Football Fanatic

The definitive companion to the 2018 World Cup Every four years, football kicks off a frenzy with every match, every player and every kick being analysed with fervour and recorded with vigour. This essential handbook is the perfect volume for every football crazy fan who wants facts, statistics and data right on hand. The Football Fanatic?s Essential Guide for 2018 is jam-packed with fascinating facts on international matches and players since the World Cup began. Put together by reputed sports journalist, columnist and commentator Novy Kapadia, this compendium of football facts will score with every passionate enthusiast of the beautiful game. PLUS - 100 quiz questions to test your football quotient - All the stats you need from 1930 to 2014 - Tracking charts for 2018 matches

Football is not just a beautiful game, but a global obsession. Every four years, football kicks off a frenzy with every match, every player and every goal being analysed with fervour and recorded with vigour. This essential guide is a companion volume for every football-crazy fan who wants facts, statistics and data right on hand. The Football Fanatic?s Essential Guide is jam-packed with important and fascinating information on international matches and players, and India?s role in football history. Put together by reputed sports broadcaster and columnist Novy Kapadia ? one of India?s foremost football experts ? this compendium is invaluable for every passionate enthusiast of this legendary game.

Football is not just a beautiful game, but a global obsession. Every four years, football kicks off a frenzy with every match, every player and every goal being analysed with fervour and recorded with vigour. This essential guide is a companion volume for every football-crazy fan who wants facts, statistics and data right on hand. The Football Fanatic?s Essential Guide is jam-packed with important and fascinating information on international matches and players, and India?s role in football history. Put together by reputed sports broadcaster and columnist Novy Kapadia ? one of India?s foremost football experts ? this compendium is invaluable for every passionate enthusiast of this legendary game.

Football is not just a beautiful game, but a global obsession. Every four years, football kicks off a frenzy with every match, every player and every goal being analysed with fervour and recorded with vigour. This essential guide is a companion volume for every football-crazy fan who wants facts, statistics and data right on hand. The Football Fanatic?s Essential Guide is jam-packed with important and fascinating information on international matches and players, and India?s role in football history. Put together by reputed sports broadcaster and columnist Novy Kapadia ? one of India?s foremost football experts ? this compendium is invaluable for every passionate enthusiast of this legendary game.

Embracing studies of football fans across Europe, this book tackles questions of power, national and regional identities, and race and racism, highlighting the changing role of fans in the game. Combining new approaches to the study of fan culture with critical assessments of the commercialization of the game, this fascinating book offers a comprehensive and timely examination of the state of European football supporters culture as the game prepares itself for the next millennium. The contributors, all leading figures in sports studies, consider: * whether football remains the peoples game, or if it is now run entirely by and for club owners and directors who have overseen the flotation of clubs on the stock exchange, a new focus on merchandising and the escalation of players salaries * the role of FIFA and UEFA in the struggle for control of world football * manifestations of racism and extreme nationalism in football, from the English medias xenophobic coverage of Euro 96 to the demonisation of Eric Cantona * media representations of national identity in football coverage in Germany, France and Spain * the interplay of national, religious and club identities among fans in England, Scotland, Ireland, Portugal and Scandinavia * the role of the law in regulating football * the future for supporters at a time when watching the match is more likely to mean turning on the television than going to a football ground.

In recent years, scholars have understood the increasing use of the St George’s Cross by football fans to be evidence of a rise in a specifically ’English’ identity. This has emerged as part of a wider ’national’ response to broader political processes such as devolution and European integration which have fragmented identities within the UK. Using the controversial figurational sociological approach advocated by the twentieth-century theorist Norbert Elias, this book challenges such a view, drawing on ethnographic research amongst fans to explore the precise nature of the relationship between contemporary English national identity and football fan culture. Examining football fans’ expressions of Englishness in public houses and online spaces, the author discusses the effects of globalization, European integration and UK devolution on English society, revealing that the use of the St George’s Cross does not signal the emergence of a specifically ’English’ national consciousness, but in fact masks a more complex, multi-layered process of national identity construction. A detailed and grounded study of identity, nationalism and globalization amongst football fans, English National Identity and Football Fan Culture will appeal to scholars and students of politics, sociology and anthropology with interests in ethnography, the sociology of sport, fan cultures, globalization and contemporary national identities.

This volume investigates the way in which football supporters around the world express themselves as followers of teams, whether they be professional, amateur or national. The diverse geographical and cultural array of contributions to this volume highlights not only the variety of how fans express themselves, but their commonalities as well. The collection brings together scholars of North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa to present a global picture of fan culture. The collection shows that while every group of fans around the world has its own characteristics, the role of a football fan is laced with commonalities, irrespective of geography or culture. This book was previously published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.