Steven Bradbury

Youth sport volunteering: developing social capital?

This paper analyses the capacity of youth sport volunteering to contribute to the development of social capital. Following a review of the emergence of social capital as a key theme in UK sport policy, the paper focuses on the ability of a structured sports volunteering programme to equip young people with skills for effective volunteering, and provide opportunities for ‘social connectedness’ through sports volunteer placements. The study uses survey data (n=160) and qualitative interviews (n=10) with young people to examine how the national Step into Sport programme impacts on participants’ personal and skill development, and on their commitment to community involvement. Interviews with education and sport professionals (n=33) provide additional expert perspectives on the programmes impact on participants. Both sets of respondents report strong individual benefits to participants from their involvement, and increased social connectedness in a range of contexts. The paper concludes by considering the implications of the study for claims about the potential contribution of sport to social capital.

From racial exclusions to new inclusions: Black and minority ethnic participation in football clubs in the East Midlands of England:

This article reports on survey and interview data from a two-phase study examining the shape and scope of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) participation in amateur football clubs in Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. Survey results identified strongly differentiated patterns of participation and a concentration of BME (male) players, coaches and management committee members at a small number of clubs in the city of Leicester. Interview data contextualized the socio-historical development and ongoing reality of these BME clubs as a consequence of — and as active resistance to — racisms and exclusions within pre-existing and homogeneously White local football networks. BME clubs also had distinct social, cultural and religious attachments and had historically operated as symbolic and practical sites of community mobilization and cultural identity production for specific BME communities. Survey and interview data indicated that BME clubs and newer ‘multi-ethnic’ clubs increasingly featured a strong focus on the provision of valuable participation opportunities to younger players from a range of culturally and religiously diverse backgrounds and from communities experiencing disproportionate levels of social and economic deprivation. The article concludes by examining the role of BME clubs and newer ‘multi-ethnic’ clubs as facilitators of new inclusions and positive multi-cultural leisure spaces for young footballers within the context of the changing local cultural landscape of Leicester and with reference to wider debates around racial integration and multiculturalism in late modern Britain.

Institutional racism, whiteness and the under-representation of minorities in leadership positions in football in Europe

This article seeks to critically examine the relationship between processes and practices of institutional racism and the continued under-representation of minorities in leadership positions in football in Europe. In doing so, the article will begin by providing a marker for levels of minority representation in senior administrative and governance positions within professional football clubs and national governing bodies of football. The article will then draw on interviews with 20 key stakeholders drawn from 13 different countries to examine the extent and ways in which practices of institutional racism have impacted disproportionately on limiting minority access to – and involvement in – the senior organizational tiers of the game. The article will argue that these practices of institutional racism are underpinned by patterns of white hegemonic privilege embedded within the pre-existing core structures of decision-making bodies at the highest levels of football. Finally, the article will suggest ways through which to challenge and dismantle these practices of racially inflected institutional closure and patterns of white hegemonic privilege and improve the legitimacy and functioning of the sport across the continent.

New Labour, racism and ‘new’ football in England

ABSTRACT Bradbury and Williams begin by examining aspects of the genealogy of incidents of fan racism at the Spain v. England international football match in Madrid on 17 November 2004, and the public outcry in Britain that followed. They raise questions about the possible ‘strategic mobilization’ by Spanish fans of apparently racist epithets as a response to the use, by the English football authorities before the match, of prominent anti-racism symbolism. The main body of the article then considers the British public response to Madrid within the context of the Blairite New Labour policy on football racism in England from the late 1990s. It argues that Labours Football Task Force from 1997 constituted an entirely new direction for sport and government policy in Britain. However, by drawing on the comments of some of the key figures involved, Bradbury and Williams further contend that, both structurally and ideologically, the Task Force was preset to limit its own investigations on the nature and effects of racism, specifically in the English game. Although the Task Forces report, Eliminating Racism in Football, has had some positive effects—for example, on Football Association policy or in stimulating local anti-racist initiatives—its narrow focus and its relatively underdeveloped understanding of the racism problem in professional sport led its members to de-emphasize the significance of forms of institutionalized racism within English football. Research and commentaries on racism in the English game since that report was published in 1998 suggest that problems of racialized exclusion in football remain. Bradbury and Williams conclude that the public outrage in Britain about the incidents in Madrid reflect an over-concentration on silencing public expressions of racism—combating overt, collective fan outbreaks—at the expense of addressing the racialized structures of power that continue to shape access, opportunities and acceptance of ethnic minorities within professional football in England.

The under-representation and experiences of elite level minority coaches in professional football in England, France and the Netherlands

This article will examine the previously under-researched area of the under-representation and experiences of elite level minority (male) coaches in (men’s) professional football in Western Europe. More specifically, the article will draw on original interview data with 40 elite level minority coaches in England, France and the Netherlands and identify a series of key constraining factors which have limited the potential for and realization of opportunities for career progression across the transition from playing to coaching in the professional game. In doing so, the article will focus on three main themes identified by interviewees as the most prescient in explaining the ongoing under-representation of minority coaches in the sport: their limited access to and negative experiences of the high level coach education environment; the continued existence of racisms and stereotypes in the professional coaching workplace; and the over-reliance of professional clubs on networks rather than qualifications-based frameworks for coach recruitment. Finally, the article will contextualize these findings from within a critical race theory perspective and will draw clear linkages between patterns of minority coach under-representation, the enactment of processes and practices of institutional racism, and the underlying normative power of hegemonic Whiteness in the sport.

Race, sport and politics: the sporting black diaspora, by Ben Carrington

Race, Sport and Politics: The Sporting Black Diaspora is strongly motivated by Ben Carrington’s desire to fill the intellectual vacuum apparent in the failure of mainstream sociology to address the centrality of sport in the making of ‘race’ and of ‘race’ in the structuring of sport. The resultant body of work provides a deeply sociological account of the historical ‘intra-relationship between discourses of “race”, the nature of embodied sporting performance, and the role of politics itself in the (re)making of the “black athlete” ’ (p. 6).