Post-Fandom and the Millennial Blues: The Transformation of Soccer Culture

171 Pages·1997·2.55 MB·English

by  Steve Redhead

POST-FANDOM AND THE
MILLENNIAL BLUES

Soccer, pop and youth culture are big, global businesses today. Gone,
seemingly, are the horror stories of young males fighting pitched battles and
souring the image of soccer as popular consumer culture. Dig deeper into
the recent history of this field of thought and a more complex story emerges.
The ‘millennial blues’ is taking over from the ‘end-of-the-century party’ of
acid house and rave culture of the late 1980s. In a blurring of the boundaries
between high and low culture, soccer and popular music, and legal and
illegal behaviour, the millennial blues is the new postmodern condition.
The book tells a new, accessible story of the ‘disappearance’ of soccer
hooliganism as a social problem into a burgeoning pop culture of accelerated
youth styles, literature and post-fandom. As the media future of pay-per-
view, digital production and the expansion of the airwaves and cyberspace
comes on stream, soccer as the ‘people’s game’ or as ‘football hooliganism’
is becoming a distant speck on the horizon of twentieth-century history. A
‘man’s game’ is being transformed into a media event for global-but-localised
consumption. The resurgence of ‘laddism’ in the 1990s is one consequence
of the ‘bourgeoisification’ of the game and the popularising of ‘soccer into
pop’ (so that bands like Oasis play their beloved Maine Road stadium and
have corporate tie-ups with Manchester City). Fans of both music and soccer
are increasingly visibly interchangeable in their mediated spectatorship, look
and attitude. ‘Low’ art is everywhere: soccer and pop are the fields of
Bohemian artistic experiment and fashion catwalks. In this book, the author
provides a thought-provoking journey into the end of the twentieth-century
postmodern culture of youth, pop and sport-as-business.
Steve Redhead is Professor of Law and Popular Culture at the School of
Law, The Manchester Metropolitan University.
POST-FANDOM AND THE
MILLENNIAL BLUES

The Transformation of Soccer Culture

Steve Redhead

London and New York
First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1997 Steve Redhead
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Redhead, Steve, 1952–
Post-fandom and the millennial blues: the transformation of soccer
culture/Steve Redhead.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Soccer—Social aspects—Great Britain. 2. Youth—Great Britain—
Social conditions. 3. Popular culture—Great Britain.
I. Title.
GV943.9.S63.R43 1997
796.334’0941–dc21 97–2916
CIP

ISBN 0-203-42911-7 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-73735-0 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-11527-2 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-11528-0 (pbk)
Baudrillard…is the latest intellectual to resolve a European sense of cultural crisis
with an intense, prophetic vision of the New World—a new world now post-
modern, post-culture, post-history, post-everything.
Simon Frith (quoted on the back cover of Jean Baudrillard, America)
Ah go fir a wander, leaving Gi talking tae Paul ‘n’ Nicksy aboot Napoli, Liverpool
and West Ham, the international male language ay fitba. Sometimes ah lap up that
talk, other times its pointless tediousness depresses the fuck oot ay us.
Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting)
CONTENTS
Preface ix
1 POST-YOUTH 1
2 POST(REALIST)-REALISM 10
3 POST-FANDOM AND HYPERLEGALITY 22
4 HYPERREALITY BYTES 32
5 (CHANNEL) SURFIN’ USA 54
6 THE SOUND OF THE STADIUM 65
7 THESE CHARMING FANS 80
8 POST-CULTURE 93
Appendix 1:A–Z of Soccer Fanzines 104
Appendix 2:Goal! Goal! Goal! Diary of USA ’94 130
Appendix 3:Soccer Players’ Pop Songs 140
Notes 142
Bibliography 147
Index 155

vii
PREFACE
This book is the product of research over the last few years. The writing of
the book was assisted by travel money provided for foreign visits to present
papers to conferences abroad and to undertake further research: Florence,
Italy (May 1990); Ottawa, Canada (November 1993); Gothenburg, Sweden
(November 1993); and Vancouver, Canada (June to August 1994, and
November 1996). In addition, ‘home’ seminars at University of Warwick
Centre for the Study of Sport in Society and University of Westminster Centre
for Law, Society and Popular Culture provided further discussion. I am grateful
to those people and institutions who made those visits possible and thoroughly
enjoyable. Many thanks to all those who contributed informal suggestions
about the work: I am especially grateful to David Andrews, Susan Brownell,
Andrew Ross, Matti Goksoyr, Mark Ferryman, Anne Coddington, Lincoln
Allison, Simon Gardiner, Guy Osborn, Steve Greenfield, Alan Tomlinson,
Ken Foster, John Sugden, John Williams, Richard Giulianotti, Adam Brown,
Michael Day, Gonnie Rietveld and John Bale for their constructively critical
comments. I am particularly indebted to Professor Rick Gruneau who hired
me as a Visiting Professor in the School of Communication, Simon Fraser
University, Vancouver, Canada in 1994 and 1996 and whose own (see, for
example, Gruneau and Whitson, 1993) popular cultural study—especially of
Hockey Night in Canada, the Canadian equivalent of Match of the Day—has
been one inspiration for this book. In addition, David McArdle was a tireless
Research Assistant on this and other Popular Cultural Studies projects. The
other important context of the book was the making of a Granada TV
Celebration arts programme (transmitted in the North West of England in
August 1992 and presented at the Gothenburg and Warwick conferences)
on the changes in post-fan youth culture, which was made with our assistance.
Debts are owed to producer Mick Gold and his team for capturing the
moment of transition in the regulation of post-youth, post-fan popular culture
so well and making available the various interview transcripts used here.
ix