With so much written about football in the media, in popular tell-all accounts of past players and in the histories of clubs, association and leagues, it could be assumed that there is nothing much left to say about the game. Nothing could be further from the truth. In recent years there has been an explosion in football research and Football Fever: Grassroots marks an important step in its developing maturity, taking the reader into underdeveloped and unexplored football territory.
Football Fever: Grassroots reveals how the grassroots of football have evolved, and in doing so, the authors are able to examine the multi-dimensional character of the code and its capacity to embrace diverse communities. But the authors also demonstrate how grassroots football and its community supports have been undermined by demographic, cultural, and commercial changes in the wider society.
Each chapter of Football Fever: Grassroots picks up on a specific aspect of footballs evolution and illustrates how it has impacted on the games cultural significance, community development, and sustainability. Football Fever: Grassroots provides an illustration of the way in which football threads its way through the social and cultural fabric of Australian society. These threads are not only visible in sporting stadiums and playing fields, but also industry workplaces and corporate boardrooms.
Football Fever: Grassroots is essential reading for the serious football fan.
ISBN: 0 9752384 0 X
CONTENTS
1 Filling the Gaps in Football Research
Bob Stewart
2 Magical Mixadelics: Listening to Australian
Rules Football
Margaret Trail
3 Mining the Barracker Archive
June Senyard
4 Chinese Footballers and Female Players:
Discontinuous and Marginalized Histories
Rob Hess
5 Football and the Workplace: A Brief History
of Workplace Australian Football, 1860-1939
Peter Burke
6 Transforming Governance: Football Clubs in
the Australian Football League
Tim Marjoribanks and Ann Capling
7 Australian Rules Football Law
Ian Warren
8 Culture, Identity and Performance in the
Australian Football League
Gervase Haimes
9 Take the Game North: The Strategic and
Demographic Imperative Facing Australian
Rules Football
Matthew Nicholson
