are often best examined through the prism of nationalism, for in contemporary Scotland it is national identity that is most significant to those who perpetrate the actions that the Act seeks to tackle.

Sport policy and politics in an era of austerity

This book assesses the impact of austerity measures introduced by UK and EU governments for public and third sector organisations providing sport-related services and for service users.

The community impact of football pitches: a case study of Maidstone United FC

Abstract The use of third-generation artificial grass pitches (AGPs) is growing in English semi-professional football. As usage grows, research into the impact of AGPs is needed, in order to examine the potential impact of such surfaces for a football club and local community. This article analyses the experiences of National League South club Maidstone United through a detailed case study. The club have installed an AGP at their stadium and are able to utilize it for up to 80 hours a week. All the club’s 45 teams are able to train and play on the AGP, and other local sport clubs have hired it, arguably increasing Public Health opportunities. This means that youth teams, first team club players and community participants alike have access to a high-quality playing surface. This has raised the club’s profile in the local community and increased income generation, supporting the financial sustainability of the club.

The relationship between football and literature in the novels of Irvine Welsh

This article examines the relationship between football and literature in the novels of Irvine Welsh, taking a cultural materialist approach in treating all cultural production as equally significant in the construction of societies. Irvine Welsh’s novels are chosen to demonstrate the value of this approach as they discuss football extensively. Within Welsh’s work, the Edinburgh club Hibernian are depicted positively as having intelligent, independently minded fans. They reject Unionism as a political and cultural ideal, following Welsh’s own personal views. Fans of Hibernian’s rivals, Heart of Midlothian (Hearts) and Rangers are continually derided as Unionist, racist and sectarian. Welsh depicts socialization in the values associated with football clubs as a key element in the development of Scottish males. The values he ascribes to clubs are exaggerated but due to the popular success of Welsh’s work, they can have a strong impact on how individuals perceive Hibernian, Hearts, and Rangers.

Imagined communities in Eoin McNamee’s ‘Resurrection Man’ and ‘The Ultras’

ABSTRACT In Imagined Communities Anderson ([2006]. (Revised ed.). London: Verso) discusses the novel as a cultural form which contains ‘a sociological landscape of a fixity that fuses the world inside the novel with the world outside’. This article utilises Anderson’s ideas to examine the work of the Northern Irish novelist Eoin McNamee. The author’s imagined Northern Ireland engages with the territory’s recent history and reading his work can aid understanding of the sociological concept of the ‘imagined community’. McNamee presents Northern Ireland as a divided society containing opposed communities, and his novels contain a sustained political argument against British governance in the territory. McNamee constructs a narrative around real-life events and attempts to influence the ways in which they are understood. Both Resurrection Man and The Ultras are of sociological value because they have the potential to aid understanding of Anderson’s best-known theory.

Football and the Mysterious Nature of Global Capital: A Case Study of Birmingham City FC and Birmingham International Holdings

This article utilises English professional football club Birmingham City FC as a case study to examine the place of football within the globalised economy. In October 2009, the Hong Kong based businessman Carson Yeung led a takeover of Birmingham City (BCFC). The Birmingham International Holdings (BIH) group that he led aimed to develop the club’s business profile and support in China by importing Chinese players to BCFC and signing deals with Chinese companies. Yeung was arrested and charged with money laundering in 2011, and was unable to directly fund the club he bought. BCFC were negatively affected by many of the decisions made during Yeung’s reign. The case study analyses the consequences of poor planning for a football club in the globalised economy. It utilises the ideas of Appadurai on globalisation, and examines how the business of football exemplifies what Appadurai terms the mysterious and complex nature of global capital.

Management Strategies Of Non-Profit Community Sport Facilities In An Era Of Austerity

ABSTRACT Research Question: This qualitative research explores the impact of austerity on community sport facilities across England (United Kingdom), drawing upon resource dependence theory (RDT) embedded within network theory. Research Methods: In-depth semi-structured interview data were collected from 24 stakeholders related to community sport facilities (n = 12 facility managers, n = 6 regional grant managers, n = 6 national funders both third sector and corporate). The qualitative data were thematically analysed to understand the impact of austerity on how community sport facilities managed their organisations and operations. Results and Findings: The findings from this research offer insight into the challenges that community sport facilities are encountering which have resulted from austerity, and a shrinking of the funding from the central Government to local public services. Furthermore, different community sport facilities have navigated these challenges to maintain sustainability, essentially through adapting network structure and through income dynamism. In addition, using a network theory approach alongside RDT within a sporting context has allowed us to address issues on how network flow and structure impact sustainability and operations within and between organisations. Implications: The article offers managerial recommendations for community sport facility managers, practitioners and policy makers who operate in times of fiscal constraint. It recommends that future sport research utilises and applies both RDT and network theory to examine these changes and the subsequent management strategies adopted to overcome the associated challenges of fiscal constraint.

‘Sport for Yes’? The role of sporting issues in pro-independence political discourse during the Scottish independence referendum campaign

ABSTRACT This article critically considers the extent to which sporting issues were harnessed by pro-independence political campaigners during the Scottish independence referendum campaign. Developments such as the inclusion of sport within the Scottish Government’s White Paper on Scottish independence, the establishment of the ‘Working Group on Scottish Sport’ and the establishment of the ‘Sport for Yes’ campaign group demonstrate the harnessing of sporting issues as an additional, if somewhat peripheral, debate point in the referendum campaigns . The latter of these developments, the establishment of the ‘Sport for Yes’ campaign group, is of particular interest, offering evidence of the explicit political mobilisation of past and present athletes in support of the ‘Yes Scotland’ pro-independence campaign. The use of sport within pro-independence political discourse is therefore scrutinised, drawing upon the principles of critical discourse analysis to explore the ideological assumptions underpinning the discursive representation of sport in relation to Scottish independence.

Evaluating the use of ‘deschooled’ methods in a postgraduate teaching assessment

This article critically reflects upon the process of planning and executing a microteaching session undertaken as a unit of assessment on ‘Introduction to Learning, Teaching, and Assessment’ (ILTA), the first module studied for the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PgCap). Personal reflection and feedback from participants and the assessor for the microteaching session are used to assess the success of the session. The assessment utilised methodology suggested in Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society and the article reflects upon the utility of Illich’s work in contemporary higher education. In Deschooling Society Illich suggests that education should fundamentally change so that ‘convivial’ skills are taught, rather than subjects. The assessment attempted to teach a skill rather than an academic subject. The incongruence of attempting to pass an assessment using methods suggested by a theorist fundamentally opposed to the notion of academic assessment did affect the delivery of the session. However, it is possible to use some methods suggested by Illich. The use of an expert in co-delivery of the session, appearing via online video, was a success. The utilisation of full, one-to-one participation was also a success and the session demonstrated that these methods can be utilised in good teaching practice.