Wagner, Christoph (Munich Germany)

Cultures of Memory in Football Fanzines. A Content Analysis. Wagner, Christoph (Munich Germany)

Master's Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Sport - Sport Sociology, grade: B, University of Leicester (Institute for Sociology), course: MA course for Sociology of Sports, language: English, abstract: Abstract The increasing insecurity in English society is countered by a resurgence of nostalgia and remembering the old times. This phenomenon can be found in football, too, but it differs from the need for nostalgia that is visible in society. High Street shops like Past Times are hugely successful in selling commodities that remember the English Commonwealth with goods from the countries that once belonged to it. Also, this becomes visible by the many replica items of daily life that are designed in a retro style but contain modern technology such as radios, watches, alarm clocks and furniture. Football fans can purchase replica shirts of their favourite club from the seventies and even earlier. In the field of football, the introduction of the Premier League in England has ultimately changed the face of football. Football was commodified and has become the most successful part of the entertainment industry. In the wake of the Heysel and Hillsborough disasters football fans got active themselves and started to publish football fanzines as a reaction to the general condemnation they had to endure. In these outlets they mostly opposed the view that every football fan is a hooligan. They also used football fanzines as a platform to remember their heroes and glories of eras long gone. For this reason cultures of memory did become a part of football fanzines and did so very vividly.