Abstract
Despite the gentrification of cities, local sports teams can still anchor supporters in community and space. However, sports fandom in literature is not often tied to the specific physical environment in which fan practices take place. This chapter seeks to locate the performance of sports fandom within the physical environment of the sports stadium. Using the English Premier League team Everton Football Club and Australian Rugby League team the St. George Illawarra Dragons as illustrative case studies, this chapter explores how fans from both clubs identify with themselves and others inside sporting landscapes, and how sporting landscapes can both enable and inhibit certain types of behaviour. Drawing on the ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I argue that the internal geography of the stadium protects the hegemonic discourses of localised and masculine narratives. This chapter discusses how sports communities are constructed, embodied and lived by sports fans in sporting landscapes. This chapter draws on the wealth of studies on British football fans and adds a comparative dimension regarding the Australian context, thus providing a more comprehensive view of fan identities that engage with sports.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Football and Communities Across Codes |
| Editors | Deirdre Hynes, Annabel Kiernan, Keith Parry |
| Place of Publication | U.K. |
| Publisher | Inter-Disciplinary Press |
| Pages | 71-82 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781848882416 |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |
Keywords
- spectators
- sex role
- fans (persons)
- soccer
- Rugby League football
- Australia
- England