City 'til I die? Recent trends in popular football writing (Review Article)

Hand, David (2001) City 'til I die? Recent trends in popular football writing (Review Article). Soccer and society, 2 (1). pp. 99-112. ISSN 1466-0970

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/714004828

Abstract

Popular football writing’s importance to the sports book market continues to grow. Reference works apart, the most numerous categories of football writing are personality-oriented (mainly autobiographies), issue-oriented (dominated by ‘hooliganism’) and club-oriented. This article surveys recent trends in these areas focusing especially on club-oriented works. Three texts on Manchester City F.C. are reviewed. The discussion particularly concerns their coverage of City’s fan base, portrayed as humorous, loyal in adversity and with a strong sense of local identity. These attributes - summed up by the slogan ‘City ‘till I die!’ - are situated in the context of recent academic work demonstrating that they are typical of traditional English football fandom in general. Club-oriented writing is valuable, then, for the insight it provides into the nature of football perceived as a collective, community-based partisan passion.

Item Type:	Article
Peer-reviewed:	No
Date Deposited:	02 Aug 2006 07:55
Publisher:	Routledge
Additional Information:	This is an electronic version of an article published in Soccer and Society© 2001 Copyright Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group; Soccer and Society is available online at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14660970.asp
Divisions:	Faculties > Arts and Humanities
URI:	https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/3643
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1080/714004828
ISSN	1466-0970

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