Category: Stories

T-Shirts and Directory!

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T-shirts: clearly the most potent of all tools for building group solidarity and cooperation:

Peter has made possible the printing of 25 FSF T-shirts. To get your hands on these handsome garments, send me an email with a shipping address to galarza.alex@gmail.com The cost is $15 plus shipping. I can take paypal payments at the same email address. The shirts are all Large but are 100% cotton and can be shrunk easily.

Also, please fill out the FSF Academic Directory at http://bit.ly/egZNyw Please help spread  the word about the database we are building for academics working in football. It can help foster connections and encourage research across regional boundaries.

FSF Feb – Fútbol, Historia, y Política

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The first session of spring 2011 will be held on Thursday February 17th at 1800 (6pm) Eastern time. Here are a few materials regarding the book, Fútbol, Historia, y Política edited by Julio Frydenberg and Rodrigo Daskal.

“‘Fútbol, Historia y Política’ es fruto del esfuerzo de incorporar nuevas cuestiones en el estudio del deporte; y en realidad no hace más que continuar con las inquietudes contempladas por Archetti, quien consideraba al deporte como parte integral de la sociedad, y que nos permite reflexionar acerca de lo social” – Julio Frydenberg

Pagina 12 Review
Presentation at the Universidad de San Martín
Publisher’s page

Short piece on the passing of Eduardo Archetti

Cairo Ultras in Egyptian Protests

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Anti-government protests in Egypt are being driven by young men, including Egyptian ultras writes FSF member James Dorsey. “Soccer fans constitute a well-organized and feared pillar of the marshalling grassroots coalition determined to ensure that President Hosni Mubarak suffers the same fate as Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was toppled earlier this month by mass demonstrations.” Full article here.

For more details on Egyptian ultras and the social and political implications of the game in Cairo, listen to David Goldblatt’s The Secret Policeman’s Football: Al Ahly v Zamalek (part 2 of his BBC radio documentary “The Power and the Passion”) and read this multimedia essay by one of the founders of Egypt’s first ultras group.

[Editor’s note: in December 2021, FSF hosted a session with Carl Rommel on this topic.]

Fall Season Ends with Soccer Empire

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DuboisSoccerEmpireThe first year of FSF ended today in inspiring fashion with a discussion of Laurent Dubois’ Soccer Empire.

Participants: Laurent Dubois, Peter Alegi, Alex Galarza, Andrew Guest, Steven Apostolov, and David Roberts.

The audio of the discussion is available here. (For educational/personal use only.)

Stay tuned for updates on the Spring lineup! We have had an excellent discussion over email about a session on the women’s game and will decide soon on materials and a date. We will also be doing our first FSF session en español when we discuss Frydenberg and Daskal’s Fútbol, Historia, y Política.

Packed House for Goldblatt’s The Ball is Round

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cover)BallIsRoundDavid Goldblatt—the Garrincha of Fútbology—attracted the largest crowd yet at the Football Scholars Forum.

The event, the first of two dedicated to Goldblatt’s encyclopedic The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer, included discussion on globalization, politics and capital, and the role of the working class in football’s history. [Episode two is here.]

Thanks are in order to David Goldblatt for sharing his insights and to everyone who participated, including Ben Dettmar, Gordon Stewart, Alejandro Gonzalez, Andrew Guest, Tom McCabe, Tim Vickery, Steven Apostolov, Laurent Dubois, Peter Alegi, and Alex Galarza.

Listen to an audio recording of the conversation below (for educational/personal use only):

The Ball is Round!

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Our second session is on Wednesday October 20th,  at 2:15pm East Coast time. We are splitting The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer in two halves so in this meeting we are reading and discussing parts 1-3 (pp. 3-479).

Part one: “Ancients and Moderns: Football and the Invention of Modern Sport, from the beginning to 1914”

Part two: “The People’s Game: Football, Empire, and Industry 1870-1934”

Part three: “The Beautiful Game: Football’s Short Twentieth Century, 1934-1974”

Be sure to RSVP to participate via Skype.

I also wanted to share that I have been accepted at THATCamp in Chicago next month, a conference on the digital humanities that brings together academics, librarians, and technology specialists to work collaboratively on individual projects. The Football Scholars Forum will be the ‘paper’ I give at the conference so I look forward to sharing the results after we end the Fall season with Laurent Dubois.

Cape Town Stadium: Socializing Debt, Privatizing Profits

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Peter Alegi has written a follow-up to his 2007 and 2008 articles on South African stadium construction over on his blog. “Since PSL matches in Cape Town rarely draw more than a few thousand spectators, and rugby already has an excellent stadium at Newlands, local taxpayers must now shoulder the World Cup debt burden long into the future.”

Full text: http://www.footballiscominghome.info/the-hosts/cape-town-stadium/

Temples Materials

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A number of links to share as we warm-up for Chris Gaffney’s Temples of the Earthbound Gods on September 22nd: