Emma Poulton

Weltkrieg III? Media Coverage of England Versus Germany in Euro 96

This article examines past and present identity politics issues between England and Germany and considers the role of sport and the media in perpetuating national habitus. A qualitative case study of English and German media coverage of their semifinal match in the 1996 European Football Championships is used to illustrate the key issues. The Eliasian concepts of sleeping memories, imagined charisma, and fantasy shields are employed to construct an account of the current tensions evident in Anglo-German relations, which surface in media reporting of sporting contests. The authors’ findings point to the existence of an agenda based around nostalgia and ethnic assertiveness/defensiveness on the part of the English press, with references to the Second World War and the World Cup victory of 1966. The German press preferred to focus on the contemporary European political situation to assert their superiority over England—and to take further satisfaction from the victorious performance of their football team.

Mediated Patriot Games The Construction and Representation of National Identities in the British Television Production of Euro ’96

This article explores the relationship between national identity and media sport, focusing specifically on the construction and representations of national identities in the television coverage of the (men’s) 1996 European Football Championships (Euro ’96). While Anderson’s and Hobsbawm’s respective concepts of ‘imagined communities’ and ‘invented traditions’ are useful in this regard, the process-sociological perspective is also particularly helpful. National habitus codes, embodied feelings and the practical consciousness of the individuals who comprise a nation have been shown to play a powerful role in the foundation of cultural relations, identity politics and the construction and representation of national identities. The results of this textual analysis of Euro ’96 television coverage — supported by insights into the production codes that helped to construct the texts — suggest that it served to reinforce the stronger emotive I/we identification of the English with their own nation, rather than with the we-image of being also Europeans. The findings suggest that dominant I/we national identities are arguably strengthened in international sporting tournaments like Euro ’96, which can be seen as mediated patriot games where nation is pitted against nation, with matches framed as contests between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

The War of the Words?: Identity Politics in Anglo-German Press Coverage of EURO 96

This article is broadly concerned with the role that the sports press plays in the construction and representation of national identity and of identity politics. More specifically, it highlights the nature and form of media reporting within the German and English press during the 1996 European Football Championships, EURO 96. This is examined through the use of a quantitative content analysis supported and illustrated by qualitative discourse examples. The comparison of English and German print media is particularly relevant given the historical and contemporary rivalry, both sporting and political, that exists between the two nations. Past and present identity politics issues between England and Germany can be illuminated through this analysis. Attention is paid to whether national stereotyping, I/we images, established/outsider identities/relations, national habitus codes and Europeanization processes and politics were evident in the media coverage of EURO 96. It would appear that, in some countries, global sports are being used to reassert an intense form of national identity discourse in opposition to further European integration.

‘Lights, Camera, Aggro!’: Readings of ‘Celluloid Hooliganism’

This paper examines reactions to the apparently growing number of films concerned with football-related disorder. The central concern of the paper is to address whether such mainstream films are guilty of glorifying and therefore inspiring football-related disorder, as some critics within the media claim. In order to address this vexed question, different readings of The Football Factory (2004) and Green Street (2005) were analysed, as well as those of the earlier titles The Firm (1988) and ID (1995). As Hall found in his classic study of the press coverage of ‘real’ hooliganism, it is evident that ‘virtual’ hooliganism is treated in a similar ‘brutal, short-hand and simplifying’ way. The textual analysis of many readings of the films indicated that ‘moral panics’ have regularly been constructed upon the release of celluloid hooliganism and that, just like his real-life counterpart, the ‘virtual’ hooligan is framed by the media in a not too dissimilar way, as a threatening ‘folk devil’.

Introducing sport in films

This special edition of Sport in Society is dedicated to the analysis of films and documentaries in which a sport, a sporting occasion, or an athlete is the central focus. It is our belief that sport offers everything a good story should have: heroes and villains, triumph and disaster, achievement and despair, tension and drama. Consequently, sport makes for a compelling film narrative and films, in turn, are a vivid medium for sport. Yet despite its regularity as a central theme in motion pictures, constructions and representations of sport and athletes have been marginalized in terms of serious analysis within the longstanding academic study of films and documentaries. It seems unusual that so little attention has been paid academically to such an endeavour given that both sport and film occupy such dominant positions in contemporary social life. We agree with the sentiments of King and Leonard who point out that films with a sporting focus are rarely taken as serious pieces of visual art worthy of critical examination. For us, the intersections of sport and film demand serious study because of their centrality as popular cultural forms. The experts in the field approached for the purpose of contributing to this edition were encouraged to undertake a critical analysis of a film, a category of films or non-fictional documentary that could be understood by all readers and not just those already interested in analysing, comprehending and evaluating the techniques of film production. We hope that the essays which comprise this collection enable readers, but in particular students of sport and the cinema, to begin to view and place films with a sport theme within their historical and social context, and to be able to grasp the relationship between a film – its structure, style and narrative – and particular aspects of reality outside it. The idea for this collection originated from an undergraduate assignment we set students in which they were asked to analyse critically the ways in which social problems are represented in, what we tentatively refer to as, ‘sport films’. Our students embarked upon this assignment with enthusiasm; however their initial momentum was gradually diminished by the lack of available scholarly literature from a film studies tradition that deals directly with issues in sport. Indeed, with the exception of the excellent work by Aaron Baker and a small (but growing) number of academic articles, the intellectual study of sport in film by scholars of film studies has been relatively limited. Furthermore, on the basis of our students’ experiences, few of these scholarly works make for easy, introductory level reading for novices to the study of film. Thus, we hope this collection will identify for students the main types of critical tools scholars employ to analyse films. Of course films, like all forms of visual culture, are texts comprised of images, words and sounds that bestow meanings. The film text is complex, produced and ‘encoded’ by

‘This is England’: sanitized fandom and the national soccer team

This essay examines attempts by The Football Association to develop an official supporter’s group for the England men’s national team. It is argued that The FA’s perception of desired fandom relies on the continued imagining of an outdated ‘hooligan’ stereotype, associated with ‘rough’ white working‐class masculinity and related subcultural gatherings such as skinheads. The FA’s quest for a new England fandom articulates with broader public discourse on a ‘new’ England – i.e. making football fandom relevant to a multicultural society. While such an ambition is admirable in principle, this essay warns that The FA risks abetting a tendency to culturally and discursively marginalize the lower echelon of the English white working class. As such, the essay is not only of interest to football scholarship, but also to readers interested in current debates about English national identity and whiteness.

Uses and meanings of ‘Yid’ in English football fandom: A case study of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club

This is the first empirical study to explain the contested uses and meanings of ‘Yid’ in English football fan culture. A pertinent socio-political issue with important policy and legal implications, we explain the different uses of ‘Yid’, making central the cultural context in which it is used, together with the intent underpinning its usage. Focusing upon Kick It Out’s The Y-Word campaign film (which attempted to raise awareness of antisemitism in football by advocating a ‘zero tolerance’ policy approach to ‘Yid’), the complex relationship of Tottenham Hotspur with Judaism is unpacked. The origins of this complexity stem from Tottenham traditionally attracting Jewish fans due to nearby Jewish communities. As a consequence, Tottenham is perceived as a ‘Jewish’ club and their fans have suffered antisemitic abuse from opposing supporters who have disparagingly referred to them as ‘Yids’. In response, Tottenham fans have, since the 1970s, appropriated and embraced the term by identifying as the ‘Yid Army’. Critical analysis of fan forum discourse suggests that many Tottenham fans thought The Y-Word film failed to sufficiently understand or demarcate between the multiple meanings and intentions associated with use of ‘Yid’ as both an ethnic epithet and term of endearment. We call for an appreciation of the nature of language that acknowledges the fluidity and temporality of linguistic reclamation and ‘ownership’ in future policies to combat antisemitism.

‘I predict a riot’: forecasts, facts and fiction in ‘football hooligan’ documentaries

This essay addresses how British documentary films have engaged with and represented the socio-political issue of football-related disorder. The essays primary concern is to examine the ways in which documentary film-makers offer audiences a mix of forecasts, facts but also factual inaccuracies and fiction in their representation of football-related disorder. While the British documentary tradition has been generally considered as a source of information and is associated with providing an investigative and educational news service, hooligan documentaries can be seen increasingly as sources of entertainment within popular culture. As such, two broad classifications of hooligan documentaries are identified: those produced supposedly with the intention to inform and educate – usually underpinned by the conventions and practices of investigative journalism – and those made essentially to entertain, underscored with distinctive aesthetic and affective properties to gain and hold an audience. Using Blackshaw and Crabbes concept of ‘consumptive deviance’, it is argued that recent trends have led to a blurring of these categories, with documentaries designed for entertainment still informative and traditionally ‘informative’ documentaries employing production techniques to help entertain audiences. In this sense, documentary films can be recognized as forms of ‘fantasy football hooliganism’.

The Hooligan Film Factory: Football Violence in High Definition

With the release of The Football Factory(Dir. Nick Love, 2004) in May 2004 coinciding with news that filming had wrapped on Green Street (Dir. Lexi Alexander, 2005), The Timesran the exaggerated headline: ‘Film Now in Firm Grip of the Hooligans’ (Edgar, 2004). Criticism of this apparent ‘grip’ on the film industry was twofold. It focused, first, on the timing of the film and press releases (on the eve of the FA Cup Final between Manchester United and Millwall and also the Euro 2004 tournament in Portugal) and, second, on accusations that these films glamorised football-related violence, so running an alleged risk of pre- cipitating it in real life (Poulton, 2006). A decade later, the number of hooligan-themed films has tripled (see Table 7.1), providing the self-appointed moral guardians with more ‘evidence’ to support their complaints. For example, Tookey (2007) heralded the release of Rise of the Footsolâier(Dir. Julian Gibley, 2007) with the indignant lament: ‘Just what we need! Another British glorification of gang warfare, full of macho posturing, non-stop swearing (with a record number of c-words) and sadistic shots of gruesome beatings and killings.’

Having the Balls: Reflections on Doing Gendered Research with Football Hooligans

This chapter provides my own reflexive account of the methodological issues and concerns that arose for me as a female researcher within the hyper- masculine subculture of ‘football hooliganism’. Despite polemic academic stances, most scholars at least agree that the phenomenon is underscored by the psycho-social pleasures of violence that are experienced by the (pre- dominantly) male perpetrators, territorial identification, a sense of solidarity and belonging and especially ‘hard’ or ‘aggressive’ masculinity (Spaaij 2008). As such, the subculture of football hooliganism is a fertile site for the sym- bolic expression and validation of ‘hyper-masculinity’, an extreme form of masculine gender ideology, characterised by one or more of the following characteristics: insensitive attitudes towards women; violence as manly; dan- ger as exciting; and toughness as emotional self-control (see Messerschmidt 1993; Connell 1995/2005). Consequently, it may not be a comfortable site for a female researcher.