“The Love of My Life”

Abstract

Pope, S. (2013) 'The love of my life : the meaning and importance of sport for female fans.', Journal of sport and social issues., 37 (2). pp. 176-195. Further information on publisher's website:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0193723512455919Publisher's copyright statement:The nal de nitive version of this article has been published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 37/2, 2013 c SAGE Publications Ltd at the Journal of Sport and Social Issues page: http://jss.sagepub.com/content/37/2/176 on SAGE Journals Online: http://online.sagepub.com/.Additional information: Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Research on football (soccer) fandom has typically focused upon the importance of sport for male fans, with women's voices largely absent (Free and Hughson, 2003). In rugby union, it is difficult to locate reliable academic studies which examine supporters of either sex. This article aims to explore the meaning of sport for UK female football and rugby union fans. There is also a lack of comparative sociological work which examines fans (male or female) of different sports, but this exploratory study marks one contribution towards changing this.Drawing on Glaser and Strauss's (2008) 'grounded theory' approach, 85 semistructured interviews were conducted with female fans of men's professional football and rugby union in the UK city of Leicester. The article begins by outlining the existing, largely male-centred research on sports fandom. I consider various attempts to 'measure' sports fandom, and also explore 'performances' of femininity in sport.

“It’s Supposed to be About the Love of the Game, not the Love of Aaron Rodgers’ Eyes”: Challenging the Exclusions of Women Sports Fans

“…The importance of feeling part of a community was emphasized by most of the participants in this study, as well as in previous research (see : Crolley & Long, 2001;Pope, 2010Pope, , 2013. However, it is clear that the concept of the collective has limits, and belonging in the community of sports fans is not bestowed to all fans equally.…”

‘Women can’t referee’: exploring the experiences of female football officials within UK football culture

“…She found that some female fans rejected women who performed conventional femininity on the grounds that they did not 'do fandom properly'. 43 Women and girls who participate in football also comply with dominant notions of femininity to construct a legitimate female identity. 44 At the same time, there are also studies that illustrate women rejecting a feminine identity in favour of an athletic identity.…”

‘Which player do you fancy then?’ Locating the female ethnographer in the field of the sociology of sport

“…12 Such findings are echoed by Pope, who theoretically unpacks the varying levels of engagement and diversity of females as sports fans of football and rugby union in the East Midlands city of Leicester. 13 However, just as there are few sporting ethnographies conducted by male researchers who acknowledge -or make visible -their own maleness, Jones and Pope appear to have overlooked the 'self' as a gendered subject in their own research. 14 Both authors discussed that females perform fandom with the knowledge that, to some male fans, their gender makes them inauthentic.…”

“…Most literature on sports fans is male centred, focused on hooligan ethnographies. 22 One of the consequences of the hyper-masculine nature of football hooliganism and football culture generally is that male researchers have and continue to dominate the field of study. 23 Perhaps this is because the practice of conducting observational research on football 'hooligans' was deemed only appropriate for male sociologists.…”