Football and Cultural Icons

Even the most famous cultural icons in history have been known to confess their love and support for the game of football. Throughout time football has touched the hearts of many celebrities and people of massive importance across the world.  Nelson Mandela is a classic example for this point. Mandela is one of the most iconic, famous and respected men in the world both today and over the last 20-30 years. Mandela is known to participate in the support of the game and when his country South Africa were chosen as co hosts of the 2010 World Cup event, it was he, not the current president who took centre stage and helped promote his beloved countries big chance to hose the number one tournament of the beautiful game. Mandela was all over the press during the promotions of the 2010 World Cup, showing once again that football is not just about what happens on the pitch or ‘a bunch of men running around after a ball’. Mandela repeatedly spoke of the cultural importance of the game and rightly mentioned the main reason why the hosting of the tournament in South Africa was such a big deal. Football is a world wide sport and has therefore become a booming business in which the profits and money making potential, wherever it goes are endless. Mandela spoke of the togetherness it brings and the peaceful yet competitive atmosphere it will bring to his country when the tournament is hosted. He preached that football’s money making capabilities will bring a chance of a new start for the country, whilst the mixed cultures, nationalities and atmospheric conditions of the streets and country will provide much welcomed cross-nation interaction and friendships. Football, Mandela claimed, would be an advert for South Africa.

Football's Feel Good Factor.

Abraham Maslow (1943) comprised the human hierarchy of needs, a theory used in psychology which describes the stages in growth of humans, and the things we come to crave in our psyche as we develop as a part of a cultural society and/or environment. There are five categories which make up the triangular diagram often chosen to represent the hierarchy of needs:

Physiological – breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion.

Safety – security of; body, resources, employment, morality, family, health and property.

Love/Belonging – Friendship, family and sex

Esteem – Self esteem, confidence, achievement, respect by others and respect of others.

Self Actualization – morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts.

Football engages with all of these categories on some way or another, apart from the physiological sector. It is a form of employment for those talented enough, meaning it fits into the safety category. Friends and even partners are met through the love of football which is where the game falls into the love and belonging sector. Achievements, knowledge of the game or abilities within the game means that football engages with almost ever subject within the esteem category and morality can be affected when involved with the game.

Football's Impact Throughout History

Throughout history, football has had its say in other matters outside of the sporting world. Football is the game loved across the world by all nations who have access to it, and therefore it is a thing in common which the whole planet shares. It brings the world together, even whilst conflict laden. Take for example World War I and the football match between England and germany played out in no man's land during the extraordinary truce of Christmas 1914.
Due to the war, many footballers were forced to give up their profession in the beautiful game and sign up to fight at war, resulting in the deaths of many of the game’s players. Despite this though, during the agreed, brief peace time over Christmas, the two countries who had been killing each others soldiers at war, decided to put their differences aside for a game of football! Soldiers from each side were seen playing football in the empty war planes, no deaths, no mockery or taunting, no bad language abuse, just a good old kick about. This event alone shows the power that football has worldwide, it provided trust, friendship and even enjoyment during a world war, if only briefly.

Football and World Culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhM-cpSwrmM

In the mid-1890s, Charles William Miller took a copy of the existent rules at the time and a football to Brazil, from where it caught on like wild fire. Brazil’s national team are now regarded as one of the most skillful and abled football nations in the world. They have created their own style of football which between 1958 (Brazil’s first world cup success) and 2002 (Brazil’s last world cup success) has captivated the world whilst on their way to winning 5 World Cups.

Brazil were the first nation outside of the UK to be truly captivated by the game and feel the same love for it as the English, they were not the last. In over 200 countries across the globe football is adored and participated in by over 250 million people (and that’s just known players!).  

    Different countries have their own cultures which create an identity for the nation. For example, (stereotypically) the Germans are renowned for their beers, the Italians for their cuisine and the Asians for their martial arts. This can be said too for the football culture of each nation. Of course the cultures all have some aspect of similarity, but the way the game is perceived can differ across the continents. Part of the English football culture is to hit the pub with your mates and family, have a few drinks before going to the stadium and screaming at the top of your lungs for 90 minutes whilst being enthralled by the action on the pitch. This combines with the drinking culture already existent in Europe. Countries in different continents have chosen to ban alcohol inside the grounds all together. Africans prefer a different way to enjoy their beloved sport. Instruments such as drums and the recently introduced vuvuzelas are taken inside the stadiums and beaten, blown and chimed throughout the game. Asian supporters show their support for their teams with replica kits, flags and face paint, whilst American’s show in their numbers and combine all cultures to create their own.

The World Cup is the main subject of football across the world. It is what brings these cultures together and allows all participating countries to demonstrate and parade the way in which the beautiful game is supported in their home land.



Football and English Culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLph6ePNkGQ

Football has created an individual culture across the globe and is capable of bringing millions of people together in unison. It has more specifically though, invented a way of life which is breathed across the country by more than half the population. The English are simply mad about the game. It is lived, breathed and eaten in the country. Across the whole of the UK you will see football everywhere, there is no getting away from it even if you wanted to. Team shirts are worn, flags are hung from windows, tattoos are flashed about and the language of football is spoken frequently and fluently.

Men and women, boys and girls and even sometimes pets are glued to all levels of the game. Parents will go to watch their children play at grass roots level, fans will flock to the pub or their living rooms to watch the media’s coverage and the lucky ones will drive often stressful, sometimes long drives to queue for hours to get into the stadium and watch it live. The next morning the newspapers will be covered in gossip and results, the streets filled with people talking about the action and kids over the park trying to re-enact their favourite player’s skills and or goal/s.

Behind that there is a deeper level to the love felt for the game in the country. Football is renowned for the togetherness it brings to its supporters. Packed stadiums will have thousands of people who have never met, singing the same songs, shouting the same things and cheering together for 90 minutes. Football creates friendships as well as providing entertainment.

England has seperated itself from the rest of the world when it comes to football culture. Unfortunately however the darker side of English culture also mixes with the culture within the beautiful game. Since the turn of the 20th century, football hooliganism has been a black spot on the gold surace of the game loved accross the world. England was the main destination of the violence connected to football, as the love and passion for the game turned to an excuse to fight with opposing fans over results and decisions, sometimes for no reason at all.

Also known as the English Disease, football hooliganism is unruly and destructive behaviour—such as brawls, vandalism and intimidation by association football club fans. Fights between supporters of rival teams may take place before or after football matches at pre-arranged locations away from stadiums, in order to avoid arrests by the police, or they can erupt spontaneously at the stadium or in the surrounding streets, ruining the beauty and elegance of the game and taking the spotlight away from the match itself.  Football hooliganism can range from shouts and small-scale fistfights and disturbances to huge riots where gangs of ‘supporters’ attack each other, sometimes with deadly weapons such as sports bats, bottles, rocks, and knives. In some cases, stadium brawls have caused fans to flee in panic; some being injured when fences or walls collapsed. In the most extreme cases, hooligans, police, and bystanders have been killed, and riot police have intervened with tear gas, armoured vehicles and water cannons. Although hooliganism has died down, after having films made about its exploits and measures being taken by the police and the governing bodies in the UK, it is still existent. Remeniscent of its historically competitive and sometimes violent behaviour, England supporters do occasionally put a bad name to the home of world football.

 

The Rise of Football

Football is by far the most loved and followed sport in the world today, and has been for some time. Invented by the English in 1863 as a mere past time, football has grown to be one of the biggest cultural influences the world has ever seen. At the turn of the 21st century the game was played by over 250 million players in over 200 countries making it the world’s most popular sport.

Football has become more than a sport, it is a culture of its own and to many people it is a way of life. People base their daily routines around football, make plans based around football and spend hundreds and thousands of their money on merchandise and tickets etc. The game has had a massive impact on the way its fans live their lives.

Nicknamed ‘the beautiful game’, football involves itself in a number of cultures as well as its own. Shops make money out of merchandise which is a must have for all fans, pubs make money by showing games and drawing in supporters from all angles, radio stations set up specific shows about the game and TV stations earn huge profits by charging for games (Sky Sports, ESPN etc.). Go anywhere in the world and if you listen for long enough, you will almost certainly here someone talking about last nights match or the games coming up at the weekend.

The Beginning of the Game

When 22 men gathered in Battersea Park, London, in 1864 for a game of football, no-one could imagine the worldwide sporting and cultural revolution that would follow. This was the first game to be played according to the Rules of Association Football, written by the embryonic English Football Association and the first attempt to unite and codify the games’ rules.

At first football’s impact was merely national, and its impact on culture not as drastic as it is today. The game was invented by a group from Cambridge which then went on to start the original version of the Football Association (the F.A).  As if it had gone viral, the game spread across the country and soon you would find herds of men kicking a ball around the streets (often aimlessly at first) in an attempt to get in on the action. Nevertheless it instantly achieved then what it has now achieved world wide, bringing massive groups of people together to chant and support in unison.