The morning after: England Vs Japan, by Athalie Redwood-Brown

With a last chance to impress, the England squad took on Japan yesterday for the last of the friendly matches before the World Cup.

One would have been forgiven for thinking this was a training match, as England once again failed to take control and stamp down their authority in the first half. Sloppy mistakes and a lack of fluency in the midfield did little for the confidence of the English fans.

It seemed that with so many players still not having secured their seat on the plane to South Africa, there was an anxious feeling on the pitch.  Some were simply too afraid of doing something wrong to push the boundaries and step up to the mark, and with a number of first starters on the pitch for the first half, it was no surprise that networks and cohesion again seemed lacking. With a jittery defence making countless mistakes and a lack of inspiration down the other end, an early goal for Japan was to be expected.

Having never lost to Japan, the early goal was a test for the new side and it took a while for England to start taking back control and keeping possession. Too many passing sequences were intercepted and players seemed to be lacking the flair  that we see in the domestic game. It’s fair to say that some were just trying too hard to impress and not allowing their talent and natural ability to shine.

The second half saw a number of changes both in terms of players and formations, but again, no real impact from any one player or partnership. Those who were tested seemed to be on different wavelengths and a number of easy chances were missed as players lacked inspiration and control on the ball. There were glimmers of hope in the attacking third, but it took mistakes from Japan to ensure the outcome.

Some may argue that making final decisions about squad line-ups this late in the day is psychologically draining for the team – whilst others would suggest it keeps them all on their toes – but with unconvincing performances in the first two warm up games, there are certainly a number of questions over England’s current form.

With a matter of hours to go before the final team announcements it looks like only the big man Capello knows his final 23, leaving the rest of us with only our own speculations and assumptions as to who will be in South Africa.  England will have to work on their unity and one hopes that Capello’s call for an increase in aggression and intensity will inspire the players to show their passion for the game. As the players await the call, the coaching staff will need to ensure they can ignite the fire in the remaining 23 over this next block of training, before they face the USA on the 12th June.

Athalie Redwood-Brown, Senior Lecturer in Performance Analysis of Sport, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Athalie, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8785 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

Stadium design: A construction specialism in its own right, by Dr Adam O’Rourke

Cape Town StadiuWhat is Archibald Leitch better known for? Film buffs and pub quiz

What is Archibald Leitch better known for? Film buffs and pub quiz aficionados will be thinking of Carey Grant and bemoaning the incorrect spelling of his name. To anyone with an interest in football grounds, he remains the foremost designer of football stands and terraces in the UK.

An engineer and factory architect, Leitch worked for many of our greatest clubs. The majority of his work was carried out during the early part of the 20^th century and at one time, he had worked for 16 of the 22 clubs in the old English first division.  During the 1966 World Cup, all of the stadia used apart from Wembley, contained elements designed by Leitch.  Whilst many of his schemes have been demolished, significant work can still be seen at homes of Glasgow Rangers and Fulham Football Clubs.

My first encounter with a football stadium came in the form of the boys’ pen at Liverpool Football Club. Situated in a corner at the back of the kop, it was a strange place occupied by rival feral teenage gangs from across Liverpool and innocent boys dropped off by their dads. It was a place where you learned to look after yourself. It was certainly not the place to develop an appreciation of stadium architecture.

My interest in stadia was something that evolved over a long period and was subconsciously rooted in watching my team play in numerous stadiums in the UK and Europe. In addition to the football, events took place in and around the various grounds that reinforced this interest. Whilst events at Hillsborough and Heysel will never be forgotten, all football fans from the 70s’ and 80’s will recall individual experiences caused by overcrowding,  inadequate safety measures and ultimately grounds and associated spaces that were not fit for purpose.

It was not until my early 20’s that I realised that there was a genuine interest and it was at this point that I started to visit stadia for purely architectural reasons. Any trip away from home usually involved a visit to one or two local stadiums.  At its peak, after the 1990 world cup, this involved driving from England to Italy on a grand tour of Italian stadia. Simon Inglis’s books ‘The Football Grounds of Britain’ and The Football Ground of Europe’ were favourite reads at that time.

The last 30 years has seen unprecedented levels of stadium development throughout the world and stadium design has become a construction specialism in its own right. Architects and engineering practices have produced some outstanding stadiums. The forthcoming World Cup has given these specialists a further opportunity to show off their skills.

All ten of the stadia offer interest and have their own uniquefeatures, three of these immediately catch the eye; the revamped FNB stadium now known as Soccer City in Johannesburg,  the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban and the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town. What the fans experience will be like is something that we will find out during the coming month. Either way its an exciting time to be a lover of football and architecture.

Dr Adam O’Rourke, senior lecturer in architecture, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Adam, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

Newcastle FC and the Daily Mail: Who needs who? By Dr Matt Ashton

There'll be some empty seats at the next Newcastle FC press conference

It’s been announced today that Newcastle Football Club has banned the Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail from their grounds and press conferences. This is in response to their revelations about Lord Triesmen which has potentially cost England the World Cup 2018 bid.

The world of football has always had an uneasy relationship with the press. On the one hand clubs need the press to publicise themselves and their players. Modern footballers are more than just sportsmen, they’re media brands capable of generating millions of pounds just by selling shirts with their names on them. In order to do this they need to build a media profile, hence a never ending round of adverts, personal appearances and charity work, all designed to give themselves and the club good PR. The press in return will cover this as it fills space and sells newspapers. In this way then it’s a symbiotic relationship, with both sides needing each other, and it can be argued that the modern media has done more to turn football into a global phenomena than just about anything else.

The press however are always interested in increasing their readership and nothing sells like scandal with some footballers now more famous for their private lives then their activities on the pitch. As a result, many players, clubs and managers are increasingly wary of having anything to do with reporters. Some deal with this by avoiding the press whenever possible, Alex Ferguson springs to mind. Others like Brian Clough positively relished being in the limelight and actively courted the media.

The press like to portray themselves as tireless crusaders for the truth. Admittedly there have been many instances over the years where newspapers have uncovered serious wrong doing leading to reform of the game. However there have been countless instances where they’ve overstepped the mark, either inventing stories (The Sun’s coverage of Hillsborough for instance) or invading the privacy of others.

The media would argue that when the players volunteer to appear in the media as advertising figures they forfeit their right to a private life. Whether accepting money to promote a product gives others the right to go through your rubbish in the hope of finding something scandalous about you is debatable to say the least.

More often than not the press damage the game when they print these stories. The media made a huge deal about Wayne Bridge’s decision not to be part of England’s World Cup squad this year after the John Terry scandal. They laid the blame for this squarely on Terry and while clearly this was an important factor they failed to mention that they themselves played a role in this. If Wayne had gone, every single question the press asked would have been about his relationship with John Terry and I can fully understand why he’d not want to put himself under that kind of scrutiny. However, this factor was swept under the carpet by the majority of the media.

As Gyles Brandreth once said ‘The press are never wrong and they never apologise’.

Dr Matt Ashton, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Dr Ashton, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

The cultural politics of our football communities: Where are our talented Asian footballers?

Cardiff City player, Michael Chopra. One of only seven British Asian players in the elite football system

Amidst the backdrop of the fervour of this World Cup, certain cultural aspects of England’s football communities seem ever more politicised and deserving of a little more thorough than a cursory glance. In part even more important due to the lack of relative media and political attention they attract in comparison with WAGs, celebrity culture and selection minutiae hearsay.

Whilst the World Cup is sold as a uniting and global pageant in the host ‘rainbow nation’ there are parallel issues that, to those interested in the development of football talent and building of community structures, remains a source of potential cultural complexity.

One such issue is the complex and, at times, contentious issue of the lack of Asian footballers progressing into the elite football system. There are currently only seven British Asian players in this system; Zesh Rehman (Bradford City), Krishnan Patel (Bury), Michael Chopra (Cardiff City), Anwar Uddin (Dagenham & Redbridge), Rikki Bains (Darlington), Aman Verma (Leicester) and Netan Sansara (Walsall).

Whilst football participation rates amongst Asian communities are higher than the national average, the numbers of those that progress into the professionalised academy system beyond recreational club performance and the lower levels of the FA pyramid structure are very limited.

Research conducted by the Commission for Racial Equality in 2004 found that only 0.8% of those young footballers in academies of centres of excellence were of Asian descent. An independent study eight years earlier had established this figure at 0.2%. This broad benchmark, given that around 15% of Asian adult men play football recreationally, illustrates there is a mismatch somewhere.  

There is also an implication for this issue in relation to inequality and potential discrimination that may be acting as a barrier to talent and the development of future stars that could be participating for England at national level. Past research into this issue has highlighted some of these subtle factors that remain difficult to address.

A further cultural issue is the interaction this may also have with what could be termed the ‘cultural politics of football’ in this country. How do Asian participants in local communities associate with the English flag and the often nationalistic, monolithic boundaries of “being English” promoted during the World Cup tournament? Is the supposed shared or imagined community of English fandom one that would be inclusive for the diverse religious and cultural communities that should be engaged by this global showcase in England? It appears that whilst football is popular amongst Asian communities, the link to sustained participation beyond local community recreational level is problematic and currently beyond our grasp. 

Historical academic research has shown that there are complex local, regional, national and indeed globalised identities present within the diverse Asian sporting community. How these interact with the imagery and language of supporting ‘Engerland’ in 2010 can be a sharp contrast with the aspiration of an inclusive vision of a 21^st Century nation at ease with its own multi-ethnic and varied religious backgrounds of its supporters.

Could this World Cup be an opportunity for greater inclusivity of England supporters, potential participants and future community club volunteers or coaches? It would be hoped so, but, for the Asian communities of England having an ever more glaring lack of presence in the highest tier of professional football and limited opportunities in the lower levels of the professional game serious questions remain.

As a country that since the 1997 election has poured significant developmental monies into community and school football, what has been the legacy for those Asian footballers that aspired to make it to this global stage? It is surely not acceptable for sports development professionals and, more specifically, the English footballing structures, governing bodies and policy makers to still have a status quo on the lack of talent that seems to make it through our revered academy system.

A move to address socio-cultural issues within the academies, grass roots youth football development systems that address bias, talent selection/identification and coach perceptions is long overdue for our young Asian footballers. The mysterious talent vacuum present today is most neatly reflected by the omission from our squad of any footballer of Asian descent. By 2018 will we have made any further headway?       

Chris Mackintosh, senior lecturer in sports development, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Chris, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

Football fanaticism: Can following your football team be an addiction? By Professor Mark Griffiths

I have spent the last 23 years carrying out research into ‘behavioural addictions’ – that is, addictions that don’t involve drugs such as addictions to gambling, videogames, sex, the Internet and exercise. Just before the 1998 World Cup, I began to carry out some research into football fanaticism and whether football fanatics could be considered ‘addicted’ to following their football team. This is easier said than done as it all depends upon how addiction is defined, and if ‘football addiction’ exists, what are people actually addicted to?

For many years, I have defined addiction as any behaviour that features what I believe to be the six core components of addiction (i.e., salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflict and relapse). Throughout my career, I have consistently argued that any behaviour that fulfils the six criteria below should be considered as a genuine addiction. If you were addicted to following your football team, this is what I would expect:

Salience – This occurs when following your football team (and doing things related to your football team) becomes the most important activity in your life and dominates your thinking (total preoccupation), feelings (cravings) and behaviour (deterioration of socialized behaviour). For instance, even if you are not actually engaged in something football-related, you will be thinking about the next time that you are.

Mood modification – This is the subjective experience that you would feel as a consequence of following your football team (i.e. you experience an arousing ‘buzz’ or a ‘high’ – or the exact opposite – a tranquilizing feeling of ‘escape’ or ‘numbing’ when following your team).

Tolerance – This is the process whereby increasing amounts of activity related to your football team are needed to get mood modifying effects. This basically means that if you were engaged in activities related to following your football team, you would gradually build up the amount of the time you spend engaged in those activities.

Withdrawal symptoms – These are the unpleasant feeling states and/or physical effects (e.g., the shakes, moodiness, irritability etc.) that occur when you are prevented from following your football team or stopped from engaging in football-related activities.

Conflict – This refers to the conflicts between following your football team and those around you (interpersonal conflict), conflicts with other activities (your job, schoolwork, social life, hobbies and interests) or from within yourself (knowing you are doing too much of the activity and/or subjective feelings of loss of control) which are concerned with spending too much time following your football team.

Relapse – This is the tendency to revert back to earlier patterns of behaviour (following your football team and engaging in football-related activity) after a period of abstinence.

Using these criteria, I have come across very few genuine examples of someone addicted to a football team. The most extreme case I have come across was one woman who left her husband because of his ‘addiction’ to Chelsea. She told me that their bedroom was a shrine to Chelsea, he watched almost every Chelsea game home and away (including European away matches), spent all their joint savings and ran up huge debts following Chelsea, and eventually got sacked from his job because he kept ringing in sick whenever Chelsea were playing hundreds of miles from home during midweek games. Out of season he would be constantly depressed and would try to alleviate his mood by endlessly watching videos of Chelsea’s greatest games. Once the football season started, his depression would lift. I never met this individual but he appears to have fulfilled my criteria for addiction.

For most people, enthusiastically following your team – even to excess – is unlikely to be an addiction. The main difference between a healthy excessive enthusiasm and an addiction is that healthy enthusiasms add to life and addictions take away from it.

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

We’re singing for England! World Cup songs – part 1 – by Jared Wilson

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote that “without music life would be a mistake.” But if he’d been sat in an English pub in June 2006, supping a beer, waiting for the football and being forced to listen to Embrace’s World At Your Feet (the official FA World Cup 2006 song) on repeat, he may have been willing to retract this statement.

While it’s indisputable that music can inspire and bring not only a football team, but a nation,  together – if you get it wrong it can have the opposite effect. It’s just not that the aforementioned ditty by the Yorkshire quintuplet was a terrible song – and please make no mistake it was a terrible song – but rather that a tune which was supposed to make you feel energetic, inspired and uplifted, sucked the life out of you from the first three bars.

If that song was played in the England dressing room before the quarter-final game against Portugal it might go some way to explaining the lacklustre and languid approach to winning that Lampard, Gerrard and Carragher showcased in the penalty shoot-out.  Maybe Wayne Rooney’s early sending off for stamping on the groin of Ricardo Carvalho wasn’t just anger and frustration at the way the game was going, but also because the unkempt dark brown hair of the Chelsea and Portugal defender made him look a bit like the Embrace singer  Danny McNamara if you squinted?

It’s unclear who actually commissioned the 2006 song, but one would hope they have been fired since. In January 2010 an FA spokesman confirmed that this year, for the first World Cup since 1966, there will be no ‘official’ song to mark England’s World Cup campaign in South Africa. So perhaps the FA has at least started to learn their lesson?

But this has not stopped the hangers-on from still trying to jump on the World Cup gravy boat. The highest profile ‘unofficial’ England song this year is yet another remix of the 1996 anthem Three Lions, which was first recorded for the  English-hosted European Championships. Originally recorded by comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel on the crest of a wave from their highly-entertaining Fantasy Football League TV show, fourteen years ago it summed up the mood of the nation. The best move they made at the time was to draft in Ian Broudie from The Lightening Seeds to write a simple and enjoyable melody that didn’t require trained vocalists to sing on it.  And it clearly worked as football fans across the country sang along to Three Lions with a pint of beer in one arm and their mates in the other. At the time it brought a country together.

But whatever joy Skinner and Baddiel gave to the nation in 1996 has been counterbalanced since with the endless and irritating recycling of it – not least because of the simple and enjoyable melody that everyone has tried singing along to since.  The duo themselves made a slightly amended version two years later, then released a box-set in 2006. But everyone from Dutch group Hermes House Band (Eagles on the Shirt), German comedy duo Mundstuhl (The Eagle on the Chest), a bunch of Glasgow Rangers fans (The League Flag’s Coming Home) and even my local football team Notts County (Two Pies on a Shirt) have since recorded their own versions. What these comparatively meaningless melodies have done is hammer the final nail into the coffin of a once decent song – they’ve killed off the chances of it retaining any credibility or meaning.

So perhaps unsurprisingly we now have news that the fetid corpse of Three Lions is being dragged out once again. This time by poodle-like TV presenter Russell Brand and pitbull-like vocalist Robbie Williams. If you haven’t heard it yet then congratulations to you and may your life stay that way. They’ve tried to put a new spin on things by getting a female choirist who can actually sing in on the recording too. But her brief appearances at the beginning and end can’t disguise the fact that after the original, the best version of this song is the one you sang with your mates fourteen years ago. I’d put money on it still getting to number one though. The pitbull and the poodle must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Jared Wilson, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Jared, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8785 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

Life’s a pitch! By Alan Horgan and Mark Oxenbury

The world of grass science has advanced immensely over recent years. Due to the wealth of sponsorship and television revenue being ploughed into professional football, grounds personnel are fast becoming highly trained in providing the highest standard of surfaces.

The expectation that high profile arenas have to provide a multi functional role is magnified by the recent negative press attributed to Wembley, where a whole plethora of sporting activities and events place extra demands on the shoulders of those charged with maintaining them.

The recent architectural fascination of wrap around stadia places further demands on the micro climate which exists at such venues where natural light and air circulation are at a premium. This is underpinned by the need of some grounds personnel even investing in lighting rigs to create conditions where turf can strive more favourably.

Grounds Managers at the South Africa 2010 World Cup will have their own demands placed upon them, in providing a safe and aesthetically pleasing surface for players and spectators alike. Usual maintenance rules will apply with mowing, rolling, aeration, watering & fertilising all forming part of the basic diet of maintenance, and no doubt preparations will already be well under way to provide the “perfect” surface. Of course, the caveat to this rule will be that local conditions prevail as nothing is set in stone where sports pitch maintenance is concerned. The eyes of the world will be waiting in judgement on how the biggest sporting event will be played out, and the stage (pitch) will also come under close scrutiny given Wembley’s experiences!

Given that the tournament takes place in the South African winter means that extreme heat will be one less demand on the pitches, and maintenance regimes will reflect this. Hard, dry, baked surfaces are no ‘friend’ to physical demands placed on professional footballers.

Grounds Managers will be further supported by an array of consultants, such as the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI), who’ve been invited by FIFA after being impressed by its work with the Football Association at England’s World Cup base. It’s envisaged that STRI will have staff based in South Africa until the end of the World Cup advising on every aspect of pitch maintenance..

The advance of science in sports pitch preparation is exemplified none more so than by the introduction of a part synthetic surface at two venues in Nelspruit & Polokwane. The installation of the Desso GrassMaster system sees, for the first time, the use of any artificial surface at a World Cup final. The system is made up of a 100% natural grass surface, into which 20 million artificial turf fibres have been injected to a depth of 20 cm. The roots of the natural grass intertwine with the artificial fibres which anchors the field into a stable and a level grass surface.

Grounds Managers will be hoping that the weather favours their preparations and the teams hope for that manicured, level playing field to showcase their talents. On both fronts the world’s media will be quick to pass judgement on anyone falling well short of those expectations!

Alan Horgan, university landscape services coordinator and Mark Oxenbury, senior lecturer in horticulture, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Alan or Mark, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8785 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

The morning after: England vs Mexico, by Athalie Redwood-Brown

The penultimate warm up game for the England team gave Capello plenty to think about as he makes the final adjustments to his squad. Capello had highlighted the “no pressure” friendly as an opportunity to test his players and try out different formations. With a number of doubts still held of some of the England squad the opportunity to impress the boss was high on the agenda for those not yet guaranteed a ticket to the World Cup.

Controversy over the quality and state of the Wembley pitch had only added to the trepidation of England’s injury worries, but with many of the top stars being rested after the FA cup final, England seems to come away unscathed. Due to many of the squad having a points to prove to earn their ticket to the World Cup, the intensity of the game was always going to be high. Mexico moved well on the ball and the pace of the game meant England were kept on their toes throughout the game.

There was some impressive set pieces from the a somewhat inexperienced side; which Mexico found hard to defend, but indecisions and fluidity at either end seems to be lacking at times limiting goal scoring opportunities and allowing Mexico more opportunities than they deserved.

The inclusion of a number of new players to the side could have added to the lack of slickness in the team, or simply players trying too hard to impress. After a long domestic season, it is important that Capello instils a sense of unity and belonging to the team. The formation of role and responsibilities within the squad have somewhat been delayed due to injury/fitness concerns, but when Capello makes his final decisions over who gets a ticket on the plane, the England squad must make sure they start to cement their position and develop as a cohesive unit.

In the words of Capello when asked whether he was happy with the performance “I am happy with the result”. This game highlighted that England have the basis of a strong squad but need to sharpen their game and increase the aggression and intensity to reach South Africa with the fluid cohesive squad in all areas of the pitch.

There were moment of genius against the Mexican side but scrappy defending and indecisions in attack will not go unnoticed or unpunished against the top sides. England need to look closely at their transitions and movement as they prepare for their next game against Japan.

Athalie Redwood-Brown, Senior Lecturer in Performance Analysis of Sport, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Athalie, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8785 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

Football and sexuality: a culture of silence, a culture of exclusion, by Dr Scott Lawley

There will be no openly gay footballers at the 2010 World Cup. There may be gay players there – that is statistically probable – but none will have come out publicly as such. Against a backdrop of increasing workplace and social rights and acceptance for gay men, football is notable for its complete lack of visible gay participants. The reasons for this, however, are not so easy to tackle and lie within the deeply-ingrained cultures of the game.

Publicist Max Clifford has previously advised gay professional players – they do exist – to remain in the closet and away from the intense scrutiny of the media. This is unsurprising given the experience of Justin Fashanu, a former Nottingham Forest player who, in 1990, was the first and only professional player to come out as gay. Before coming out he had been vilified by his manager Brian Clough, after coming out he was disowned by his brother and former team-mates and faced homophobic taunts from the crowds. Charges of sexual assault, later discovered to be unfounded, were too much and Fashanu’s life ended with his suicide in 1998.

Twenty years on from Justin Fashanu, do we not now live in more enlightened times where a professional footballer could come out? Players are starting to be open about their sexuality in other sports – Welsh rugby international Gareth Thomas and Australian diver Matthew Mitcham to name two recent examples – and Premiership footballers regularly mix comfortably in celebrity circles with gay men. The FA has, in fact, legislated against homophobic behaviour and chanting, putting it on a par with racism in ground regulations, and supported campaigns to combat homophobia in the sport.

But the lack of openly gay players still indicates that football has a problem with sexuality. Legislation can go so far, but changing cultures is a different matter, and in football there is a culture which works against expressions of sexuality that deviate from the masculine, heterosexual norm.

Such cultures are deeply embedded within the game – at grassroots level and even back to school sports. Research into gay men’s experiences of team sports, for example from Eric Anderson in the US and Geert Hekma in the Netherlands, show that whilst outright hostility is not always experienced, there is often an aggressively heterosexual culture which leaves gay men feeling out of place. The result is that gay players keep their sexuality hidden or simply feel excluded and opt out. This filters through to a lack of visible gay players at the elite levels of the game – the few who get there keep it quiet, but many do not even reach that level, feeling excluded from the outset.

Large-scale public organisations, such as the police and the military, have shown that attempting workplace culture change with regard to sexuality and inclusion is possible. It is not easy, and is a long-term project that rarely bears instant results. Football clubs are workplaces too, and as John Amaechi, a former professional basketball player, now a gay rights activist has stated with regards to the FA: “There is no workplace in Britain that does not have a responsibility to change the culture so that it is an equitable place for all people.” (Newsnight, BBC2, 9 February 2010).

Football is only just at the beginning of a long journey of culture change which, to be successful, would need to tackle deeply-ingrained cultures – from the elite level down to the most spartan Sunday-league dressing room. What price a World Cup hosted in England in 2018 with the first openly-gay player taking part?

Dr Scott Lawley, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Scott, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8751 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

This BBC East Midlands Inside Out documentary from 2008 tells the Justin Fashanu story and also features the Nottingham gay-community football team.

Links and references:

• Sports journalist Mark Chapman presents a documentary on the lack of gay men in football – BBC1, Monday 24 May, 11.20pm.
• A campaign against homophobia in football has been set up in honour of Justin Fashanu, and will be hosting a 5-a-side tournament in Nottingham on July 10.

The forgotten grass roots amidst the glitz and glamour of the main event, by Chris Mackintosh

Every four years the FIFA World Cup arrives on our radar where attention from media, government and the wider football community centre upon the pinnacle of elite football performance.  However, as the cultural pageantry of this global festival builds into a frenzied and excitable media debate it is easy to forget the more localised contexts of football in England and elsewhere in the world.

Research evidence is scant to suggest that there is any long term link between mass events and their impact upon sports participation. But, perhaps more crucially, England has a growing shortage of volunteers in the grass roots game that seems to be increasingly polarised with the FIFA elite game as we experience it through the range of media vehicles at our fingertips.

The growing portfolio of initiatives being put in place to support grass roots clubs still leaves us with gaps in provision, administration, coaching and recruitment of referees. Local participation, amateur community leagues  and community football development face very real challenges that run in tandem to the high profile fixtures of England’s best eleven.

Similarly, local community based clubs in England are now being asked to deliver more than just football as we might know it. Government, funding agencies and the FA call upon them to tackle crime, address obesity and intervene in community mental health initiatives. Football in our communities is changing in its orientation and fitting in with the demands of those that control the game and hold the purse strings.

Girls’ football is one of the fastest growing sports in England and the wider European context but yet still fails to attract sponsorship, respect and attention as it should. Demand outstrips club infrastructure in many areas. Changing facilities in our parks have to be adapted to accommodate this challenge to the old hierarchies of the men’s game.

Likewise mini soccer is well established as a ‘boom phenomenon’ and has exploded as an innovative format of the game suited to mixed sex format for younger players.

These trends in football are fascinating and sociologically important in the wider context of the lives of young people that they are being experienced through. Crucially, for some, the World Cup is not the main event. The main event is planning; who will be running the junior league meetings next season? How will we meet the future demand for girls’ football, raise standards in coaching and overcome established prejudices of the male game? These are the forgotten questions that are so central to the very infrastructure of English football that supports the thousands of potential participants endeavouring to reach that pinnacle of performance we are bidding to host in 2018.

Chris Mackintosh, senior lecturer in sports development, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Chris, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]