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Sport, race, class - can we not knock it?

  
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:33 / 11.06.04
It's also interesting that it was a sporting event that turned the author's opinion about the flag. As a non-sports fan, I find the whole phenomenon fascinating. Masculinity, patriotism, commercialism, narrative and more, all over the world, all the time. Do professional sports freak anyone else out?

Rather neatly, this tallies with a thread I was thinking of starting for a while, on how sport helps to define people's approaches to race, class, gender and other fun stuff.

For example, I support England and Wales in football - being Welsh by blood and English by birth. If England and Wales were playing, I'd support Wales.However, I am probably more involved with England, just because England gets a lot more media coverage, so I feel more familiar with and more involved with the England team a lot of the time. I'll also support any other home nation (that is, Northern Ireland and Northern Irteland). and the Republic of Ireland, in approximately that order. This despite, of course, being deeply ambivalent about the governments, national perceptions and activities of these countries, and for that matter despite the fact that there are other, far nicer, nations that I don't have the same visceral desire to see do well, even though there are nations I "like" better (France for its opposition to the war on Iraq, Holland for its welfare system, say).

On the other hand, I don't feel much kinship with the idea of Englishness, or the kind of Englishness that a lot of other football supporters seem to espouse and represent. Compare rugby, where I find the England team itself oddly repellent. Possibly because supporters and players tend to represent a sort of evocation and celebration of a particular form of self-congratulatory Englishness that is far simpler (and more class-based) than football. On the other hand, football is hardly a workers' utopia - Ron Atkinson's recent outbursts have demonstrated the sort of thing that those within and without the game probably expect to get away with all the time (Alan Green describing Man City sub Sun Jihai as "no 17- chicken chow mein" springs to mind as another example of this kind of shit), and, as discussed elsewhere, the paucity of British Asian footballers is disturbing. Likewise, I'm generally supporting t'other side in cricket, because I'm afraid I rather enjoy the idea of the suppliant countries to which England gace the game being better at it than the English? Does this make me unpatriotic? Possibly, possibly not. Personally, I think it just means that I despise the ECB, which I suspect is a question of class rather than country.

So, how does sport affect ideas of nation and national belonging, and how does it affect your thoughts about the country you occupy and the people you share it with? Is it possible to be a supporter without some form of nationalism, or even racism, coming into it?
 
 
Sax
14:50 / 11.06.04
It depends whether patriotism is always a bad thing. I honestly don't think, despite the apparent "evidence" to the contrary, that football fans are inherently racist. If anything, football - much more than other games, and I share your distaste at the national rugby side and its followers, Haus - is quite a unifying global force.

By definition in international football, you want "your" side to win and the others to lose. But that doesn't mean giving the other fans a literal or metaphorical pounding into the turf purely on grounds of race or nationality.

Like Fat Les sung: "We're going to score one more than you". Now that's gentlemanly. "We don't mind how many you score, in fact we positively encourage plenty of goals for the good of the game, but we still want to win".

However, there will always be what I like to think of good-natured nationalism involved in football; thus Germany is the Old Enemy and there will be allusions to World War Two (But not, hopefully, as cack-handed as the Mirror's "Achtung" front page of a couple of years ago). And the French will be cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Etc. I don't think many people take this in a seriously racist way; at least, I hope not.

Oh, and no Scotland, Haus?
 
 
Irony of Ironies
09:32 / 12.06.04
One thought that pops into mind: when you say that you tend not to support the England rugby team "possibly because supporters and players tend to represent a sort of evocation and celebration of a particular form of self-congratulatory Englishness that is far simpler (and more class-based) than football," aren't you pandering to yet-another stereotype - that of the unthinking, thicko "rugger bugger"? I take the teams on their own value as much as by the supposed qualities associated with the sport. That's why, at the moment, I tend to support the England rugby and cricket teams, which have far more generally admirable qualities (in terms of sheer effort, will to win, and skill) than the football one.
And it's worth thinking about cricket: there's so much that's interesting about a game where the previous England captain is a Madras-born, Essex-bred muslim - and a man with more passion for England and genuine, positive patriotism than a thousand St George's flag-waving morons.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:05 / 12.06.04
and a man with more passion for England and genuine, positive patriotism than a thousand St George's flag-waving morons.

But aren't you pandering to yet another stereotype, there?
 
 
Irony of Ironies
14:20 / 12.06.04
Yes But isn't that inevitable when you start trying to talk about how "all patriots are this", "sports fans are like that" and so on. I originally meant to put "a thousand St George's flag-waving NF morons", which might have been fairer.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:42 / 12.06.04
You might have been, but it seems unlikely. I'm not sure that you could find a thousand NF members in a football crowd - that would be 2% of a large crowd that belonged to a political organisation which doesn't really exist anymore... if you mean "far right" then you're probably closer to the mark - and is it suggestive that we hear a lot more rightist chanting at England games than, say, at Manchester United games?

Now, to address the "rugger bugger" issue. I don't believe I ever used the term or evoked the stereotype, nor that I suggested that rugby players or fans were "unthinking" or "thickos". If you go back, I said possibly because supporters and players tend to represent a sort of evocation and celebration of a particular form of self-congratulatory Englishness that is far simpler (and more class-based) than football. I don't see any of those words there. We can very easily say that rugby players are "cleverer" than footballers, for example - many of them have professional qualifications and their own businesses. Regardless of the talk of will to win and skill, we can be unambiguously supportive of rugby union (and we *are* talking about rugby union here, yes?) because it is middle class. It's players are middle class, its supporters are middle class, the grounds are impeccably behaved and yet the working class get to luxuriate in the success as well; it's how society is meant to function. Trickle-down sport, if you want. Football, on the other hand, takes working-class people and drops them into enormous tubs of money, interviews them constantly and then abominates their lack of taste and inarticulacy.

So... unthinking? Possibly. I said "self-congratulatory", which I think is closer to the mark. To be a rugby fan is already, in a sense, to have won life's lottery - you get to be proud not only of your team and your nation, but also of the superior quality of your sport (will to win, skill, fishcakes).

Now, Sax is asking whether patrotism is always a bad thing. Monkey is leaping that question to identify a "positive" patriotism, of the sort practiced by Nassee Hussein. So what is positive patriotism? Presumably a form of patriotism that does not diss or degrade any other nation, except insofar as it would like to see the team defeat them.

How does that tally with Sax saying:


However, there will always be what I like to think of good-natured nationalism involved in football; thus Germany is the Old Enemy and there will be allusions to World War Two (But not, hopefully, as cack-handed as the Mirror's "Achtung" front page of a couple of years ago). And the French will be cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Etc. I don't think many people take this in a seriously racist way; at least, I hope not.

He talks about people "taking it" in a racist way. I'm not sure whether that means *intend* it in a racist way, or receive it as if it were racist. I confess that if I were to be called a cheese-eating surrender monkey, I'd probably take it pretty badly, just as I would if I were told I was a member of the National Front simply by dint of being English during a football tournament. I don't know if one *can* justify either as "good-natured", per se. The dive towards 1945 and 1966 whenever a major tournament comes along strikes me as the mass media creating an uncomfortable environment, both in terms of the expectations and the attiutudes. It also goes for the lowest common denominator. By contrast, "Vindaloo" was actually rather clever - expressing as it did that the idea of "Englishness" as a historical monoculture is disintegrating. And that we're going to score one more than you.
 
 
Nobody's girl
03:17 / 15.06.04
I don't know much about football, but I watched the England-France match with my Scots/Irish friend and American partner- when the French scored their first goal all six of our fists shot up in celebration.

I was backing the French cos I'm half French but also because I despise the endless patriotic waffle and self-congratulatory wank-off in the media after England win a sporting event. I suppose I'm really pissed off at the media because in these instances they forget about the other three nations in the UK who may not be so interested in how great England is.

I know for a fact that it is pretty common here in Scotland to support any team playing England, something that horrified a former workmate of mine who'd just moved up from Essex. "Whenever Scotland are playing I support them as long as they're not playing England!" she declared idignantly.

So, how does sport affect ideas of nation and national belonging, and how does it affect your thoughts about the country you occupy and the people you share it with?

Well, for me, sport has little to do with my feelings of national belonging. I'm half French, a quater Scots and a quater English. Sure, I could support all three but where's the fun in that?
I've always felt adrift from any form of national belonging. The Scots think my accent is too English to accept me as a "proper" native. Perhaps influenced by growing up in Scotland I cannot bring myself to support the English, you guys are sooooo big-headed I like supporting the French but I don't feel any national belonging to France.

Is it possible to be a supporter without some form of nationalism, or even racism, coming into it?

Good question. Um, dunno. You could make a case study of the Rangers/Celtic racial antagonism, but I know a Rangers supporter who really isn't interested in that side of it- he just likes the football. I suppose it's down to the individuals at the end of the day, if you are predisposed toward a racist or nationalistic mindset you'll use sports to that end.
 
 
Nobody's girl
03:34 / 15.06.04
There's a cracking Billy Bragg song about people using football as a conduit for racism-

The Few


At night the Baby Brotherhood and the Inter City Crew
Fill their pockets up with calling cards
And paint their faces red white and blue
Then they go out seeking different coloured faces
And anyone else that they can scare
And they salute the foes their fathers fought
By raising their right hands in the air
Oh look how my country's patriots are hunting down below
What do they know of England who only England know

From the stands of the Empire Stadium
Come the heralds of the New Dark Age
With the simplicities of bigotry
And to whom all the world's a stage
These little John Bullshits know that the press
Will glorify their feats
So that the general public fear them
And the authorities say give 'em all seats
And the wasted seed of the bulldog breed
Is shouting here we go
What do they know of England who only England know

Our neighbours shake their heads
And take their valuables inside
While my countrymen piss in the fountains
To express our national pride
And to prove to the world that England
Is just as rotten as she looks
They repeat the lies that caught their eyes
At school in history books
But the wars they think they're fighting
Were all over long ago
What do they know of England who only England know

And the society that spawned them
Just cries out Who's to blame?
And then wraps itself in the Union Jack
And just carries on the same
Oh look out, my country's patriots are hunting down below
What do they know of England who only England know
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:11 / 15.06.04
Interesting stuff. Sport is a fascinating index of all sorts of cultural/social rules and locations.

The way sports are consumed, peformed and the place they hold in a country's mythology can tell us loads about class,race, gender, social order....

Supporting a team is also about love, emotional connection, passion. It often doesn't obey rules, and overrides all sorts of contradictions...

It's about what/who we identify as, and demonstrating/revelling in those affiliations: national, familial, religious, cultural...

I've often described my football fandom as being like a relationship. I support Leeds United. A team with a reputation for appallingly racist fans. (and these days, players. )

Buuuut, I support them because when I first got into football, as a kiddie, my dad told me about Leeds. He lived in Leeds when he first came to the UK, and became a keen supporter. This is a common story as Leeds has a vast Asian population.

There are vast numbers of Asian Leeds fans, and our attitudes to the racist baggage varies. The one that appears to be most prevalent, and with which I agree, is that we have as much right to be Leeds fans as anyone else, and are not going to be denied by racist fuckheads. *Nor* by anyone else's limiting considerations of what 2nd gen Asians are 'allowed' to do.

I support England at football, and India at cricket.

football: When England win I feel joy, I'll be leaping up and down and punching the air with the best of them.

But I'm not a big patriot, to me it's perhaps more about belonging to the world of football fandom and the England team being my 'tribe'.

I'm England born and bred and India have no national team to speak of . There was certainly no coverage when I was young. So I was brought up by a sports-mad dad, watching the England team. They're part of my upbrining/memories.... Terry Butcher playing with a headfull of blood is one of my clearest memories as a kid...

This might be very different now, with cable/ZeeTV, my dad and I could have watched the Indian national team reguarly... and perhaps I wouldn't feel that connected to the fortunes of the England team.

Buuut, again, my upbringing was pretty assimilationist, so perhaps I'd still connect with the England team, the same way I connect with other English things, eg music/tv.

My dad was a very fine cricketer, and in an interesting reversal of the culture here, wasn't allowed to pursue it as a career because it wasn't a good career for a nice high-caste boy.

*Everyone* from top to bottom plays cricket in India, but it's middle-caste people who've traditionally formed the backbone of the professional game.


I've only recently started to enjoy cricket, but India come first. I'm not sure if I like to see England lose, but I'm pretty indifferent to their progress.

I've watched football in Italy, where the whole community is involved. Watching a match in Florence, vividly remember seeing 'pearls-and-furs' Florentine ladies leaping up and down screaming!
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:14 / 15.06.04
Oh, and I've recently become a much more active West Bengal fan, since seeing them play.

Seeing the expression on my dad's face as they scored the first goal is something I'll never forget. He hadn't seen them play in 30 years. Our relationship isn't the easiest, and that moment of shared joy is something I'll treasure.

That's an illustration of how sport can sometimes be a wonderful force.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
11:48 / 16.06.04
And for something a little less anecdotal/self-indulgent, I want to toss in the issue of sport as locus of political/cultural power.

Topical, as today Nelson Mandela announced that he's stepping down from public life.

Which makes me think that as an avowed football nut, he stuck around long enough to secure the World Cup for South Africa. For personal and statehood reasons, this is a major triumph, validation of post-Apartheid South Africa.

Sport has been used as an demonstration of nationhood and power throughout history. Haus, presumably you can give us some classical antecedents/egs? And this allows for subversive uses, and for the use of sport as a method of political influence when others may fail...

As a 20th Century kid, I'll put up a few examples of my own:

Jesse Owens' four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. (Pretty much literally ) In the face of Nazi white supremacy, a black athlete demonstrates the ridiculousness of the creed. Not so incidentally:

With one jump remaining, Luz Long, a tall, blue-eyed, blond German long jumper who was his stiffest competition, introduced himself. He suggested that Owens make a mark several inches before the takeoff board and jump from there to play it safe. Owens took the advice, and qualified.

Owens later commented:

It took a lot of courage for him to befriend me in front of Hitler," Owens said. "You can melt down all the medals and cups I have and they wouldn't be a plating on the 24-karat friendship I felt for Luz Long at that moment. Hitler must have gone crazy watching us embrace. The sad part of the story is I never saw Long again. He was killed in World War II."

Owens did, however maintain a correspondance with Long's family.

Sport doesn't only feed nationalism, it can cross/dissolve it also.

Sax: as you probably expect, I'd argue that there is no such thing as 'harmless nationalism' especially if you're talking references to Nazi Germany. Surely you're only arguing for broadsheet-toned xenophobia.

Also, the sporting ban against Apartheid South Africa, which by many accounts was a major factor in putting pressure on the South African regime. In a sports-mad country, national pride/identity was seriously damaged by inability to compete and demonstrate South Africa's status on the world stage.

Also, in a country where the powerful white minority were often pretty much apolitcal, hitting sport was an extremely effective way of making South Africa's ostracism touch the greater populace.

See also the mess in Zimbabwe.

It has also provided ways for subversive voices to be heard/reach mass audiences, eg John Carlos and Tommie Smith making the Black Power salute at the Mexico '68, an image that was viewed around the world.

Smith said at the time, "I couldn't salute the flag in the accepted manner because it didn't represent me fully; only asking me to be great on the track and then obliging me to come home and be just another n-----."

This wasn't an isolated/spur-of-the-moment gesture, but part of a planned resistance:

OPHR, and its lead organizer Dr. Harry Edwards, was very influenced by the Black Freedom struggle. It's goal was to expose how the US used black athletes to project a lie both at home and internationally.
In their founding statement they wrote,

Carlos and Smith were stripped of their medals by Avery Brundage, the head of the USOC, who had, oddly enough, brokered the deal for the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

But

The Olympic Crew Team, all white and entirely from Harvard, issued a statement:
"We -as individuals- have been concerned about the place of the black man in American society in their struggle for equal rights. As members of the US Olympic team, each of us has come to feel a moral commitment to support our black teammates in their efforts to dramatize the injustices and inequities which permeate out society."

Sport often reaches mass audiences/places that 'straight' political action/process doesn't. It has the potential to cross vast divides.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
11:53 / 16.06.04
Oh, and in that final quote, I think that the word 'dramatize' is crucial. Sport allows for mythmaking and the exercise of a very specific kind of power.
 
  
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