Professor Thomas Fletcher

An unprecedented exploration of the intersection of events and family studies, Family Events uses events as a lens through which to explore the concepts of families, family practices, family displays and family intimacies. Family Events explores the idea that how families come to be and, moreover, come to be defined as ‘families’ relies on events: whether that be via ‘family events’ - those which serve to celebrate being part of ‘my’ family - (e.g., birthdays, weddings, funerals), ‘events experienced as a family’ (e.g., a holiday or day trip) or ‘events which impact families’ (e.g., recession, war, global health emergency). Family Events brings together contributions from the social sciences, leisure and event studies which focus on a variety of different event contexts, including the life cycle, death and illness, sport, holidays, and community and religious festivals. Family Events offers a multitude of insightful perspectives on the intersection of events and family studies, and is a valuable resource for academics and students with a research interest in events, leisure and the family.

Cricket acts as their point of departure, but the way in which ideas of power, representation and inequality are 'played out' is unique in each. This book was published as a special issue of Identities.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Sport in Society. "

Ever since different communities began processes of global migration, sport has been an integral feature in how we conceptualise and experience the notion of being part of a diaspora. Sport provides diasporic communities with a powerful means for creating transnational ties, but also shapes ideas of their ethnic and racial identities. In spite of this, theories of diaspora have been applied sparingly to sporting discourses. Due mainly to its central role in spreading dominant white racial narratives within the British Empire, and the various ways different ethnic groups have ‘played’ with the meanings and associations of the sport in the (post-)colonial period, cricket is an interesting focus for academic research. Despite W.G. Grace’s claim that cricket advances civilisation by promoting a common bond, binding together peoples of vastly different backgrounds, to this day cricket operates strict symbolic boundaries; defining those who do, and equally, do not belong. C.L.R. James’ now famous metaphor of looking ‘beyond the boundary’ captures the belief that, to fully understand the significance of cricket, and the sport’s roles in changing and shaping society, one must consider the wider social and political contexts within which the game is played. The collection of papers in this special issue does just that. Cricket acts as the point of departure in each, but the way in which ideas of power, representation and inequality are ‘played out’ is unique in each.

The cultural significance of ‘ethnic-specific’ cricket teams and leagues has received limited scholarly attention, despite increasing evidence of their various social functions. This paper aims to contribute to this under-researched area by drawing upon two individual case studies of Pakistani Muslim cricket teams; the first is based in the UK and the second in Norway. In this paper we argue that leisure and sport are key spaces for the delineation of social identities and hierarchies. We identify how cricket represents a significant social network within both the British and Norwegian Pakistani communities. In particular, we articulate the role of cricket in establishing and maintaining friendships and relationships, bolstering a sense of belonging, initiating diasporic sentiments, as well as being significant in the development of social capital, and resisting institutionalised white privilege.

Much research in the past decade has assessed what motivates people to volunteer at sport events. Given that volunteering has become integral to the delivery and staging of sporting events, it is important that research not only considers reasons and motivations for volunteering, but how participants cope and manage once their volunteer journey ends. The paper considers the notion of ‘role exit’ and contributes insight based on interviews with participants after an event to understand their feelings and emotions. The significance of this research is understanding exiting emotions and experiences, but because a lot of emphasis is placed on preparing volunteers ahead of an event, the end of the volunteer journey is often abrupt and therefore left underexplored. To ensure that the needs of contemporary volunteers are adequately managed, it is important to consider how individuals are impacted by volunteering and also how they reflect on experiences afterwards. Three themes that emerge from this study include: (1) sadness and loss; (2) transitioning emotions; and (3) coping and coming to terms. A discussion framing the post-event volunteer as ‘the bereaved’ addresses the need to better manage the final stages of the volunteer journey, which represents a challenge given the liminality of sport event volunteering.

Sport volunteering is becoming an increasingly popular motive for international travel. Many tourism organizations now advertise sport volunteering projects, with colleges and universities also offering students the opportunity to participate in similar projects abroad. This is the first book to bring together diverse and interdisciplinary insights into the development of the contemporary sport volunteering phenomenon. It addresses conceptual uncertainties and challenges emerging from the growing international sport volunteering market, and offers insight into its future directions, impact and sustainability. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, Part I examines volunteering in the context of international sporting events, while Part II evaluates volunteering initiatives related to sport development. Including case studies from Australia, Cameroon, Namibia, Norway, Russia, the UK, the US and Zambia, this substantial volume provides a truly international perspective on the changing roles of sport volunteering. Showcasing the latest research from across the globe, International Sports Volunteering is a valuable resource for any course on sport studies, sport event management, sport development, sport tourism, sport geography, the sociology of sport or leisure studies.

© 2018 Cognizant, LLC. This conceptual article presents an understanding of the term experience and lived experience by detailing the hermeneutic circle as a guiding framework to capture the volunteer journey of sport event volunteers. Sport event volunteering research has seen increased interest in the past decade, and this article acknowledges that there is a need to reconsider foundation understandings of the notion of experience. Because previous research has encouraged academics to focus less on the structure of experiences, it is therefore necessary to concentrate on meanings that further consider lived experiences as they are produced by individuals. Volunteering at a sport event represents a journey that can be captured at different stages, and this is can be done by putting emphasis on research participants' meanings and memories, as outlined in the conceptual model presented in this article.

Lebanese food, as a cultural tradition, and in the context of Lebanese migration, mobility and diasporic identity, is the focus of this article. We use ethnographic methods in the form of participant observation, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with restaurant owners, workers and members of the Lebanese diaspora to critically examine the connections between diasporic identity and Lebanese food in London. The analysis revealed that Lebanese migrants living in London are highly affected and influenced by their homeland and its traditions. Analysis also revealed how the Lebanese hospitality industry has grown and adapted, becoming embedded, hybridized and contested by members of the Lebanese diaspora. We argue that this contestation revolves around a mobile sense of place and belonging.

Events and sports events are perceived as having the potential to contribute to a number of benefits for the host country and its communities. However, mega sports events in particular are also known for their darker side. These consequences flow from the scale and complexity of the event, and the logistics of delivering what is effectively a national mega-project. The socio-political and economic environment of the host is an important consideration for both prospective hosts and event owners when allocating hosting rights. It is therefore, unsurprising that concerns have been raised over the relatively recent relocation of events to developing countries which, by their nature, frequently lack the economic, political and social stability of the traditional industrialised host. Developing nations are less affluent and arguably less prepared to deliver large scale sports events than developed nations. Within developing contexts the cost of hosting and risk of failure is likely to be far higher than for events held in the developed world. Therefore, this paper asks, ‘are governing bodies, when equipped with this knowledge, ethically obliged to withhold hosting rights from developing countries?’ This paper argues that denying sovereign States the right to make their own decisions would appear to compound the low status of countries that mega-event hosting is perceived to address. It would also reinforce the positioning of countries as subordinate and subject to a form of neo-colonial control. Indeed, despite laudable claims, the primary interest of the event owners is the delivery of an event, meaning that considerations of individual national contexts are largely irrelevant to any award. The paper contends that event hosts – particularly those in the developing world - are potentially vulnerable to exploitation by the event owner.

Given sport’s centrality in English society, what role does it play in symbolising contemporary English national identity? This comprehensive study explores the complex set of relationships between sport and what it means to be English in the twenty-first century. The bond between sport and nationalism has long been recognised, but with increasingly vociferous separatist nationalisms threatening the dismantling of the United Kingdom, a closer analysis is timely. Part I addresses key debates regarding English national identity within the specific sporting contexts of association football, cricket, tennis, cycling and rugby. Part II discusses the complex relationship between religion, sport and English national identity as well as the attitudes and experiences of traditionally marginalised groups, including women, minority ethnic groups and disabled people. Part III considers the perspectives of the other UK nations on the link between sport and English national identity. Sport and English National Identity in a ‘Disunited Kingdom’ is fascinating reading for all those with an interest in the sociology, politics and history of sport, and the study of nations, nationalism and national identity.

Sport continues to be one of the primary means through which notions of Englishness and Britishness are constructed, contested and resisted. The legacy of the role of sport in the colonial project of the British Empire, combined with more recent connections between sport and far right fascist/nationalist politics has made the association between Britishness, Englishness and ethnic identity(ies) particularly intriguing. In this paper, these intersections are explored through British media coverage of the Canadian-born, British tennis player, Greg Rusedski. This coverage is examined through the lens of ‘performativity’, as articulated by Judith Butler. Through a critical application of Butler’s ideas, the ways in which the media seek to recognise and normalise certain identities, while problematising and excluding others, can be more fully appreciated. Thus, it was within newspaper framings of Rusedski that hegemonic notions of White Englishness could be performed, maintained and embedded.

Since the global economic recession, public services in the UK have badly affected by austerity measures. However, whilst public services, including health, defence and the police faced significant cuts to their budgets, Primary Physical Education in England has actually received additional ring-fenced funding through the Physical Education and Sport Premium since 2013. This funding is provided directly to schools, and though the Department for Education provides guidance on how the Premium might be spent, schools effectively have autonomy to spend it in ways that they believe will best meet the needs of their learners and wider stakeholders. Utilising a mixed method approach involving analysing published material on school websites and semi-structured interviews with primary school and local authority staff, the aim of this article is to critically analyse how primary schools across a borough in the North West of England are spending the Premium. Our analysis is underpinned by principles of social justice, which we interpret as a marker for concerns to do with fairness, equality, exclusion, discrimination, power differentials and privilege. We argue that, in large part due to the autonomy of implementation, the Physical Education and Sport Premium has failed to realise its inherent social justice agenda, in that, investment in Physical Education and school sport is unequal and too heavily dependent on the value placed upon it by individual schools. It is our contention therefore, that equal opportunities will remain unobtainable if the central tenets of the reproduction of privilege are allowed to remain uncontested.

There is little doubt that today’s fathers are responding to new expectations about fatherhood and fathering practices. The remote, detached, breadwinning father of the past, once lauded as a masculine ideal, has faded and men are now expected to be ‘involved’, ‘intimate’, ‘caring’ and ‘domesticated’ fathers (Dermott, 2008; Miller, 2010; Morgan, 2011, 2013; Brannen, 2015). In the UK, fatherhood and, in particular what it means to be a ‘good’ father, has been said to be in a state of flux as ideas about ‘earning as caring’ are ‘no longer enough to validate being a good father’ (O’Brien, 2005, cited in Brannen, 2015: 13). Changes in the labour market, in terms of the decline of some (male dominated sectors), growing opportunities for women and changes to legislation around parental leave and entitlements among others things have, ideologically at least, weakened the basis for the assumed male breadwinner image. Ideologies of fatherhood and motherhood now encompass both emotional and hands-on caring roles in relation to children, in addition to participation in paid work. According to Wilding (2018) this has contributed to a ‘work-life collision, in which men and women struggle to meet the expectations of their roles in both family and paid work contexts’ (p. 6). The work on gender and power within marriage suggests that, in many heterosexual relationships, men still hold the balance of power because they earn more than women (Dermott and Pomati, 2016). Indeed, in many households, women are secondary wage earners and men maintain authority by controlling and ‘withholding’ money. Gatrell (2007) discerns that often, even in ‘late modern’ heterosexual relationships, where couples are co-habiting and each partner has her/his own banking arrangements, gender inequalities are reproduced in very traditional forms. However, Gatrell also suggests that in couples where women are professionally employed it is more difficult for men to maintain the level of power previously associated with the male breadwinner role. Since the turn of the twenty first century, a much more sustained body of work has emerged which centralises the experiences and practices of fathers. This research has introduced concepts such as ‘new’ and ‘intimate’ fathering (Dermott, 2008; Miller, 2010; Jamieson, 2011) as mechanisms for explaining how men have become increasingly involved and engaged compared with earlier generations and stereotypes (Dermott and Miller, 2015).

Traditionally, the terms extended family and extended kin have been used to refer to family members outside of the strictly-defined ‘nuclear family’ or more usefully, two generations of parents and children. The extent to which extended family members are embedded into nuclear family practices varies tremendously in and between cultures. Some cultural groups, such as South Asians, are known to place more value on extended family members, most notably grandparents (Ballard, 1994; Becher, 2009). Ballard (1994) notes how such families were close in terms of both physical and emotional proximity. As a result, many of these families were living in what Smalley (2002) described as ‘nuclear family households, extended family lives’ (cited in Becher, 2009: 150). However, in our contemporary globalised and highly mobile society, how useful is it to think of extended families in terms of proximity? Families are increasingly fragmented and geographically separated, meaning that family members have to find new ways of connecting with one another, for example, forming digital relationships via social media (Baldassar et al., 2016).

The second empirical chapter centralises the voices of fathers to articulate what being a father entails for them. This chapter focuses on aspirations and ambitions towards fatherhood and examines the main influences on these aspirations. I outline the theoretical implications of viewing fatherhood as a series of practices and my interest in the enactment and negotiation of good fatherhood. In so doing I address the following questions: What does fatherhood come to mean in practice? By whom, where and through what practices is good fatherhood defined? Whose or what interests are emphasised?

Having now set out the context and theoretical underpinning for the study, this is the first of six empirical chapters. The aim of this chapter is examine the key influencers on how my participants got involved in sport. It begins by discussing the value placed upon sport in different family contexts. Following this, it explores three dominant routes, which participants took to get into sport, namely: family, school and the community. Previous literature has focused on participation motivation in a variety of sports and this tends to address ‘why’ people get into sport. Motivations are frequently associated with the physiological and psychological benefits of playing sport and being physically active. Less literature has examined ‘how’ people get into sport and almost no research focuses on the key influencers; the ‘who’ behind our decisions to take up sport in the first place.

The third empirical chapter addresses the relationships between fathers and their children in and beyond the context of sport. Within this framework, fathering practices can be seen as the ways in which men ‘do’ and perform their duties as fathers, while also negotiating wider discourses pertaining to fathers, masculinity and intimacy. This chapter builds on some of the arguments related to good fathering practices in the previous chapter. Where the previous chapter discussed the participants’ aspirations for and philosophies of fatherhood and fathering practices, this chapter focuses more on father-child relationships and seeks to explore the significance and impact of sport on those relationships.

This book has considered the context and concept of fathering, the relationship between fathers and their children, how fathers construct their role in negotiation with mothers, and how fathering is practiced in diverse family contexts and experienced by different family members. It has done this by applying these experiences to a sport case study.

Attending and consuming events are integral to many peoples’ leisure lives. However, as the literature attests, events represent significant sites of contestation over who belongs. This paper explores such contestation in the notoriously elitist and traditionally exclusionary sport of cricket, and specifically The Hundred; the most recent attempt to democratise the sport by appealing to a more demographically diverse spectator base. It uniquely blends extensive semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (n=33), and a synthesised theoretical framework of mediatisation, media events and digital leisure studies, to argue that the apparent success of The Hundred in attracting and including new audiences has been enabled by incorporating elements of media spectacle. We therefore, use The Hundred to further delineate the processes described in the extant literature, and extend analysis of the ‘digital turn’, by drawing attention to the tensions between the speed and trajectory of these developments and the constraints imposed by cricket’s history. We illustrate how digital and analogue leisure remain highly interdependent, and argue that the ongoing contestation of game forms championed by different cricket stakeholders makes it improbable that The Hundred can achieve its twin goals of being economically viable, while increasing the popularity and, ultimately survival, of other cricket formats.

Youth sport is not simply a youth-oriented phenomenon. Children’s activities also take up a significant part of a family’s leisure time with Hofferth and Sandberg (2001) estimating that organised youth sport takes up between 5–6.5 hours per week among children aged 6–12 (cited in Brown, 2018: 1501). Children’s participation in sport inevitably involves some form of parental participation as well; whether that be providing transport, economic support, or spectating at training and matches. Indeed, while parents are mindful that quality family time with children is imperative, much of their leisure time is actually spent servicing the needs of their children (and not necessarily in whole family pursuits) (Sparrman et al., 2016). Parents also represent a large volunteer workforce for sport all around the world: their in-kind contribution represents a de facto subsidy, without which many children would simply not be able to continue their participation (Brackenridge, 2006). Therefore, given their outlay of time, energy and money, Brown (2018: 1499) asks: ‘is it possible that parents could (and maybe even should) get something out of this?’.

This chapter considers the impact of COVID-19 on sport stadia. The cancellation and/or pausing of sport leagues and events around the world had a large impact on the sport stadium sector. Thousands of stadia and sporting facilities were closed, with very little warning, as nations and cities were placed in lockdown and social distancing measures were established. These events had significant financial consequences and placed pressure on the managers of sport stadia to explore creative ways for staying financially afloat. The chapter features a case study of the famous New Zealand sporting venue Eden Park, and how management planned to recover from their period of closure.

In this article, we adopt a critical sociological perspective to understanding gender relations and cricket, through the lens of The Hundred - a new, short-form tournament, described by the England and Wales Cricket Board as being part of its long-term commitment to making cricket a gender-equal sport. The Hundred is the first sporting tournament in the world which, from the outset, featured fully aligned competitions for both men’s and women’s teams, including equal prize money, but not equal pay, which the recent Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket condemned. Drawing on concepts of professionalisation as a gendered process we discuss data from interviews with 33 people working in cricket to consider how gender relations continue to impact opportunities for women in cricket. This article further supports the need to conceptualise professionalisation in sport as gendered by considering the ways The Hundred facilitates opportunities for men's and women’s cricket differently.

In this article, we adopt a critical sociological perspective to understanding gender relations and cricket, through the lens of The Hundred – a new, short-form tournament, described by the England and Wales Cricket Board as being part of its long-term commitment to making cricket a gender-equal sport. The Hundred is the first sporting tournament in the world which, from the outset, featured fully aligned competitions for both men's and women's teams, including equal prize money, but not equal pay, which the recent Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket condemned. Drawing on concepts of professionalisation as a gendered process we discuss data from interviews with 33 people working in cricket to consider how gender relations continue to impact opportunities for women in cricket. This article further supports the need to conceptualise professionalisation in sport as gendered by considering the ways The Hundred facilitates opportunities for men's and women's cricket differently.

Research Question: This article investigates German football fans’ attitudes towards homosexuality. By applying Anderson’s (2009) Inclusive Masculinity Theory (IMT) to the findings, this research is the first-ever to apply it to a German sporting context. Methods: Drawing on an anonymous online survey with 212 Germans football fans, this article is the first to empirically investigate attitudes towards homosexuality in German football. Findings: Contrary to ongoing claims that German football remains hostile to sexual minorities, 95% of respondents were supportive of same-sex social and legal rights, while 81% espoused support for an ‘out’ gay male professional player. Despite this, however, 90% also believed that homophobia was still a major problem in German football, as evidenced by its hypermasculine environment, lack of out players and the prominence of homosexually themed language. Implications: This research is a valuable addition to existing work on sports fandom. It provides further evidence that narratives regarding sport’s intolerance of homosexuality are outdated. The research extends IMT’s focus beyond the UK, US, Australia, and a small number of other European countries and is the first empirical study to apply IMT to German sport. Findings are more progressive than other research on German sport and confirm that German football has become more acceptant of the idea of inclusive masculinities. While the presence of this language has previously been argued as evidence of pure, undiluted homophobia this research highlights the complexity of this language, and supports calls to recognise intent, context, and effect in the utility of homosexually themed language.

There is strong evidence to suggest that a connection exists between sports participation and the accumulation of social capital. Event research is also beginning to recognise that non-elite mass participation sport events can foster a sense of temporary casual sociality, community and camaraderie within the event space, and thus, create meaningful social impact for participants. Through analysis of data obtained via semi-structured interviews and surveys conducted with open water swimmers and observations undertaken at open water swimming events, this paper seeks to contribute to the small (but growing) body of empirical and case specific research on the social capital potential of mass participation sports events. We adopt Putnam’s notions of bonding and bridging social capital to interpret the social impact (if any) of open water swimming events on participants. It is the first of its kind to explicitly explore the social capital potential of open water swimming events in the UK. In so being it will develop ideas of whether social connections are temporary, delimited by the duration of the event, or whether they can endure outside of the event space as broader social networks and groups. We argue that events can facilitate meaningful social connections, and we analyse the durability of these social connections. Our data suggests that open water swimming events can facilitate casual social interactions with individuals from outside of already bonded groups, however evidence of bridging capital was less convincing, in that it tended to be associated with a certain type of event and where participants shared a particular identity.

In view of scholarly work that has explored the socio-psycho significance of national performativity, the body and the “other,” this article critically analyses newspaper representations of the Canadian-born British tennis player Greg Rusedski. Drawing on Lacanian interpretations of the body, it illustrates how Rusedski’s media framing centered on a particular feature of his body – his “smile.” In doing so, we detail how Rusedski’s “post-imperial” Otherness – conceived as a form of “extimacy” (extimité) – complicated any clear delineation between “us” and “them,” positing instead a dialectical understanding of the splits, voids and contradictions that underscore the national “us.”

This article reflects on fieldwork with white and British Asian cricketers which explored the construction, maintenance and contestation of racialised identities in the sport of cricket. It addresses my experiences of gaining access to and working alongside both communities, particularly as I negotiated insecurities over the suitability of my own identity(ies), the normalisation of ‘whiteness’ and the constant awareness of my insider and outsiderness within different contexts. I draw on personal experiences and fieldnotes to argue that one’s insider or outsider status is never certain; rather it is filled with dissonance and ambiguity, is an ongoing performance and is always in a state of flux. I provide evidence to show how white researchers (of sport) are, at times, culpable of reinforcing dominant racial discourses rather than challenging them. I conclude by arguing that if sociologists of sport are to establish a methodological framework for researching ‘race’ and its intersections, more scholars need to engage with the relationships between self and other and the self-as-other; more freely exploring the nature of reflexivity, and how doing reflexivity presents opportunities to connect with people across (and in spite of) cultural divides.

Advocacy programmes targeting street-connected children involve changing public and policy makers’ perceptions about this group of often stigmatised children. Increasingly, such programmes centre leisure activities, sports, and sporting events as potential platforms for sharing messages aimed at effecting social change. For effective impact, such advocacy goals require that safe spaces are developed for emerging children’s political messages and managing media narratives to centralise their individual challenges and, more importantly, the root-causes of their street-connectedness. In part influenced by an Ecological Framework for Human Development, we explore how the media engage meaningfully with Street Child United (SCU) events and how they represent street-connected children. Thematically analysing this media coverage, we explore SCU partners’ relationships with the media and whether advocacy messages are communicated coherently and consistently. We found that messages of advocacy and children’s rights are present, but inconsistently framed, reinforcing a binary between pity and inspiration, and limiting opportunities of challenging public perceptions and effecting change. For SCU, similar sports event organisers, and civil society organisations to successfully determine media narratives, they need to develop strategies to manage relationships and more continuous engagement with the media and other stakeholders to sustain interest and leverage impact.

Research question: The relationship between sporting capital and participation experiences in low-income countries, such as Zimbabwe, especially amongst people with visual impairments, is hitherto unknown. This paper examines the participation experiences of Zimbabwean youth blind football players and asks how does the accumulation of sporting capital help in managing and sustaining participation in blind football? Research methods: The paper employs a mixed method approach and draws upon data from semi-structured interviews, participant observation, personal photographs, and questionnaires to analyse the sporting capital development of 14 youth blind football players from nine of Zimbabwe’s ten provinces. Results and Findings: The players’ sporting capital domains were established early through a diversified range of formal participation in various sports, including goalball, athletics, and volleyball during primary school. Increased sporting capital highlighted transferability to different teams and environments to help manage and sustain participation in blind football. Sporting capital is increased by a varied sport offer, empathetic and skilled teachers and coaches, and opportunities to develop independence and a strong peer network, for example, through having access to specialist equipment. Taken together, this bank of capital empowered players to surmount a range of barriers, helping them to manage sustained participation. Implications: Findings will help stakeholders, including national blind sport federations, National Governing Bodies, National Paralympic Committees, educational institutions and blind football teams, among others, to develop management structures and educational programmes to help increase youth blind football players’ sporting capital and identify and manage negative incidents that can affect lifelong participation in blind football.

Previous literature has focused on participation motivation in a variety of sports, that is “why” people get into sport. Less literature has examined “how” people get into sport, that is, the key influencers; the “who” behind decisions to take up sport. This chapter argues that parents have a significant influence (positive and negative) on uptake of sport among their children, and for ensuring continued engagement thereafter. However, it would be wrong to assume that sport is valued by everyone. Indeed, this chapter shows that some children are actively deterred from participating in sport by their parents. As a result, this chapter presents evidence of how children often rely on the influence of people and networks from outside of their family—what is termed here their extended extended family—for example, significant others at school and in their community.

Purpose Identify the challenges and opportunities to develop Para-hockey for participants with intellectual disabilities (ID), and to make recommendations about next steps. Methodology Interviews with stakeholders known to be engaged in, and advocating for, ID para-hockey classification, representing Pakistan, New Zealand, the UK, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina and Chile. Findings and practical implications There is support and commitment for the development of ID Para-hockey. A collaboration plan should be developed by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) to (a) ensure key stakeholders are aware of FIH’s commitment to this endeavour; (b) link with other stakeholders who have an interest in developing ID sport; (c) learn about good practice in other sports, (d) identify a series of steps to progress a developmental plan. We also see evidence for the need to audit current ID Para-hockey activity internationally. Research Contribution This is the first study directly addressing the development of ID Para-hockey. ID Para-hockey is at the start of this developmental journey, and little is known about stakeholder perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Originality/Value It is important, at the outset, to be able to identify what capacities for development exist, and then to consider how these may be built upon.

Becoming a parent is, by and large, a wonderful experience. It is also a hugely challenging experience. My wife and I have two fabulous sons, aged 3 and 6 respectively and we love them to pieces. But there are times when we crave to be apart from them. This is certainly not the same as wishing they were not in our lives; this could not be any further from the truth. Sometimes we just need some alone time; time to recharge, time to reconnect with ourselves and one another and, dare I say it, time to catch up on the things we did before we had children. These ‘things’ I refer to are more often than not highly mundane, like taking the dogs for a long walk (without having to stop off at the playground en route, or without having to carry scooters up ‘that’ hill), washing the cars (without the ‘assistance’ of little helpers), or even having a soak in the bath (without the inevitable banging on the door). And a lie in at the weekend, well forget about it. Personally, what I crave the most is time to devote to playing and, to a lesser extent, watching sport. My wife and I have been together since the age of 15 and for the next 17 years I played sport pretty much guilt free. Like many of the participants in this book, sport is an incredibly important part of my life. I have been a student of the sociology of sport since I was 18 years old. My PhD took sport as its starting point and I have chosen a career educating young people about sport and its social significance. But two young children later and I struggle to carve out even a modest amount of time to follow the world of sport, never mind actively participate in it.

This book is focused on the twin notions of families and events. While highly normalised in most societies, both are contested concepts. The intersection of events and family studies is an area requiring much further attention. This ʼneed’, however, is not simply because there is a gap in the market, but rather because many of the contexts in which family is understood and performed are events. My intention, therefore, is not to produce an add-family-and-stir model of event studies. Rather, it is my contention that how families come to be and, moreover, come to be defined as ‘families’ revolve around events. This introduction provides the theoretical backdrop to contributions in the collection, focusing specifically on the notions of family, family practices, family display and family intimacies.

The final empirical chapter will specifically address the perceived ‘absence’ of fathers as brought about by their involvement in sport. There is a popular saying in the world of sport that during the season, partners and spouses are effectively widowed as men spend more time playing sport than they do with their family. That men, husbands and fathers spend more time playing sport than women, wives and mothers is not new and is fairly well covered in the literature (cf. Trussell and Shaw, 2007; Shaw, 2008; Trussell et al., 2017). However, although the literature on gender and free time offers important insights into the different individual entitlements that women and men experience, they place less emphasis on the negotiations that occur within relationships to create opportunities for sport (Craig and Mullan, 2013). Undoubtedly, fathers are expected to be engaged and nurturing parents, but society affords them more flexibility (and forgiveness) in comparison to mothers if they fall short of their responsibilities. As a result, when sport and everyday life conflict, fathers arguably have greater agency to choose how they spend their time. This is because dominant societal discourses still depict mothers as the most responsible parent.

This article explores the contemporary relationship between Yorkshire cricket and South Asian communities through oral testimonies with white and British Asian cricketers within the region. The article documents how the myths and invented traditions surrounding Yorkshire as an insular county have extended to all levels of Yorkshire cricket culture. Evidence is presented to argue that, despite the growing representation of British Asians within the Yorkshire leagues and within the structure of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, cultural and institutionalized forms of racism continue to be intrinsic to the sport. The article presents evidence to suggest that, regardless of being committed to Yorkshire and their 'Yorkshireness', white Yorkshire people may never fully accept British Asians as 'one of us'. Finally, Yorkshire cricket's (alleged) commitment to 'colour blindness' is deconstructed by presenting evidence that British Asians continue to feel marginalized by, and on the fringes of, mainstream cricket culture in Yorkshire. © 2012 Taylor & Francis.

This article explores the relationship between British Asians' sense of nationhood, citizenship, ethnicity and some of their manifestations in relation to sports fandom: specifically in terms of how cricket is used as a means of articulating diasporic British Asian identities. Norman Tebbit's 'cricket test' is at the forefront of this article to tease out the complexities of being British Asian in terms of supporting the English national cricket team. The first part of the article locates Tebbit's 'cricket test' within the wider discourse of multiculturalism. The analysis then moves to focus on the discourse of sports fandom and the concept of 'home team advantage' arguing that sports venues represent significant sites for nationalist and cultural expression due to their connection with national history. The article highlights how supporting 'Anyone but England', thereby rejecting ethnically exclusive notions of 'Englishness' and 'Britishness', continues to be a definer of British Asians' cultural identities. The final section situates these trends within the discourse of hybridity and argues that sporting allegiances are often separate from considerations of national identity and citizenship. Rather than placing British Asians in an either/or situation, viewing British 'Asianness' in hybrid terms enables them to celebrate their traditions and histories, whilst also being proud of their British citizenship. © The Author(s) 2011.

People in sport tend to possess rather jaded perceptions of its colour-blindness and thus, they are reluctant to confront the fact that, quite often racism is endemic. Yorkshire cricket in particular, has faced frequent accusations from minority ethnic communities of inveterate and institutionalised racism and territorial defensiveness. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews conducted with amateur white and British Asian cricketers, this paper examines the construction of regional identities in Yorkshire at a time when traditional myths and invented traditions of Yorkshire and 'Yorkshireness' are being deconstructed. This is conceptualised through a reading of John Clarke's 'magical recovery of community'. Although cricket has been multiracial for decades, I argue that some people's position as insiders is more straightforward than others. I present evidence to suggest that, regardless of being committed to Yorkshire and their 'Yorkshireness', white Yorkshire people may never fully accept British Asians as 'one of us'. Ideologically and practically, white Yorkshire people are engaged in constructing British Asians as anathema to Yorkshire culture. The paper concludes by advocating that, for sports cultures to be truly egalitarian, the ideology of sport itself has to change. True equality will only ever be achieved within a deracialised discourse that not only accepts difference, but embraces it.

The aim of this article is to understand how English cricket cultures have been made, negotiated and, ultimately, resisted in the context of (post) colonialism. I draw upon research undertaken with white and British Asian cricketers in Yorkshire to identify the place and significance of cricket within the everyday lives of British Asian communities. Over the last decade the number of British Asian cricketers progressing into the upper echelons of the game (mainly the English County Championship) has increased. Many within the game (mainly white people) have used these figures to argue that English cricket is now 'colour blind'. However, I argue that representation is not the equivalent to acceptance and integration, and present evidence to suggest that racial prejudice and discrimination, not to mention inaccurate and essentialized cultural stereotypes of British Asian cricketers, remain firmly and routinely embedded in aspects of the sport at all levels. I argue that the ability of British Asians to resist the hegemonic structures of white 'Englishness', by asserting their own distinctive post-colonial identities in cricket, is paramount to their everyday negotiations of power and racism. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.

In this paper we present findings from interviews conducted with people who walk with dogs. Drawing on new walking studies and animal geographies as our theoretical framework, we adopt the view that walking is more than just walking; it is often a highly sensual and complex activity. We argue that walking with dogs represents a potentially important cultural space for making sense of human-animal relations. We show how the personalities of both dog and walker can shape not only walking practices, but also the human-animal bond. We contend that the walk is a significant arena where relations of power between animal and human are consciously mediated. We also provide evidence which indicates the contested nature of walking practices and spaces. We conclude that the dog walk is a useful practice through which to examine human-animal relations and thus to contribute to the field of animal geographies.

The intense commodification, commercialisation, mediatisation, globalisation and digitalisation of sport in the past three decades has resulted in sporting organisations and governing bodies becoming inextricably tied to the global media industry and corporate economy. A result of this mediatisation, coupled with technological advancement, has been the introduction of decision-aid technologies in sport. Existing literature on decision-aid technologies has generally focused on the technologies themselves. Here, we focus on decision-aid technology use and its impact on event experience. This paper examines fan attitudes towards the use of the Television Match Official (TMO) in rugby union in relation to the event experience. We present data from a global online questionnaire (n = 194) and 11 semi-structured interviews with fans, representatives from rugby’s governing bodies, two TMOs and a television producer. Data show an inconsistency in how TMO decisions are relayed to match crowds, which had an impact on events experience. The data also reveal how heavily reliant the TMO system is on broadcasters. Fans were generally in favour of TMO use, but they did want to be better informed when it came to TMO referrals and decisions. Indeed, fans said improvements to TMO decision delivery in stadia, specifically having audio of referee/TMO discussions/decisions relayed over the stadium PA system and/or captions providing explanations and decisions on TMO referrals, would most improve their event experience.

This paper examines the effectiveness of ‘Premier League Kicks’ – a football community outreach initiative - to produce and leverage social capital among young Black and minoritised ethnic males in England. The paper draws upon semi-structured interviews with Kicks participants and community coaches to analyse the social capital created through participation in the programme, in addition to constraints faced by participants in utilising and leveraging their accumulated social capital to obtain a professional football career. Drawing upon Putnam’s conceptualisation of bonding and bridging social capital and the associated concepts of linking and sporting capital, the analysis concludes that Premier League Kicks was effective for building bonding social capital, which can lead to greater individual empowerment and self-belief. However, opportunities for leveraging such capital for personal reward was limited to horizontal networks/mobility and subsequently, converting this capital into other forms, such as bridging, linking and sporting capital was highly regulated and exclusionary.

Sports are popularly believed to have positive integrative functions and are thought, therefore, to be able to galvanise different, and sometimes divided communities through a shared sporting interest. UK government and policy rhetoric over the last two decades has consistently emphasised the positive role sport can play in building more cohesive, empowered and active communities. These positive impacts are particularly important for communities with high numbers of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The purpose of this article is to reflect on the challenges associated with co-producing a participatory community sport initiative with 28 young people, the aim of which was to work towards greater social cohesion in an ethnically segregated borough in north-west England. Although a great deal was learned from working towards this, the initiative was ultimately unsuccessful because, for a variety of reasons, the young people removed themselves from the process. A major contribution of this article is its consideration of how we reflect on the realities of project failure and how future community sport initiatives might have greater success. In particular, we argue that for sport to make a difference, participants must be enabled to develop a sense of civic engagement and critical awareness which go beyond either sport or community development, emphasising wider sociopolitical development instead.

The sport of cricket has a history of its players suffering from mental health issues. The psychological study of cricket and, in particular, the attendant demands of participating at an elite level has not previously received rigorous academic attention. This study explored ten elite male cricketers’ experiences of keeping a daily reflective diary for one month during the competitive season. The aim was to assess how valuable qualitative diaries are in this field. Participants were interviewed regarding their appraisal of the methodology as a self‐help tool that could assist coping with performance pressures and wider life challenges. Three outcomes were revealed: first, that diary keeping was an effective opportunity to reflect upon the past and enhance one’s self (both as an individual and a performer); second, that diary keeping acted as a form of release that allowed participants to progress; and third, that diary keeping allowed participants to discover personal patterns of success that increased the likeliness of optimum performance.

Throughout history sports cultures and alcohol have been intimately linked. Being able to drink huge amounts of alcohol is a celebrated male athletic virtue. Ridicule and often exclusion is reserved for those who are unable to conform to this. Ritualized drinking is not, and cannot, be enjoyed by all. British Muslims (the majority of whom are of South Asian descent) for instance, are restricted from drinking alcohol due to the demands of Islam. This paper uses data collected from ethnographic research conducted with white British and British Pakistani Muslim cricketers to locate the significance of drinking alcohol in both the inclusion and exclusion of British Pakistani Muslims. We demonstrate that, in negotiating their inclusion, British Pakistani Muslims have to accommodate, negotiate and challenge various forms of inequality and discrimination in their leisure lives. We argue that consuming alcohol calls attention to the challenges of being ‘normal’ within this cultural context.

The concept of ‘icon’ has been applied to numerous athletes as a result of their sporting achievements, likeable public personas, and stories of triumph, resilience and courage. The cultural role of the horse as icon, hero, celebrity and national luminary, however, is lacking within the literature. In this article we extend this human concept to apply to the racehorse Kauto Star, who was heralded by many as the saviour of British racing in the early twenty-first century. We argue that the narrative surrounding Kauto Star had all the essential ingredients for the construction of a heroic storyline around this equine superstar: his sporting talent; his flaws and ability to overcome adversity; his ‘rivalry’ with his stable mate; his ‘connections’ to high profile humans in the racing world; and, the adoration he received from the racing public. Media representations are key elements in the construction of sporting narratives, and the production of heroes and villains within sport. In this paper we construct a narrative of Kauto Star, as produced through media reports and published biographies, to explore how this equine star has been elevated beyond the status of ‘animal’, ‘racehorse’ or even ‘athlete’ to the exalted position of sporting icon.

Homophobic speech is a form of hate speech. Social media enables hate speech to spread rapidly and widely through the internet, and unlike offline hate speech, can persist indefinitely, thereby prolonging its impact. Due to the adverse impact of hate speech, policymakers have called for greater action from online platforms to moderate and remove hate speech, including homophobic content. While homophobic hate speech is prevalent in online soccer discourses, there are few studies on this empirical context in general and specifically on the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) for detecting such speech. This study addresses this gap by proposing a homophobic speech text classification pipeline. We introduce H-DICT, a new general dictionary for identifying potential homophobic content in documents, and leverage this dictionary to curate and manually label an annotated dataset of homophobic and non-homophobic samples from the UEFA European Football Championships (the Euros) discourse on Twitter. We fine-tune and evaluate five large language models (LLMs) based on the BERT architecture - BERT, DistilBERT, RoBERTa, BERT Hate, and RoBERTa Offensive - and use Integrated Gradients, an explainable AI technique to explain each model’s predictions. RoBERTa Offensive, an LLM fine-tuned specifically for detecting offensive language, presented the best performance when compared to the other LLMs.

The victory of the Spanish national women’s football team at the 2023 FIFA World Cup was marred by the mass-mediated non-consensual kiss on midfielder, Jennifer Hermoso, by Luis Rubiales, then President of the Royal Spanish Football National Federation. The kiss sparked general outrage worldwide and led to the prosecution of Rubiales for sexual assault and coercion. Drawing on the concepts of “moral shock” and “social drama”, this article explores how this widely disseminated episode of “subjective violence” resulted in a shock capable of mobilising and politicising different agents. It does so through qualitative analysis of official statements and vernacular online discussions. The article makes the case that the unfolding of this social drama enabled more subtle (objective) violence, long endured by female athletes, to be brought into public discourse debate. In so doing, it boosted demands for social change. But such demands were also contested, in that the structured social drama resulted in an online “reactionary moral shock” characterised by anti-feminist and misogynistic discourses. Significantly, our analysis of these discourses reveals a shift in male victimisation narratives and strategies to disempower women and maintain sexual inequality. These include the denial of gender-based violence and the banalisation of sexual abuse.

In a recent policy debate in this journal, focusing on gender and the events industry, Rhodri Thomas states that his intention in writing the piece was to challenge policy-makers and those working in representative organisations related to events to take equalities more seriously. The aim of this paper is to both react to this call and to make a similar one, explicitly challenging the need for more policy considerations and research into ‘race’, ethnicity and whiteness in the context of the events industry. While the notion of social justice is receiving greater scrutiny in the event literature, ideas of ‘race’, ethnicity and their intersections, and whiteness are neither currently addressed or understood. Many of the privileges afforded by whiteness processes rely on its reported invisibility, hegemony and supremacy. The first step in combating these privileges and their effects, is in explicitly identifying whiteness and making it visible. A simple acknowledgement that the lack of Black and minoritised ethnic people on the Boards of events organisations, is a good starting point, but alone, this is not enough. If the commitment to racial equality is to be more than a form of paying lip-service, then it is also necessary to engage with the deep-rooted cultural relations of power that sustain racially exclusive practices. If not addressed, the disproportionate number of leadership positions in events organisations will continue to perpetuate the ‘snowy white peaks’ of the industry’s representative bodies.

Events Management is a relatively new subject within universities, and is positioned as a vocational field with links to industry and practice. This paper considers the role of the academic within Events Management higher education, and how individuals within this field position themselves and make claims to legitimacy. Drawing on interviews with 16 Events Management academics in the UK, we identify three narrative strategies adopted by individuals in this field as they position themselves in relation to academic and professional identities. The three narrative strategies identified – the anti-academic, the traditional academic and the blended professional – illustrate the precarious and often unstable identities of those within vocational subjects. Individuals within Events Management experience difficulty in terms of both their professional and academic identities, and may rely on a mixture of both traditional (e.g. research and teaching) and industry metrics in their claims to status and legitimacy.

This report is submitted to the Higher Education Academy (HEA) on behalf of the Leisure Studies Association (LSA). The LSA aims to foster research in Leisure Studies; to promote interest in Leisure Studies and advance education in this field; to encourage debate through publications, and an international journal Leisure Studies; to stimulate the exchange of ideas on contemporary leisure issues; to disseminate knowledge of Leisure Studies to create the conditions for better-informed decisions by policy makers. The LSA is a member society of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Leisure is a major sphere of both private and public life. It is thus of concern that the identity and profile of leisure in the Higher Education curriculum of the UK has become less obvious over the past decade. This trend is not peculiar to leisure studies; the social sciences as a whole are considered to be under threat as neo-liberal discourse increasingly informs Higher Education strategic management. The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential reasons for the reduced status of leisure studies in HE institutions within the UK and to contribute to a theoretical basis of a counter-argument for the social and economic benefits of retaining leisure studies as a unifying field. We present a loosely diachronic account of the emergence and growth of leisure studies as a subject field, followed by a discussion of the impact of neo-liberal thinking on UK Higher Education. The principal challenge to leisure studies is to establish its importance and relevance to others within the social sciences. We propose a need for more academics to engage in ideational ‘border crossings’ to advance thinking in different subjects and disciplines; those subjects that may be under threat in the current climate of Higher Education (like leisure studies) may benefit from exploring opportunities to collaborate with those from outside of their immediate subject area.

This article generates new insights into the changing profession of journalism. Empirically, we present the findings of 21 interviews with journalists working in the Irish and UK sports beats on their experiences of online abuse. Conceptually, we address the under-theorising of emotions in journalism by extending the utility and entanglement of emotion work and emotional labour. In doing so, we posit future lines of theoretical enquiry about individual and social regulation. Several key discoveries are presented. First, sports journalism is a distinctive profession because significant authentic emotional work is undertaken. This is only accentuated when online abuse occurs. Journalists are deeply affected by this abuse, personally and professionally. Second, online abuse towards sports journalists is now so ubiquitous as to be habitually accepted, and it has obscured the distinction between public and private spaces. Third, in response, sports journalists have been compelled to develop their own emotional strategies, including self-censorship, to cope with and manage online abuse. The findings presented here also pose practical and existential questions about the sustainability of the profession, especially in the absence of formal institutional supports or even an informal code of practice about how to cope with and respond to online abuse.

In the dynamic space of Twitter, now called X, interpersonal racism surfaces when individuals from dominant racial groups engage in behaviours that diminish and harm individuals from other racial groups. It can be manifested in various forms, including pejorative name-calling, racial slurs, stereotyping, and microaggressions. The consequences of racist speech on social media are profound, perpetuating social division, reinforcing systemic inequalities, and undermining community cohesion. In the specific context of football discourse, instances of racism and hate crimes are well-documented. Regrettably, this issue has seamlessly migrated to the football discourse on social media platforms, especially Twitter. The debate on Internet freedom and social media moderation intensifies, balancing the right to freedom of expression against the imperative to protect individuals and groups from harm. In this paper, we address the challenge of detecting racism on Twitter in the context of football by using Large Language Models (LLMs). We fine-tuned different BERT-based model architectures to classify racist content in the Twitter discourse surrounding the UEFA European Football Championships. The study aims to contribute insights into the nuanced language of hate speech in soccer discussions on Twitter while underscoring the necessity for context-sensitive model training and evaluation. Additionally, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) techniques, specifically the Integrated Gradient method, are used to enhance transparency and interpretability in the decision-making processes of the LLMs, offering a comprehensive approach to mitigating racism and offensive language in online sports discourses.

The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between sport and online hate, via a case study of the work of Tackling Online Hate in Football (TOHIF). In elucidating the challenge of online hate in sport, the chapter showcases how TOHIF is responding to online hate through a range of timely and innovative methodologies and interventions, including accessing large-scale longitudinal empirical datasets, developing tools and techniques to identify and classify online abuse, undertaking over 120 interviews and focus groups with professional male and female footballers from across the UK, a major survey of football fans, interviews with player care professionals, and interviews and educational workshops with sport journalists. The chapter advocates that scholarly research must play a leading role in combatting online hate; initially by deepening the understanding of it, and additionally through shaping the public discourse and education on how to respond to it. We finish this chapter by advocating for some blue sky thinking, and identifying some core areas for future investment.

Drawing on theories of aversive racism and colour-blindness, which stress the invisibility of contemporary racism, this article analyses online discussions on taking the knee (TTK) during EURO2020 men’s football tournament. While highly visible racist abuse directed at Black English players after losing the final to Italy (dominative racism) received most public attention and repudiation, based on 6,850 English language tweets published on Twitter/X, this article shows how subtle racism and colour-blindness were reinforced in discussions around TTK over the duration of the tournament (aversive racism). The article also shows how individuals online developed a variety of strategies (evidence, othering, critique, and activism) to challenge the main arguments against anti-racist activism in football (identified in four themes: BLM, Marxism, virtue signalling, and woke). The article makes an original contribution by examining the changing intensity of online conversations on TTK over the duration of the tournament. Our analysis identifies key moments in the tournament, political elites’ rhetoric, and trends of success and failure as relevant factors that shaped vernacular conversations online. The discussion ultimately argues that investigating the temporal patterns of public discussions on (anti)racism provides valuable insights to understand the contemporary complexity of racism in football and society more broadly.

Although racism in football stadiums has generally decreased over the last two decades, social media has provided a platform for individual fans and the far Right to racially abuse players, clubs and fans in relative safety. In 2022, The Alan Turing Institute released a report which tracked abuse on Twitter towards Premier League players across the 2021/22 season. Their machine learning tool found that there were 59,871 abusive tweets directed at Premier League footballers, with 68 per cent of players receiving abuse at least once. So, what is English football doing to challenge this and protect its players? This chapter begins by showcasing the findings from Kearns et al’s (2022) scoping review of sport, social media and hate, completed as part of a research project entitled Tackling Online Hate in Football. The review found that a total of 41 peer-reviewed articles were published in this field since 2005, with football receiving the most attention. The scoping review found that Twitter was the platform most examined, and racism was the most researched issue. Building on this, the chapter first contextualizes the existing research, including a focus on football-related online racism and a theorization of factors underpinning online racism. This provides a suitable backdrop for the next part of the chapter, where we critically analyse several campaigns and strategies used by key stakeholders to curb online racism and wider forms of discrimination in football. In our final summary, we put forward some ideas and countermeasures to challenge online racism in football.

The term sportswashing has been discussed and analysed within academic circles, as well as the mainstream media. However, the majority of existing research has focused on one-off event-based sportswashing strategies (such as autocratic states hosting major international sports events) rather than longer term investment-based strategies (such as state actors purchasing sports clubs and teams). Furthermore, little has been written about the impact of this latter strategy on the existing fanbase of the purchased team and on their relationship with sportswashing and the discourses surrounding it. This paper addresses this lacuna through analysis of a popular Manchester City online fan forum, which illustrates the manner in which this community of dedicated City fans have legitimated the actions of the club's ownership regime, the Abu Dhabi United Group – a private equity group operated by Abu Dhabi royalty and UAE politicians. The discursive strategies of the City fans are discussed, in addition to the wider significance of these strategies on the issue of sportswashing and its coverage by the media.

The term sportswashing has been discussed and analysed within academic circles, as well as the mainstream media. However, the majority of existing research has focused on one-off event-based sportswashing strategies (such as autocratic states hosting major international sports events) rather than longer term investment-based strategies (such as state actors purchasing sports clubs and teams). Furthermore, little has been written about the impact of this latter strategy on the existing fanbase of the purchased team and on their relationship with sportswashing and the discourses surrounding it. This paper addresses this lacuna through analysis of a popular Manchester City online fan forum, which illustrates the manner in which this community of dedicated City fans have legitimated the actions of the club's ownership regime, the Abu Dhabi United Group – a private equity group operated by Abu Dhabi royalty and UAE politicians. The discursive strategies of the City fans are discussed, in addition to the wider significance of these strategies on the issue of sportswashing and its coverage by the media.

Exploring online criticisms of the “take the knee” protest during “Euro 2020”, this article examines how alt- and far-right conspiracies were both constructed and communicated via the social media platform, Twitter. By providing a novel exploration of alt-right conspiracies during an international football tournament, a qualitative thematic analysis of 1,388 original tweets relating to Euro 2020 was undertaken. The findings reveal how, in criticisms levelled at both “wokeism” and the Black Lives Matter movement, anti-white criticisms of the “take the knee” protest were embroiled in alt-right conspiracies that exposed an assumed Cultural Marxist, “woke agenda” in the tournament’s organisation and mainstream media coverage. In conclusion, it is argued that conspiratorial discourses, associated with the alt-right, provided a framework through which the protest could be understood. This emphasises how the significance of conspiracy functions to promote the wider dissemination of alt-right ideology across popular cultural contexts, such as sport.

This paper explores sports journalists’ experiences of online harms in the UK and Ireland. Academic and wider media attention regarding online harms has tended to focus on spheres including sport, politics and music. However, the experience of journalists, and particularly sports journalists, has been overlooked within academia. Wolfe (2019) suggests that because the journalism industry is changing, journalists are now increasingly expected to have a visible online presence. Yet, as journalists move into the online public eye, they have become targets of harm. As Isbister et al (2018) states, public figures, including journalists, receive a disproportionately large volume of online abuse. The extent of this abuse is now starting to be understood as the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) reported that 51% of those surveyed had experienced online abuse within the previous year while 78% noted that abuse and harassment had become part of the job. Furthermore, around 80% of UK regional journalists believe that the problem has got ‘significantly worse’ since beginning their careers (Behind Local News 2020). Binns’ (2017) adds that 15 percent of UK journalists had ‘dropped stories’ that might have resulted in online abuse. Previous studies have attempted to quantify abuse, however, this paper uses qualitative approaches to critically explore and understand sports journalists lived experiences surrounding online harms. Specifically, we will examine the impact that online harms have on sports journalists both personally and professionally. In order to critically understand such experiences, we will draw on theory concerning emotional labour within the context of journalism studies. Drawing on 20 semi-structured interviews with sports journalists, we will consider: triggers and types of online harms; how online harms affects mental health, working culture and practice; possible coping strategies to minimise its impact; institutional support, or lack of; and a series of recommendations aimed at supporting and protecting sports journalists. Our research attempts to create real and meaningful impact. We will therefore outline an array of non-academic outputs aimed at stakeholders and media outlets. These include educational resources designed to protect and support sports journalists from online harms, research informed policy recommendations, and a series of coping strategies that are informed by the datasets.

The rise of online hate speech in sport is a growing concern, with fans, players and officials subject to racist, sexist and homophobic abuse (in addition to many other prejudices) via social media platforms. While hate speech and discrimination have always been problems in sport, the growth of social media has seen them exacerbated exponentially. As a consequence, policy makers, sport governing bodies and grassroots anti-hate organisations are largely left playing catch-up with the rapidly shifting realm of online hate. Scholars have attempted to fill this vacuum with research into this topic, but such is the evolving nature of the issue that research has been diverse and fragmentary. We offer a scoping review into the scholarship of online hate in sport in order to encourage and facilitate further research into this urgent issue. Our review will achieve this through offering a comprehensive cataloguing of previously employed methodologies, case studies and conclusions. In doing so, it will not only equip future researchers with a concise overview of existing research in the field, but also illuminate areas and approaches in need of further examination.

Purpose The events sector is an innovative and dynamic working environment that requires a creative and diverse workforce to help it thrive. However, in the main, the events workforce is not diverse, with evidence suggesting that most leaders continue to be White and male. There has been no previous research exploring the experiences of ethnically diverse professionals in this environment. This paper aims to draw on the theory of racialised organisations to begin to address this gap and amplify the voices of ethnically diverse events professionals. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 ethnically diverse event managers working in the UK events industry. Findings Covert and overt forms of racism and discrimination remain ubiquitous within the culture of event organisations, and in a number of guises, ranging from regular racialised microaggressions to more subtle forms of exclusion. The events industry needs to do more than pay lip service to neoliberal notions of diversity and acknowledge the ways in which racial relations of power shape the industry and the experiences of individuals within it, and design interventions to address these issues. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to apply the theory of racialised organisations to the events industry, recognising the centrality of race and racism to events organisations and careers. In so doing, it offers essential insight into race and ethnicity in this sector and contributes to ongoing efforts to integrate race and racism within theorising in management and organisation studies.

Purpose This paper examines the under-explored phenomena of athlete entrepreneurship in Kenya. Methodology Semi-structured interviews with current and retired athletes, and Athletics Kenya representatives. Findings Athlete investments are personally and societally important and have led to significant social and economic development. We uncover the pivotal role of associated stakeholders, such as coaches, in influencing and educating athletes about investments. Furthermore, we show that elite athlete entrepreneurship and investment comprise a unique form of athlete-led entrepreneurship that is driven by necessity, but also opportunity from their sporting career. Practical implications There are lessons for local government and athletic federations about how best to support athletes non-sport lives through education. Research contribution There has been growing interest in sport-based, and athlete-led entrepreneurship over the last decade. Very little has focused on how athletes make investment decisions, who the main influencers are, and the potential social and economic impacts of investment activity on athletes and local communities. Very little, if any, of this work has centralised athletes from the Global South. Originality This paper makes a significant contribution to this phenomena through an examination of athlete investments and entrepreneurship by high-profile Kenyan middle- and long-distance runners.

Due to historical relationships with the military, royalty, landed gentry and upper-class society, equestrian sport faces regular accusations of being elitist and exclusionary. Through qualitative textual analysis of British press reporting of dressage events at the London 2012 Olympic Games we argue that despite British dominance of the sport, these historical associations with the upper classes, privilege and elitism were foregrounded in many media reports; trivialising and at times mocking dressage. We identify three key themes related to the ways in which media reports framed dressage and its participants in heavily class-laden terms. Faced with their ignorance of the sport, the majority of articles analysed resorted to class-based stereotypes that trivialised, satirised and devalued this seemingly elitist and incomprehensible sport. The success of Team GB in dressage meant that media reports were never wholly critical and elements of the hysteria and pride surrounding the Games led to a highly ambivalent response to dressage that reflects the 'vague, confused, contradictory [and] ignorant'� (Cannadine 1998: x) attitudes to social class that characterise British society at the current time.

As a county, Yorkshire is what Wagg and Russell refer to as a ‘cultural region’: an imagined space, where culture is constructed, refined and articulated by a set of discursive relationships between local populations and a whole range of cultural forms. In this context however, culture is conceived as something which belongs to, and is only accessible by, certain groups of people. Our focus in this article is on the culture of Yorkshire cricket. Historically, Yorkshire cricket has been linked with white male privilege and some studies have shown that people within Yorkshire take a degree of pride in this. Consequently, the county and its cricket club have faced frequent accusations from minority ethnic communities of inveterate and institutionalised racism. Drawing upon Bauman’s notion of ‘liquid modernity’, we argue that the processes of deregulation and individualisation championed by New Right policies have led to a divorce between power and politics, a corner stone of the old solid modern world. This in turn has led to an erosion of the state, causing individuals to navigate turbulent life projects which are consistently haunted by the spectres of fear and insecurity. Such an environment has caused cricket to be pushed further behind gated social spaces, in an attempt to maintain a semblance of ‘community’.

The hospitality industry in Qatar is rapidly expanding and heavily reliant on migrant labour to staff its hotels and restaurants, with women migrants forming an increasingly important part of the workforce. Global perceptions of Qatar as a location for female migrant workers are ambiguous: it is a patriarchal and traditional country, which limits women’s career opportunities, yet at the same time offers relatively high wages, low taxes and multiple job options for women in the hospitality industry. This study draws on an ethnographic study of migrant women workers in a five-star hotel in Doha to examine various ways in which they navigate this ambiguity and their perceptions and motivations for working and living in Qatar. Findings illustrate that the women in the study had positive perceptions of Qatar as a safe environment where they could earn money to send to support families back home. For many women from the Global South, Qatar offers a hospitable environment and the hospitality industry provides opportunities to capitalize on the benefits of migrating to work in Qatar, for both the individual worker and her wider family.

Whilst people of South Asian descent compose over 30% of the cricket playing population of England, they represent only 6% of registered coaches. In February 2014, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) commissioned the authors to explore this problem further. We conducted interviews with 33 South Asian cricket coaches and players from Yorkshire and East London. The data were collected over a three-month period and were a mixture of one-to-one, group, face-to-face and telephone interviews, transcribed verbatim and analysed iteratively by the first two authors. Our findings suggest that coaching is perceived as a “low value and low priority” activity in South Asian communities who feel separate from the official systems of governance, both locally and nationally. There is a clear feeling that, in subtle yet pervasive ways, cricket is still run “by white people, for white people”. Participants also suggested that the existing coach education pathways and materials were not as accessible to South Asians, who are often socialised into a different style of cricket that is more open, flexible, creative and attacking than the traditional English style that was perceived to be slow, defensive and technically precise. The lack of visible role models, especially at the county level, was also seen as a major problem, with many of our participants fearing that such roles were not accessible to them. We conclude our paper with three ‘chains’ of recommendations made to the ECB concerning: 1) modifying the system; 2) promoting the value of cricket coaching in South Asian communities; and 3) making coach education and county coaching roles more accessible.

This article examines the role community events can play in negotiating forms of community and place identity against a backdrop of social, economic and urban change. Our contention is that in the context of globalisation and de-industrialisation, forms of working-class community may be expressed and recreated through maintaining traditions and practices established in place-based community events. The article is based on an ethnographic study of the World Coal Carrying Championships (WCCC) which involved undertaking in-depth interviews, volunteering, focus groups, observations and archival analysis. The findings show how the WCCC is invested with powerful symbols and invented traditions that are activated through the event. By reconstructing and remobilising shared pasts in the present, the WCCC permits community members to create an affective sense of community in the contemporary context, even in spite of the destabilising loss of other aspects of their industrial lives.

Safety stewards are an important part of the events sector, providing a supplementary pool of casual workers to support event operations, but there has been limited attention paid to their work experiences, aspirations, training and progression opportunities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 safety stewards to begin to understand the lived experiences of these precarious workers. Findings indicate that stewards do not follow a traditional career trajectory. They are required to be continually flexible, both in their availability to work and in the type of work they do. Participants report feeling compelled to accept work offered, often beyond their usual area of expertise and without additional training or support and may feel that stewarding does not offer a viable career path. Without addressing some of these negative consequences of precarity, which do not lead to decent work, it is likely many stewards will leave the sector for other roles, thus undermining the future of the industry.

Men’s professional football has historically dominated the sport media landscape. However, the increased professionalization of women’s football, and the growth in popularity of the Women’s Super League (WSL), the European Championships and World Cup, means that female players are now competing in front of sold-out capacity crowds with millions of viewers watching via television and streaming platforms. With this enhanced popularity, it has increased online traffic relating to, and discussing, women’s football. Some of these discussions are abusive, and potentially harmful. Nonetheless, while a growing body of research has attempted to investigate online harms in football, most of the attention has been directed at men’s football. This article therefore importantly focuses on women’s football. In this work, we will examine qualitative findings with 30 current and former professional women’s players to critically understand how online sexism, misogyny and wider harms, are experienced and dealt with. Our findings demonstrate that players are vulnerable to online harms and often try to dismiss it as an occupational hazard. We suggest that stakeholders, such as professional clubs should devote more time, energy and resources to better protect and support players against such harms. The article concludes by offering some recommendations for reform and suggestions for future research.

This article problematises the usage of the term ‘BAME’ (Black Asian and Minority Ethnic) and considers its limitations as a diversity intervention. It draws on sociolinguistics, critical race theories and poststructuralism and is based on interviews with 21 British South Asian people working at senior and executive levels of the professional football industry in England and Scotland. Our analysis delineates formal and informal modes of racialisation, extending theories of racialisation beyond the creation of legal categories, to consider the discursive construction of ‘race’ and its institutionalising effects. At the same time, we show that it is important for sporting institutions to recognise and celebrate British South Asian representation, wherever and however it exists. The article calls for a greater focus on the sociolinguistic dimensions of racialised terminologies and their (in)ability to capture racialised difference; secondly, through invoking anti-essentialism and differential racialisation as heuristic tools it explores how racialised language reflects and sustains racialised hierarchies; and thirdly, it advocates for a deconstruction of the term ‘British South Asian’ to encourage a more nuanced approach to policy development aimed at realising better diversity outcomes.

Rationale This paper aims to critically explore the lived experiences of British South Asian people working in managerial and governance positions in English football; critique cultures of Whiteness in football; consider ways to resist/challenge racism in football; and offer data-informed recommendations to help increase British South Asian representation in leadership positions across football. Methodology This research draws on the testimonies of 21 British South Asian leaders working in English football (5 women and 16 men). Findings Participants used racialised performances to “fit in”; commonly encountered racist “banter”, microaggressions and microinsults; and routinely experienced examples of implicit and explicit “othering”. Practical Implications Stakeholders and policy makers must commit to the (1) development of inclusive and diverse recruitment strategies; (2) supporting minoritised ethnic staff members through programmes such as mentoring schemes; (3) implementation of mandatory race equity education for the workforce. Research Contribution While British South Asian experiences as players, and to some extent coaches, have been captured, the experiences of British South Asians in managerial and governance positions have been overlooked. This article treads new ground by highlighting experiences in off-field roles, thus adding to the wider body of work. Originality This work has used new and original data to cultivate a series of measures designed to boost the recruitment, retention and progression of British South Asian people working in English football.

Greg Clarke, former Chairman of the English Football Association, made several racist remarks during a 2020 appearance before a UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, claiming British South Asian people prefer to pursue careers in computing rather than football. Clarke’s ill-founded beliefs were poignantly well-timed given they came just as we were beginning our fieldwork, which involved interviewing 21 British South Asian senior leaders and executives across the football industry. Clarke’s comments crystallised what emerged from our interviews about battles to overcome institutional racisms and biases of co-workers. Drawing on over 36 hours of testimony – working at the nexus of economic sociology, critical race theory and the field of sport business management – we identify factors that regulate the openness/closedness of senior leadership and executive levels of employment in football, namely the role of exclusivity, closed networks, White allies, racial framing and exploitative temporality of non-executive boards.

In this paper, we draw on research conducted in Wales to consider reasons for participation and non-participation in sport and physical activity among Black and minoritised ethnic (BME) groups. This study exposes the challenge at the heart of sports policy in relation to ‘race’ and ethnicity in Wales that, if not addressed, may lead to the marginalisation of attempts to increase BME participation in sport and physical activity despite good intent. It points to a disjuncture between supply and demand and leads us to question the extent to which such policies resonate with the interests, needs and lived experiences of people from different BME communities in Wales. We draw on testimonies of policy-makers and implementers, as well as individuals from various BME communities in five regions of Wales, to consider the extent to which national sports policy encourages strategies to increase participation among different ethnic groups. We suggest that increasing participation among BME communities and other ‘hard-to-reach’ groups must go beyond accounting for the supply aspects of sport and physical activity to consider more critically the plethora of barriers and exclusions facing many BME communities. We conclude by arguing that for racial inequalities to be reduced, and promises such as ‘sport for all’ to be realised, the analysis of policy needs to be related to broader relations of power in the culture of both sport and society.

In the United Kingdom, recent research documents an over-representation of White participants, coaches, and decision makers within sporting contexts. In contrast Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups are under-represented at all levels of sport: from players, coaches, and managers in sport governance. Recent research into the experiences of BAME men and women in sports coaching also shows that inclusive sporting environments, including a diverse workforce, are highly motivating for entry into, and progression through, the coaching pathway. However, significant and powerful barriers exist that prevent the progression of BAME individuals into higher level coaching qualifications and job roles. These barriers lead to the privileging of White men and are therefore described as both raced and gendered. This paper is based on a research project commissioned by the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2014 to explore South Asian male players’ and coaches’ experiences of coaching and progression through coaching pathways. We draw on data collected from 33 semi-structured interviews carried out with a sample of male South Asian players and coaches, from two different geographical areas - London and Yorkshire - and from a sample of clubs with different levels of ethnic diversity. Our analysis showed that South Asian players participate in an environment and culture where they are unlikely to engage in coaching and, even when they do, will not feel supported in progressing to higher roles of influence and power.

© 2017 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. Social inequalities are often reproduced in sport and leisure contexts. However, sport and leisure can be sites of resistance as well as oppression; they can be repressive or promote positive social change. This challenging and important book brings together contemporary cases examining different dimensions of inequality in sport and leisure, ranging from race and ethnicity to gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion and class. Presenting research-based strategies in support of social justice, this book places the experiences of disadvantaged communities centre stage. It addresses issues affecting participation, inclusion and engagement in sport, while discussing the challenges faced by specific groups such as Muslim women and LGBT young people. Including original theoretical and methodological insights, it argues that the experiences of these marginalised groups can shed a light on the political struggles taking place over the significance of sport and leisure in society today. Sport, Leisure and Social Justice is fascinating reading for students and academics with an interest in sport and politics, sport and social problems, gender studies, race and ethnicity studies, or the sociology of sport.

Like the other home nation sports councils, Sport Wales has a responsibility to increase participation, improve sporting performance and raise standards in sport and physical recreation. For some time the sports councils in the UK have been concerned that people from Black and minority ethnic (BME) groups may not be getting as much from sport as they might (e.g. the Sports Equity Index (Sport England, 2001)). The concern with increasing participation is multidimensional: it might serve to recruit new talent; allows sectors of society to enjoy what are thought to be the benefits of sport; and in so doing help to unite the nation. However, as recognised by the Equality Impact Assessment that was conducted by Sport Wales, there has been a shortage of research around sport participation by Black and minority ethnic communities. Thus, the current research is closely aligned with the aim of increasing participation and understanding non-participation. The research also addresses the identified need for further investigation into identified differences in participation between different equalities groups. This project, commissioned by Sport Wales, has been undertaken by the Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure (ISPAL) in conjunction with Ecorys. It is a response to the strategy, action plans and operational plans of Sport Wales that embrace diversity and inclusiveness. These policy and operational documents consider ethnicity alongside other protected characteristics and a concern to address poverty and deprivation by operating in conjunction with other agencies. The research reported here will help to establish what resonance people in Black and minority ethnic groups have with the goal of ensuring ‘a thriving sporting community, where all individuals feel safe, welcome and free from discrimination’ (Sport Wales, Equality And Diversity Operational Action Plan).

Purpose: This article explores: 1) student perceptions and understanding of Events Management; 2) how Events Management is positioned by different UK higher education providers through their online marketing; and 3) the perceived value of an Events Management degree among students. Findings: Students demonstrate a lack of knowledge about what Events Management is, what a career in Events Management might entail and, the perceived value of an Events Management degree. This suggests the need to re-position Events Management degrees within a broader applied management base. Course marketing presents a narrow view of Events Management degrees. This does a disservice to Events Management as the narrow vocationally-laden narrative undersells and ‘over-vocationalises’ Events Management degrees. Design/Method/Approach: A mixed-methods approach, combining an online student questionnaire (n=524), semi-structured interviews with current first year Events Management students (n=24) at two UK universities, and website analysis of all Events Management degrees offered in the UK. Practical implications: Better understanding student perceptions will help Universities market Events Management degrees more effectively and will benefit broader efforts to illustrate the value and credibility of it as a degree subject choice and career. More balanced presentation between the practical and non-practical aspects of the courses in University marketing may help reposition Events Management alongside more readily understood vocational subjects. Originality: This is the first study to examine student perceptions over the credibility of Events Management degrees. It also addresses Park and Park’s (2017) observation that reviews of Events Management education and curricula are conspicuously absent from Hospitality and Tourism journals.

Comparatively little is known about the extent to which students on vocational courses like events management fit within the student-as consumer framework and, in particular, why and how they decide to study for an events management degree. A study of 582 new events management undergraduates was undertaken at two UK universities. Survey and interview data illustrate that, although students demonstrated aspects of consumerist logic in valuing their degree predominantly in relation to their future careers, they based their choice of course and university largely on emotional, subjective criteria and so were not the ‘informed consumers’ espoused in public discourse.

This innovative and timely volume moves beyond existing operational and pragmatic approaches to events studies by exploring sports events as social, cultural, political and mediatised phenomena. As the study of this area is developing there is now a need for critical and theoretically informed debate regarding conceptualisation, significance and roles. This edited collection explores the core themes of consumption, media technologies, representation, identities and culture to offer new insight into how sports events contribute to generation of individual and shared meaning over personal, community and national identities as well as the associated issues of conflict, resistance and power. Chapters promote a critical (re)evaluation of emerging empirical research from a diverse range of sports events and locations from the international to local level. A multi-disciplinary approach is taken with contributions from areas including sports studies, media studies, sociology, cultural studies, communications, politics, tourism and gender studies. Written by leading academics in the area, this thorough exploration of the contested relationship between sports events, society and culture will be of interest to students, academics and researchers in Events, Sport, Tourism and Sociology.

The field of events management has been critiqued for being overly focused on operational and managerial concerns to the detriment of critical analysis of power and representation, of which equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is an important aspect. This paper reports on an audit of the four leading events management journals over the period 2011-2021 to assess the current state of play in relation to engagement with EDI issues and consider whether this critique remains justified. After screening, 49 articles were included. Findings reveal that EDI remains a marginal issue in events management journals, often confined to special issues, with no evidence of increasing engagement over the review period. EDI needs to become more integrated in the core body of knowledge of events management to ensure that events research is socially useful to students, other researchers and practitioners, contributing to the development and reputation of the field.

"This innovative volume moves beyond existing operational approaches to events studies by exploring sports events as social, cultural, political, and mediatised phenomena.