Fanatics

Abstract

Fanatical support for a particular football team has been a characteristic feature of the game since its inception, in its modern form, a century ago.¹ Football is not alone in this for there are numerous games, in Britain and abroad, whose success and even survival depend to a marked degree on the unswerving loyalty of supporters. American baseball teams, Aussie-rule football teams, Welsh rugby union teams — the list is long and worldwide — and all have similar patterns of passionate support in their local communities. Such support, naturally enough, fluctuates enormously but even when a team’s fortunes are at a low ebb they can generally rely on a small nucleus of supporters whose commitment to the team is total and unwavering. In the case of modern football such support has been the major force in providing the game with its essential financial life-blood. But football support goes well beyond merely attending a match and helping to finance a club, for it has, throughout the history of the modern game, often been a form of attachment not merely to a particular team but to all that the team stands for; locality, religion and local way of life.²