Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Palgrave Macmillan
Book cover

Football Fans and Social Spacing

Power and Control in a Modernising Landscape

  • Book
  • © 2021

Overview

Authors:
  1. Ian Woolsey

    1. Department of Psychology, Sociology & Politics, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Discusses complex spatial practices which bring a nuanced understanding of football fandom to the field
  • Brings fresh theoretical ideas to the field of leisure studies
  • Addresses the relative paucity of knowledge on the topic of travelling football supporters

Part of the book series: Leisure Studies in a Global Era (LSGE)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this book

Log in via an institution
eBook USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

Licence this eBook for your library

Institutional subscriptions

Table of contents (6 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. This Space Is Our Space

    • Ian Woolsey
    Pages 1-26

  3. Cognitive Foundations

    • Ian Woolsey
    Pages 27-53

  4. Cognitive Spacing: Defending the Hermeneutic ‘Community’

    • Ian Woolsey
    Pages 55-81

  5. Moral Spacing

    • Ian Woolsey
    Pages 83-122

  6. Aesthetic Spacing

    • Ian Woolsey
    Pages 123-157

  7. Away from Nothing

    • Ian Woolsey
    Pages 159-168

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 169-170
    Download chapter PDF
Back to top

Keywords

About this book

This book is about the relationship between leisure and power. More specifically, it theorizes a group of supporters’ attempts to control social space within and around English football stadiums. Not only is football a popular leisure form, it is also one which has undergone a remarkable process of transformation during the last 30 years. Advance surveillance techniques, all seater-stadia, rising ticket prices,  and a growing intolerance to expressive modes of fandom have all transformed the experience of watching the professional game.

Through these five chapters, Ian Woolsey asks how the collective responses of travelling football supporters to these major societal currents and changes within the game; liquid modernity and the post-1989 transformation of English football, are managed via the distinct and oft-competing processes of social spacing in football. An important inspiration for the book is the work of Zygmunt Bauman, particularly his ideas on cognitive, aesthetic, and moral ‘spacings’ as a social production. Ian Woolsey’s powerful and persuasive application of these ideas not only extends Bauman’s focus on the ‘politics’ of power in public space to include a consideration of leisure but in so doing shows that ethnography, selectively conducted and theoretically informed, can provide data for a rich, sociological account of a football world. 

The book will be of interest to researchers and scholars of sociology of leisure, sociology of sport, criminology, and cultural studies.


Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Psychology, Sociology & Politics, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

    Ian Woolsey

About the author

Ian Woolsey is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Sheffield Hallam University. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Football Fans and Social Spacing

  • Book Subtitle: Power and Control in a Modernising Landscape

  • Authors: Ian Woolsey

  • Series Title: Leisure Studies in a Global Era

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74532-5

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-74531-8Published: 10 June 2021

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-74534-9Published: 11 June 2022

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-74532-5Published: 09 June 2021

  • Series ISSN: 2946-3173

  • Series E-ISSN: 2946-3181

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 170

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Sociology of Sport and Leisure, Sociology of Culture, Cultural Geography, Social Structure, Social Inequality

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Back to top

Search

Navigation