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The Pitch
Our guide is designed as a window into the research, policy and debate that has been generated around themes in football over the past 20 years. We have restricted our attention to those texts and documents which we think have something to say about football development or community development, broadly defined. While we have excluded some texts on this basis, we may well have been wrong or we may have simply overlooked articles or books which are of great relevance. If you feel this is the case, please do let us know so that we can improve this gateway.
In order to simplify your entry to the football research 'pitch', we've put some metaphorical cones down in order to divide it up into the following sections:
- The Football Association and the governance and regulation of the sport
- Football and social inclusion
- Football development and 'football in the community'.
- The search for football excellence
1. The FA, governance and regulation
Until recently, understanding the politics of the Football Association, its structure and the work of its various departments has been something of a challenge. The FA itself has, for many years, been deluged with enquiries from students asking for help with information or networking, and has found it difficult to cope because of the sheer quantity of requests. Now, however, the FA have developed their own resource especially for students in further and higher education:
www.thefa.com/TheFA/ContactUs/Postings/2006/09/ResearchResource.htm
While this is already proving to be immensely useful, we need to remember that the information presented here is essentially 'apologetic', in that it is produced by the FA itself and does not analyse or critique the work of the organization. To begin a more critical evaluation of the FA, we could consider the work of such influential journalists as Ed Horton (1997), David Conn (1997, 2005) or Tom Bower (2004). We could, alternatively, start with the reports of the Football Task Force:
- Department of Culture, Media and Sport, (1998) Eliminating Racism from Football, (London: DCMS)
- Department of Culture, Media and Sport (1998) Improving Disabled Access (London: DCMS)
- Department of Culture, Media and Sport (1998) Investing in the Community (London: DCMS).
The interplay between the Football Association, the FA Premier League, professional clubs and supporters groups, alluded to in each of these texts and reports, has been the inspiration for much of the work of the Football Governance Research Centre (FGRC) at Birkbeck (www.football-research.org). Inspired by management theorists, most notably Jonathan Michie and Christine Oughton, and informed by its support for a variety of supporter-led campaigns, FGRC now embraces research which considers a wide range of issues relating to power, ownership, legality, politics and economics in the professional game. The FGRC site contains downloads of major outputs and reviews of a series of influential texts produced by Michie, Oughton and Sean Hamill.
The FGRC has for some time been closely aligned with campaigns to foster 'mutualism' in relation to club ownership. In other words, it has helped to encourage supporters to attempt to take ownership of their club in order to run the organisations in a more democratic, more open and more effective manner. New forms of ownership structures also help supporters to resist take-overs by those perceived as 'hostile' to the long term interests of the club and its local communities. These values reflect many of those in other sectors who champion the virtues of 'social enterprises', check out our Rough Guide to Sport and Social Enterprises for some useful comparisons.
In the context of football, and to a lesser extent those other sports with spectator interests (for example rugby union, rugby league and cricket) the chief advisory body for those interested in new forms of ownership has been Supporters Direct (www.supporters-direct.org). This government backed initiative has assisted the development of over 100 Supporters Trusts, some of which have gone on to gain overall control of their club with varying degrees of success. Much of the work of the FGRC suggests that clubs with some element of supporter-ownership are more likely to embrace community development and social inclusion campaigns, contrasting their long term, social goals with the more profit-oriented objectives of PLCs or privately owned organisations.
Continued pressure from a range of journalistic and academic sources, alongside the musings of left wing think tanks (see for example the Institute for Public Policy Research's (2004) Trust in Football publication), and eventually the heavy leaning of the Minister for Sport, forced the Football Association to acknowledge a case for change in governance procedures. The FA Board commissioned Lord Burns to conduct a structural review, the Conclusions and Proposals of which are available on this site, alongside a useful comparative document which looks at governance procedures in a range of UK and international NGBs. Details of the FA's responses to the Burns Report some of which represent major changes to the organisation - can be found at www.TheFA.com.
Within a year of the publication of the Burns Report, the FA Premier League received the Report of the Quest Inquiry (otherwise known as the Stevens Report). This Report, and its Conclusions, concerned apparent financial irregularities in the transfer market. The work of Lord Stevens and Lord Burns are often confused but it is important to recognise their distinctive aims and the fact that they were commissioned by, and reported to, different organisations.
2. Football and Social Inclusion
Despite its enormous popularity, football is not in a position to claim that it has a sparkling history in relation to social inclusion. The 'club'-based nature of the sport, together with the male, white, aged, middle-class hegemony of the governing body, has restricted access to the sport for a range of communities in the past century and a half. Racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination have abounded in the sport, and many authors argue that despite the advances of the past 30 years the legacy of many historic attitudes is proving hard to shift.
The transformation of football that followed the chaos of the mid-1980s opened up debate on many of these issues, and a host of texts has followed as a result. A cursory glance through our Football Bibliography will reveal the level of interest that academics have demonstrated in terms of histories and critiques relating to gender, ethnicity and disability. This work has, in turn, influenced practice, with all of the major football agencies engaging in campaigns aimed at enhancing social inclusion in the sport.
Much of this work is summarised in the Football Task Force Reports, but two campaigns of particular note are Kick It Out (http://www.kickitout.org/) and Football Unites Racism Divides (http://www.furd.org/).
In terms of evaluations and critiques, the best introductory papers are held at the Centre for the Sociology of Sport (www.le.ac.uk/sociology/css/). A series of fact-sheets, originally produced for the Sir Norman Chester Centre, include:
- Black Footballers in Britain
- Racism and Football
- Women and Football
- A Brief History of Female Football Fans
- Football and Families
Other substantive work in this context includes Welch, Spracken and Pilcher's (2004) work for the Campaign for Racial Equality, Racial Equality in Football: A Survey, whilst Tacon's (2005) Football and Social Inclusion (available on the FGR site) is a useful overview of the potential of the sport to connect to the broader policy agenda outlined in our Rough Guide to Sport and Social Inclusion.
3. Football development and football in the community
This section considers resources that can inform our understanding of two different but inter-related aspects of contemporary football. By football development, we mean activity related to the amateur game what the FA calls the 'national game'. By football in the community, however, we mean the impact of professional clubs on their local populations. As we will see, there are many overlaps between these two realms, but different organizations tend to dominate in each sector.
The amateur game is in a state of some turmoil. The FA's (2003) Football Trends demonstrates the apparent demise of the adult, 11-a-side game, and the concurrent growth of small-sided football, typically in indoor, commercial settings. At the same time however, the youth game is exploding. The FA estimate that 4,360,000 young people are currently participating in the sport an incredible figure, especially when one considers that organized football for the Under 12 age groups is a relatively recent phenomenon. Brackenridge et al's (2007) Child Welfare in Football shows how a variety of societal factors have helped create an environment where adults now organize, administer, referee and coach children's football in more ways than ever before. Gone are the days of jumpers for goalposts, instead we have shiny new leagues, kits, goals, referees, branded equipment and crowds of excitable parents.
The FA has, in various ways, supported what many consider to be a hugely impressive transformation of the sport through the work of its Football Development Officers (FDOs). A largely-graduate workforce of FDOs is now in place across the country, managed by a network of county and regional managers who report to the FA's National Game division. The FA's student resource is an effective gateway to information on the work of the division, and its impact on coaching, women's football, club development (in particular through the Charter Standard system), volunteering and social inclusion. Additionally, however, a series of informative guidebooks map out the FA's ethos and approach, and many of these have been written by Les Howie, one of the key thinkers in the National Game division's inner circle (see Howie, 2004, 2004a, 2004b).
A key element of the FA's strategy has been the promotion of mini soccer, the 5, 6 and 7-a-side version of the full game. Mini soccer was introduced in the 1990s to enable children under 11 to enjoy a more child-centred sport, offering them more touches of the ball, more creativity and greater opportunity to develop their skills. However, mini soccer has been grasped enthusiastically by the voluntary sector, with thousands of clubs now boasting competitive teams in the Under 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 age groups. Many of the matches featuring such teams are watched by crowds of parents, friends and relatives, creating what some perceive to be a pressurised environment. Concerns about parental behaviour and its impact on child welfare have been detailed in some depth in Brackenridge et al's (2007) work, and commentators from a wide range of agencies now appear to acknowledge that the adult input into children's football can be problematic.
Some organizations have become so concerned with the adult run, high pressure, 'low-risk/low-skill' leagues that they have set up their own alternatives. The most prominent of these is in the form of a campaign, www.giveusbackourgame.co.uk) created by Cirencester-based coach and writer Paul Cooper. The campaign came to prominence in early 2007, and was supported by the Daily Telegraph. It aims to help bring football back to children, to allow them more control over the sport, and to make the game more playful and enjoyable. Giveusbackourgame espouses small sided matches, refereed by the children themselves, emphasizing equality, skill and enjoyment. Elsewhere, Birmingham City Council have, for the past 8 years, run a highly successful alternative football programme for children, called Strikes. Thousands of children each year enjoy child-centred coaching and competition at the City's network of leisure centres (see www.strikessoccer.co.uk). In Dorset, Soccervation (www.soccervation.org) is an independent provider, again offering a child-centred approach and competition. While this range of provision is of great interest, there is as yet no research which evaluates these programmes or examines their approaches or ethos. A useful starting point for a dissertation, we would suggest.
If football development is then, a complicated and contested arena, much same can be said of football in the community. Although it could be argued that professional football clubs have always connected, in a variety of ways, with their local communities, the formalized Football in the Community (FITC) programme has only been in existence since 1979. At this point, the Sports Council established FITC schemes at a selection of football league and rugby league clubs, and whilst some of these were viewed as a success (see Ingham, 1981), limited funding saw only a few stutter on until 1985, when the Professional Footballers Association (www.givemefootball.com ) became involved. The PFA saw the programme as an ideal way to secure employment for its members who had retired from the professional sport, and invested monies to secure new initiatives, mostly in the North West. At the same time, the Sports Council in the London and South East attempted to revive FITC by entering partnerships with local authorities the successful Millwall FITC programme was, for example, created in this context.
By the early 1990s, FITC had expanded across the country with the help of additional funding from The Football League and the Football Association. By the mid-point of the decade, all professional clubs hosted at least one full-time FITC officer, with some schemes growing dramatically.
Despite this success, the situation on the ground was not always rosy. Many clubs did not contribute financially to their FITC programmes, choosing instead to simply receive funding from external agencies and act as 'host' to the initiative. The commitment of these clubs to the schemes was often questioned as a result. The aims and objectives of the schemes were often unclear, and in some cases almost contradictory. Some were focused on youth engagement, others on commercial soccer schools and holiday programmes, others on the search for prospective new players. Few were able to generate data in order to demonstrate their success in any of these fields.
The substantive academic work on FITC reflects this rather mixed picture. The Football Task Force Report, Investing in the Community, for example, details a range of examples of good practice, whilst at the same time expressing concerns about the coherence of FITC schemes and their connections with local communities in greatest need of support. Otherwise, the most in-depth study of FITC has been carried out by Brown et al (2006). The Football and Its Communities: Final Report was the outcome of a 3 year project funded by the Football Foundation (www.footballfoundation.org.uk ), the charitable arm of the major football agencies. Although Brown and Gavin Mellor were then at Manchester Metropolitan University, they have since moved with co-author Tim Crabbe to establish an independent research consultancy called Substance. Substance has recently published another study of some interest in association with EA Sports Research, focusing on the connections between football, identity and fandom. Football: An All Consuming Passion, is available on this site, but the Substance pages are themselves worth monitoring (www.substance.coop).
The other review of note is Neil Watson's (2000) analysis of FITC initiatives. Watson had been the inspiration behind the Leyton Orient FITC programme (now the Leyton Orient Community Sports Programme - http://www.locsp.org/). He has since been the lead at the national Positive Futures programme. The major evaluations of Positive Futures have, of course, been carried out by Tim Crabbe and his team the individuals now behind the success of Substance.
In addition to these reports, some more introductory, discursive papers are available at the Centre for the Sociology of Sport's resource pages, particularly amongst the Singer and Friedlander Illustrative Review articles. These papers cover a period from 1997 to 2002, and include a range of community/development themes, including:
- Refereeing
- The role of agents
- Soccer Schools
- Football in the Community
- Medicine and injuries
4. The search for excellence
Despite several upgrades, services and revamps in the past 20 years, the English system for developing young football players appears to be yet to fire on all cylinders. Instead, a host of teething problems, and an ongoing uncertainty about how best to drive this particular monster, leave it spluttering on in a rather unsatisfactory manner.
Up until 1997, the question of who might drive the system was of considerable importance. Professional clubs had, traditionally, enjoyed limited contact with young players until their mid to late teenage years, with the state school sector effectively responsible for coaching and development. The English Schools Football Association (www.esfa.co.uk) therefore had great status in the sector. In the early 1980s however, the FA also entered the fray by opening its National School of Excellence at the Lilleshall National Sports Centre.
While the FA could claim some successes from Lilleshall Michael Owen and Sol Campbell were amongst a series of graduates who went on to international success the professional clubs were becoming increasingly twitchy about the FA's involvement. At the same time, some independent research (see for example Andrew Parker's work, published in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2001), was asking serious questions about the impact of professional club cultures on the welfare of young players.
In 1997, the FA published its Charter for Quality, which proposed the replacement of the former Youth Training Scheme (YTS) for young footballers with a new structure of licensed FA Academies at 40 professional clubs, with the remaining Football League clubs operating FA Centres of Excellence. The proposals were accepted, eventually, by all parties, and a system of accredited, quality assured, sustainable Academies is now in place. The Academies are now overseen by the FA Premier League (http://www.premierleague.com/fapl.rac?command=forwardOnly&nextPage=enCompAcademyLatestRe s), with the Football League (http://www.football-league.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/0,,10794,00.html) essentially responsible for the more stream-lined Centres of Excellence.
There are currently 42 FA Academies, in receipt of funding which allows them to develop a greater range of services than the 50 FA Centres of Excellence, most of which are associated with clubs in the Football League. The majority of these organisations offer development programmes for children from the ages of 8 to 18, with 'Scholarships' or 'Modern Apprenticeships' offered to those aged 16 and over as the most significant stepping stone towards a professional contract.
The financial volatility of the professional game means that the future of the Academies and Centres is constantly under review by club owners, although the system has yet to be subjected to any rigorous external scrutiny. Instead, a limited range of academic sources has attempted to evaluate the success of the new system, with Monk and Russell's (2001) critique of educational attainment, and Daniel's (2004) assessment of recruitment and retention strategies amongst the most substantive evaluations.
While the EYES (2004) Report offers useful comparative data on elite athlete systems across Europe, there appears to be no independent research which assesses the long term impact of the FA Academies or Centres of Excellence. Although access to professional clubs can sometimes be problematic, investigating the work of FA Academies and Centres of Excellence would appear to be fertile territory for researchers at all levels.
It could be that analysis from other disciplines could inform such investigations. For example, for over 10 years Tom Reilly has been compiling cutting-edge natural science evaluations of the factors that affect footballing excellence. The Science and Football Reports (eg 1986, 1993, 1997, 2002) contain reviews of talent identification systems, match analysis, psychological interventions, coaching systems and nutrition. Other notable contributions include the work of Hemmings and Parker (2002) on group cohesion; Waddington, Roderick and Parker (1999) on injuries; and Simmons and Paul (2001). Interestingly, Craig Simmons had been the main sports scientist at the FA's National School.
In closing this section we would like to point out that despite the many opportunities that exist for research in the area of football excellence, our discussion has been focused on the male game. Even more opportunities exist for the analysis of systems and experiences in performance and excellence settings for both women and people with disabilities two realms which appear to us to have been entirely overlooked by academic research to date.
We look forward to you contributing to this body of knowledge in the very near future
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