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FOOTBALL RESEARCH IN AN ENLARGED EUROPE
MIGRATION,
SERIES EDITORS:
DIASPORAS
ALBRECHT SONNTAGAND· DAVID
CITIZENSHIP
RANC
Lower League Football

in Crisis
Issues of Organisation and Legitimacy
in England and Germany
Daniel Ziesche
Football Research in an Enlarged Europe
Series Editors
Albrecht Sonntag
ESSCA School of Management
EU-Asia Institute
Angers, France
Dàvid Ranc
ESSCA School of Management
EU-Asia Institute
Angers, France
This series publishes monographs and edited collections in collaboration
with a major EU-funded FP7 research project ‘FREE’: Football Research
in an Enlarged Europe. The series aims to establish Football Studies as a
worthwhile, intellectual and pedagogical activity of academic significance
and will act as a home for the burgeoning area of contemporary Foot-
ball scholarship. The themes covered by the series in relation to foot-
ball include, European identity, memory, women, governance, history,
the media, sports mega-events, business and management, culture, spec-
tatorship and space and place. The series is highly interdisciplinary and
transnational and the first of its kind to map state-of-the-art academic
research on one of the world’s largest, most supported and most debated
socio-cultural phenomenona.
Editorial Board
Richard Giulianotti (Loughborough University, UK)
Kay Schiller (Durham University, UK)
Geoff Pearson (Liverpool University, UK)
Jürgen Mittag (German Sport University Cologne, Germany)
Stacey Pope (Durham University, UK)
Peter Millward (Liverpool John Moores University, UK)
Geoff Hare (Newcastle University, UK)
Arne Niemann (Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany)
David Goldblatt (Sports writer and broadcaster, UK)
Patrick Mignon (National Institute for Sports and Physical Education,
France)
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14987
Daniel Ziesche
Lower League
Football in Crisis
Issues of Organisation and Legitimacy in England
and Germany
Daniel Ziesche
Chemnitz University of Technology
Chemnitz, Sachsen, Germany
Football Research in an Enlarged Europe

ISBN 978-3-030-53746-3 ISBN 978-3-030-53747-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Cover image: © Daniel Ziesche
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For my grandparents
Preface
This book is a substantially revised, shortened and amended version of my

doctoral thesis, submitted in April 2017 to the German Sport University
Cologne and defended on 14 July 2017. In the final days of finishing this
manuscript (in March 2020), the Corona virus (Covid-19) hit Western
Europe hard. Amidst everything that has been going on in these weeks,
disturbingly enough, football still managed to make top headlines in
all news formats. Empty stadiums, infections of players, the interrup-
tion of league play all over Europe and, finally, the postponement of the
international European Championships to 2021.
While, in the words of German coaching icon Hans Meyer, this is proof
of the ‘undue significance’ of football as it is a vivid example of how foot-
ball has managed to nest itself into the social fabric and be blown out of
proportion as if it were system-relevant, these weeks have also shown how
vulnerable the whole system is.
The suspension of league play was merely a few days old when the first
lower league clubs in both England and Germany made their severe finan-
cial issues public. They simply do not have any financial reserves to bridge
gaps that halt their daily operations, let alone an outage on this scale.
Clubs in England and Germany live from hand to mouth; the money
streams need to keep flowing if the engine is not to sputter out in a matter
of days. This is scary and the most vivid example of the disturbing melange
of processes I have tried to illustrate in this volume. I am also aware that
this crisis might make redundant some of the insights and conclusions I
vii
viii PREFACE
have drawn here—it is too early to tell. What is abundantly clear is that
in many academic disciplines, football studies included, there will hence-
forth be a time before and a time after this global challenge. During the
delayed production process of this book, the decision was made to add a
postscript to the manuscript to reflect on the developments in these past
momentous weeks.
Perhaps this crisis will—finally—change the way in which this system
operates sustainably, perhaps supporter-ownership will rise again in
England. Perhaps people will make a stand and again be allowed to stand
in England’s stadiums. Perhaps football will finally give back, will discover
a different understanding of its societal purpose. Perhaps those effects will
be visible in other areas of society, more important ones at that. Yet, there
is much reason to be doubtful. But, as a football fan I know too well that
in the last minutes of the game, whole outcomes have changed time and
time again.
Leipzig, Germany Daniel Ziesche

June 2020
Acknowledgments
In the course of the work on this book, I went through all the emotional
phases and moods imaginable. It is a long way for an idea to eventu-
ally become a published book. Looking back now, there are a number of
people I must thank for their encouragement, fruitful talks and the occa-
sional distraction. I cannot name all of you here, but be assured that you
mattered.
Of the people I definitely have to name I would like first to thank all
of my parents, for always supporting me along the path I have chosen.
Very special thanks go to my dissertation supervisors, Jürgen Mittag in
Cologne for his support and valuable feedback during various stages of
the manuscript and Klaus Stolz in Chemnitz for his continuing counsel
and enriching perspective on my work and his ability to put things in
perspective. Also, many thanks to Borja García for his supervision during
the time of my research stay at Loughborough University.
Furthermore, I want to thank the FREE series editors David Ranc
and especially Albrecht Sonntag for his encouraging feedback and all the
motivating conversations. At Palgrave I owe much thanks to Sharla Plant
and Poppy Hull, the latter of whom has been especially patient with me.
Special thanks go to Andreas Hemming for his valuable and thorough
proofreading.
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues who have enriched daily
work routines, were good company at conferences and will always be inex-
tricably linked to this project, most notably Till and Ninja, Jörg-Uwe and
Holger in Cologne and Tracy and Danny in Chemnitz.
At the center of everything, Alva, thank you for joining us, keeping me
company during long nights, for always putting a smile on my face and
for reminding me of what actually matters. And for your impeccable taste
in music! Finally, Silke, my accomplice, this was tough and you supported
me in the best way possible. I could not have done it without you. Thank
you for everything; your bright mind, your endurance and courage, your
understanding, your humour, your love. It kept me in one piece.
Contents
Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy 1

‘At the Heart of Their Communities’ 1
Research Objective and Relevance 4
State of Research 5
Scope and Method 9
Key Theoretical Concepts 10
Legitimisation and Isomorphism 11
Glocalisation: Local Responses to Global Effects 13
Structure 16
References 20
Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical

Considerations 25
Structures: ‘The Great Divide’, or: Institutional Prefigurations
and Their Long-Term Impact 26
Implications of the League Systems 27
Club Vs Verein—Concepts and Implications of Structural
Differences in Germany and England 34
Implications of Structural Alignments 42
Football Clubs and Civil Society 46
Theoretical Framework and Concepts: Football Clubs as Social,
Cultural and Political Actors 47
Communities, Collective Identities and Locality 51
xi
xii CONTENTS
Politicisation and Third-Party Interests 57

Communitisation and Societisation—The Sociocultural ‘Dual
Function’ of Football Clubs 61
Societisation and Communitisation in Practice 63
References 67
A Threefold Dilemma of Legitimacy
Economic Crisis: Number Games 81

Wages, Revenues and Foreign Capital Investments 82
Foreign Investments 85
TV Money 88
Up and Away: The Widening of the Gap 95
Sword of Damocles: Administration and Liquidation 98
References 111
Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide 117

Historical Continuities in Clubs’ Community Relations 118
Disrupted Communities and New Football Politics 123
‘A Place for Thee’: The Community Value of Football Grounds 131
Topophilia and Genius Loci 132
Ground Moves, Relocations and the Question of Stadium
Ownership 137
References 147
Social Crisis: Building Bridges 153

Politics Moving In 154
Public Opposition to Football Clubs 156
Community Schemes: Delivering Social Responsibility 160
Structural Setup and Agenda of Community Programmes 164
Interim Conclusion: Issues of Legitimisation and the Dual
Function of Football Clubs 170
References 172
CONTENTS xiii
Ways Out of the Crises
Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany 179

Case Selection and Methodology 179
Club Profiles 182
Established and Traditional Football Clubs 182
Political and Protest Football Clubs 187
Membership and Attendance 190
Media Mobilisation 192
References 196
Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation,

Or—Creating Sustainable Structures 199
Structural Professionalisation 201
Football Academies and Young Talent 207
Effects of ‘Big Players’ and Other Regional Impacts 213
References 216
Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation,

Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities 219
Club Image, Identity and Agenda Setting 220
Stadiums and Assets 226
Admission Prices and Membership Fees 235
New and Old Identities 238
References 245
Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving

Credibility as Social Institutions 249
Structures of CPs at Football Clubs 250
Areas of CPs and Agenda-Setting at Clubs 253
Education, Social Work and Lifelong Learning 253
Community Activities at Clubs Without CP Structures 256
On the Inclusion of Women’s Teams 257
References 259
One Size Does Not Fit All: Comparison and Results 261
Differences in Adaptive Capabilities as a Result of Differences
in Structure 261
xiv CONTENTS
Stadiums and Club’s Assets 267

Political and Protest Football Clubs: A Dream Come True
for Football ‘Traditionalists’? 268
Hybrid Organisations and Sectoral Shifts 273
References 275
Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organisations

and Supermodern Football 277
Supermodern Football 281
References 287
Postscript: The End of Football, or: Football in the Time

of Corona 289
References 296
Index 299
Abbreviations
AFA Amateur Football Alliance

AFCL Affordable Football Club Liverpool
AGM Annual General Meeting
AMF Against Modern Football (movement)
APPFG All-Party Parliamentary Football Group
BBC British Broadcasting Company
BL Bundesliga
BSG Betriebssportgruppe (factory-based sport club in the GDR)
CBS Community Benefit Society
CCBSA Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act
CCTV Closed Circuit Television
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CES Community Engagement Strategy
CFCDS Chesterfield FC Development School
CFFC Chesterfield FC
CIC Community Interest Company
CL Champions League
CLG Company Limited by Guarantee
CLS Company Limited by Shares
CMSC Culture, Media and Sports Committee
COFC Community (aka Supporter) Owned Football Club
CP Community Programmes
CSR Corporate Social Responsibility
DFB Deutscher Fußball Bund (German Football Association)
DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga (German League Association)
DIY Do It Yourself
xv
xvi ABBREVIATIONS
DOSB Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (German Olympic Sports Feder-

ation)
EFL English Football League
ETFC Established and Traditional Football Club
EU European Union
FA Football Association (England)
FC Football Club/Fußballclub
FCUM FC United of Manchester
FIFA Federation Internationale de Football Association
FITC Football in the Community
FLT Football League Trust
FMB Funding Members Branch
FPO For Profit Organisation
FPPT Fit and Proper Person Test
FTF Football Task Force
GDR German Democratic Republic
GMS Gemeinsam Mehr Schaffen (Initiative)
HEPA Health Enhancing Physical Activity
HFC Hamburger Fußball-Club Falke e.V.
HoC House of Commons
IPS Industrial and Provident Society
ITV Independent Television
LFC Ladies Football Club
LOK 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig e.V.
MBSC Multi-Branch Sports Club (Mehrspartenverein)
MTFC Mansfield Town FC
NGB National Governing Body
NIMBY Not In My Backyard
NLT National League Trust
NLZ Nachwuchsleistungszentrum (Youth Academy)
NPO Non-Profit Organisation
PASC Public Administration Select Committee
PE Physical Education
PFA Professional Footballers Association
PL (English) Premier League
PPFC Political and Protest Football Club
PPG Points-Per-Game
PPP Public-Private Partnership
RL Regionalliga
RSL Roter Stern Leipzig e.V.
RWE Rot-Weiss Essen e.V.
SBSC Single-Branch Sport Club (Einspartenverein)
SD Supporters Direct
ABBREVIATIONS xvii
SGSA Sports Grounds Safety Authority (formerly Football Licensing

Authority)
SID Sportinformationsdienst (Sport information service)
SNCCFR Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research
ST Supporters Trust
UEFA Union des Associations Européennes de Football
UK United Kingdom
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
List of Figures
Economic Crisis: Number Games

Fig. 1 Development of the value of domestic broadcasting rights
per Premier League live match, 1992–2022 89
Fig. 2 Development of the value of domestic broadcasting rights
per season in £ million for first and second BL, 1996–2021 92
Fig. 3 Domestic broadcasting revenue in £m per season for PL and
BL rights, 1992–2019 92
Fig. 4 Aggregate revenues of clubs in English and German tiers
(2016/2017) 95
Fig. 5 Cases of English football clubs in administration, 1984–2019 100
Fig. 6 Cases of German football clubs in administration, 1992–2019 102
Fig. 7 Cases of administration, Germany and England, 1984–2019 104
Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide

Fig. 1 Number of supporter-owned football clubs (SOFCs) in
England 1993–2018 126
Fig. 2 Number of German football clubs with separated structures,
1999–2019 129
Fig. 3 Distribution of separations between top leagues and lower
leagues 130
Fig. 4 Average attendance development, PL & BL, 1990–2019 139
xix
List of Tables
Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical

Considerations
Table 1 League structures in England and Germany (2019) 30
Table 2 Typology of structural types of football clubs in England
and Germany 43
Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide

Table 1 Percentage of public stadium ownership in respective
league levels (2017) 141
Social Crisis: Building Bridges

Table 1 Community programme activities 167
Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany

Table 1 Case study overview 181
Table 2 Membership development 2013–2019 190
Table 3 Attendance during home league games 2013–2019 192
xxi
Introduction: Football Clubs, Community
and Legitimacy
‘At the Heart of Their Communities’

‘Community’ is a late-modern buzzword. It pops up with remarkable
regularity in party political agenda settings and manifestos, in urban
developmental concepts, workplace improvement strategies, architectural
design and a vast number of advertisements. One reason for this deluge
is that community has normatively always been thought of as something
inherently good. This normative approach to community is, in fact, even
manifest linguistically—as Zygmunt Bauman aptly explained, one can only
be in bad company but not in bad community (2001: 1).1 Viewed as
inherently good, community is marked by noble qualities and something
precious. The popularity of the community concept in recent years, it can
be argued, stems from its promise of an alternative to the perceived loss,
detachment and experience of placelessness and not-belonging which is
widespread among late-modern individuals. It could also be argued that
the over-emphasis of community is symptomatic of the poor state it is in:
community as an idea, as a concept, maybe even as a utopia, is en vogue
because it is, de facto, in crisis.
Community is also popular when it comes to football. Football is all
about community: the community of the players as a team, the fans on
the terraces, of football followers worldwide, but, first and foremost, the
community that is the club itself. When players or managers explain in
a press conference why they signed a contract at a new club, they cite
© The Author(s) 2020 1

D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis,
Football Research in an Enlarged Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_1
2 D. ZIESCHE
the great opportunities and the sporting perspective. But they invariably
talk about the specific quality of the club’s ‘community’. Football clubs
often refer to themselves as ‘family’,2 which has always stood for commu-
nity. Community involvement pops up in every football club’s long-term
strategy. This applies to the big clubs in the top leagues as much as it
does to any lower league small-town club. Football has a reputation for
bridging ethnic, religious, cultural and language differences—sport, in
general, is often referred to as the ‘glue’ that can repair societal cleav-
ages and ruptures. Sport functionaries and politicians never grow tired
of repeating these extraordinary claims on the social functions of sport
and, especially, of football. However, reliable data to support their claim
is lacking. The equation that community is good for society and that
football clubs are, in turn, extraordinarily good at community-creating
and therefore beneficial to society as such has become a well-established
myth. As Tony Blackshaw argues, ‘[…] community has become virtu-
ally co-extensive with the study of football. You might say that of all
the key concepts used to develop some reliable insights into contem-
porary developments of the game it is the only one that now seems
necessary’ (2008: 325). The problem with the concept of community
is that it is hard to measure and remains rather opaque, community signi-
fying holistic qualities which are more felt or experienced than structurally
graspable. Community has a quality that is evoked by the accumulation
of different aspects. But as much as the term ‘community’ is liquid, to
employ Bauman’s (2001) term, it is just as much conceptually solidi-
fied: community is either there or it is not. While society can be formed
and created, community has to evolve. The normatively laden concep-
tion of communitarianism has stressed the importance of the difference
between community and society and, moreover, the importance of the
former for the individual in late-modern society as a source of morale,
values, and social integration (Etzioni 2001, 1996 and 1993; MacIntyre
2007 [1981]; Klein and Meuser 2008).
Football clubs exist neither in an autonomous and isolated sphere nor
in a vacuum but are under the constant influence of all kinds of soci-
etal processes. These processes resonate within the clubs. Similarly, clubs,
as societal institutions, co-create their immediate surroundings. Football
clubs can offer anchor points for the construction of identity, they form
a hub for communities, and they ‘can themselves be regarded as symbols
around which the rituals of community and belonging are played out’
(Brown et al. 2006: 55). While this function might be especially valid
INTRODUCTION: FOOTBALL CLUBS, COMMUNITY AND LEGITIMACY 3
for fans and ‘football folk’ in general, the ubiquity of football in society
indeed extends to all public spheres of late-modern society and, conse-
quently, affects everyone—whether they like it or not. Football and its
symbols prove to be efficacious in shaping the day-to-day systems of
meaning in society. This does not imply that this process automatically
builds strong fan-affiliations and -identifications, but that the symbols of
football still appear in daily life—even if only peripherally.
One possible explanation for the special status of football in its organ-
ised form is that its clubs create a sense of belonging and, often being
quite traditional institutions, offer something perceived to have been lost
in the course of modernity and the development of late-modern society:
community. This functionalist perspective, as Tim Crabbe argues, has
become a paradigm in sport:
In recent times the notion of the ‘power of sport’ to do social good has
increasingly come to prominence on both social policy agendas and sports
management and marketing strategies as […] without necessarily seeking
to do so, social considerations of sport have tended to be framed by such
functionalist perspectives which emphasise what sport does to people and
for ‘society’. (Crabbe 2008: 22)
Besides community, football also offers something else for the late-
modern individual: structure. While in the ‘fluid, perpetually changing
social environment, […] the rules of the game change in the middle of
the game without warning or legible pattern’ (Bauman 2001: 48), the
rules of a football game do not. Even in a temporal dimension, football
structures the week for those who follow it. The quasi-religious character
of football has been pointed out repeatedly (Gebauer 2006): stadiums
are comparable to cathedrals or churches; the rituals of the match show
significant similarities to a holy liturgy; the chants on the terraces are the
spiritual songs of the football folk. Football also offers a deeply anachro-
nistic promise, namely the very real prospect that the underdog wins,
something that has been rare—if it ever really existed—in the competitive
rationalism of modern times. A football match creates a place for what
I would call ‘social escapism’, as it provides a setting apart from socially
imposed self-control. Elias and Dunning argued that in such leisure events
of the ‘mimetic class […,] society provides for the need to experience the
upsurge of strong emotions in public’ (1986: 71), albeit in an orderly
fashion.
4 D. ZIESCHE
All these elements have become increasingly fluid over the past three
decades or so. The Saturday afternoon match day has been stretched from
Friday to Monday, and matches themselves have reached the scale of
spectacle—with all the trappings that such events entail. The commod-
ification and commercialisation of the sport and the consumerisation of
its fans have been described in a number of studies (King 1998; Giulian-
otti 1999; Morrow 2003). I argued some years ago that these current
transformations have brought forth a politicised fan scene which tries to
‘reclaim the game’ from below (Ziesche 2011). Signs of these processes
are supporter-owned football clubs (SOFCs3 ) such as the well-researched
FC United of Manchester (FCUM), or so-called phoenix clubs, like
Lokomotive Leipzig (LOK), which were re-founded by fans after the
club went bankrupt since ‘clubs cannot die’ (Kuper and Szymanski 2009:
97–98). Furthermore, Supporters Trusts (STs), independent supporter
movements and associations, and in continental Europe the Ultras move-
ment, are all symptoms of a highly diverse and politicised fan culture
(Cleland et al. 2018; Numerato 2015; Kennedy and Kennedy 2014).
Community, even when in crisis, is at the core and the leitmotif of these
developments. Its great potential permeates through all societal layers.
Community—at a time when it is allegedly less and less felt—is moving
more and more into focus.
Research Objective and Relevance

This study focuses on lower league football clubs and examines what I
frame as the ‘broader social role’ of football clubs, that is, the interac-
tions of a club with its local surroundings. Thus, I focus on football clubs
and their roles as social, cultural, and political actors and analyse which
strategies clubs employ in order to co-create their environment and to
position themselves within their respective communities. The hypothesis
is that clubs have to take a certain path towards a specific club-identity
as they need to position themselves between either market or community
orientation.
In approaching these aspects, lower league football clubs in England
and Germany, that is, clubs at and below level three of the respective
country’s league pyramid will be investigated.4 This follows the presup-
position that upper league clubs are already predominantly driven by
market interests. As a result of this market orientation, the economic
and competitive constraints are already too tight to effectively pursue an
‘oppositional agenda’ inherent in community orientation. In the lower

leagues, however, these two forces can be seen as more balanced. Limited
resources limit the clubs in their options and decision-making. These limi-
tations, so I will argue, lead to a constant renegotiation and readjustment
of a club’s agenda and strategy to focus primarily on the question where
scarce resources should be invested.
Despite different structural alignments in England and Germany,
increasing sociocultural and political efforts can be observed in the
agendas of football clubs in both countries since the late 1990s. Commu-
nity clearly appears to be at the core of these strategies; community is what
these clubs intend to create via these efforts. Developments of the past
thirty years have had a heavy toll on club-community relations. As Taylor
pointed out, ‘the days when a football club could convincingly claim to
be at the heart of ‘its’ community are over; the issue is far more complex
and muddled nowadays. The challenge for clubs and their owners is to
find ways to overcome distrust, rather than simply to assume that loyalty
comes naturally’ (2004: 58).
Whereas so-called Football in the Community (FITC)-schemes were
launched for England’s Premier League Clubs in the 1990s to provide
a framework for clubs to ‘give something back’ to the communities in
which they were located, Germany’s clubs engage voluntarily in such
projects. In the meantime, these project structures have trickled down
the English league pyramid. Generally, clubs in the lower leagues tend
to mimic the behaviour of top clubs, including processes of profession-
alisation and structural adaptation. As lower league clubs have a crucial
disadvantage in regard to resource allocation when compared to their top
league rivals, the question is, quite literally, how these clubs manage to
stand their ground.
State of Research
Several decades have passed since the field of football studies first emerged
in Anglo-American scholarship. Today there is a vast amount of academic
literature available on football as a social and cultural phenomenon, not
to mention publications with an economic perspective. In Germany, this
academic discipline took a little longer to evolve but, over the last decade,
studying football has become an increasingly established field of research
bearing rich fruits.
6 D. ZIESCHE
Since their first emergence in the early 2000s, the study of SOFCs,
mainly FCUM, have inevitably dealt with lower league football. While a
few larger, comparably recent studies encompassing lower league football
are usually seated in the rich field of fan studies and supporter movements
(Cleland et al. 2018; García and Zheng 2017; Brandt et al. 2017), studies
of the Against Modern Football (AMF) movement or issues of democratic
participation in football are rarer, among them Porter’s (2019) study on
the structural features of supporter ownership in England. In 2015, the
volume Sport Clubs in Europe by Breuer et al. promised a ‘cross-national
comparative perspective’ on the situation and characteristics of sport clubs
in twenty European countries. While it certainly added to the under-
standing of the structures of sport clubs in different national contexts, it
did little in terms of comparison, limiting itself to presenting consecutive
case studies without developing a framework for cross-national compar-
ison. Breuer et al. (2015) provided the chapter on Germany; Nichols and
Taylor (2015) on England.
It is thanks to the work of Richard Giulianotti and Roland Robertson
that the interconnection between globalisation and football has gained
increasing scholarly attention in recent years (Giulianotti and Robertson
2007, 2009). Several collections of essays that attempted to broaden
the scope of football studies and provide more case studies have been
published since the turn of the millennium (e.g. Tiesler and Coelho
2008). Studies on globalisation and football have two predominant
aspects: Firstly, the economic aspects of the process and the worldwide
flow of capital (Morrow 2003; Szymanski 2010a, 2010b) and secondly,
how the game has been shaped by the globalisation of transfer markets,
international football governance, and the growing meaning of national
teams (Back et al. 2001). The issue of social exclusion that has emerged
with the transformation of English top league football has been dealt
with by John Williams and his colleagues from what is today known as
the ‘Leicester School’ and the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football
Research (SNCCFR) (Williams 1999; Wagg 2004). Changes and tran-
sitions within the leagues below the top tier of the Premier League,
processes of change within the structure of football clubs, transforma-
tions within the fan culture including the possible shift of fan identities as
a reaction to a cultural globalisation of English football culture, however,
have only been considered sporadically. One of the very few earlier case
studies on fan culture in lower league football has been presented by
Mainwaring and Clarke (2012). Cleland et al. (2018) also include non-
league football and mid-league clubs in their study on collective action
and football.
English language studies of football in Germany are still few, even
though there was a stark increase prior and around the World Cup in
2006 (Gethard 2006; Tomlinson and Young 2006) and in past years with
the increasing importance of football crowd management in stadiums
and the discussion about safe standing areas in English stadiums. While
German football is dealt with in broader accounts on football and its
history (Goldblatt 2007), Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger presented the first
comprehensive English language history of German football in 2003;
McDougall’s study (2014) is the only comprehensive English language
account of East German football and adds a whole new dimension to the
‘people’s game’ paradigm.
As opposed to English language studies, research in Germany has
not produced much output with a focus on hooliganism; even though
it has not disappeared the phenomenon lost its topicality too quickly
for German academia to follow. Nevertheless, the study of extreme
phenomena in football culture is still quite popular in German foot-
ball studies and so the focus soon shifted from hooligans to a close
and meanwhile quite in-depth investigation of Ultras culture (e.g. Ruf
2013; Gabler 2011; Pilz and Wölki-Schumacher 2010). Today, Ultras
make up one of the most intensively studied and, in general, most
popular parts of fan culture in Germany—and in continental Europe.5
Research teams including cultural anthropologists, sociologists among
others have contributed to the topic, while the number of papers is
increasing constantly.
Around the turn of the millennium, when the devastating effects
of the transformation of English top football on football communities
was becoming increasingly apparent, topics such as social exclusion in
the new football world were on the rise in academia. Numerous works
in the ‘whose-game-is-it-anyway?’ paradigm were published and have
contributed to a broader understanding of economic forms of exclusion
(Redhead 1997; King 1998; Wagg 2004; Williams 2006). The ‘classical’
forms of exclusion remained popular in studies that dealt with sexism,
homophobia, gender inequalities and racism in football clubs as well as
in fan and supporter culture. From an organisation’s sociological perspec-
tive, club ownership and structural alignments came into focus towards
the late 2000s, especially with regard to matters of sport organisation
governance (Ward 2013).
8 D. ZIESCHE
The global-local interplay and its cultural dimension have also

frequently been addressed (Armstrong and Mitchell 2008). In Germany,
too, several studies have focused on the global and local interrelations at
play in football culture (Jütting 2004; Klein 2008; Naglo 2014). Studies
which look at lower league clubs, however, are rare. Research on lower
league football clubs employing a transnational approach is nearly non-
existent while a modest increase in the number of studies comparing
different organisational structures can be identified. Sara Ward (2013)
undertook research on governance structures within supporter-owned
football clubs and included a German top club (Hamburger SV) to
contrast it with English cases. Naglo’s (2014) chapter on professional and
non-professional football and football culture in Germany and England is
one of the very few comparative contributions that specifically examine
lower level football. The edited volume by Waine and Naglo (2014), in
which the chapter appeared, provides a comparative perspective between
these two football nations, even though not all the authors in the bilingual
volume follow a binational comparative approach.
The community and social value of football clubs has been part of
several studies of Supporters Direct and their partner Substance, in which
different structures are contrasted and the clubs’ community impact
is measured using economic evaluation models with the purpose to
promote mutual ownership models (Barlow 2008; Spratt 2008). Qualita-
tive approaches to clubs at different levels were also included, but focused
largely on fan-related issues (Brown 2008; Supporters Direct 2010).
Brown and his colleagues could well be regarded as the ‘Manchester
School’, fuelling research on the supporter ownership model, beginning
with studies on FCUM and later expanding to further case studies and
reports for Supporters Direct.
A desideratum can be identified in the lack of systematic, cross-national
comparative approaches that deal with the social and cultural impact of
football clubs, even more so where lower league clubs are concerned.
Studies on the structural setup as it influences club development are
likewise under-represented. That said, this study can draw upon several
studies from different disciplines, including political and social sciences,
cultural studies, regional studies and sport studies. This interdisciplinary
approach consequently opens a wide range of available sources.
Scope and Method

The qualitative study is based on a mix of research methods. The
data presented in Part I (chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”,
“Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building
Bridges”) was collected from all top five tiers of football in both countries
and mainly serves to underpin the argument and contrast develop-
ments at the top with those at lower levels. For the qualitative case
study part of the research in Part II (chapters “Qualitative Case Studies
from England and Germany”, “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Profes-
sionalisation, Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”, “Cultural Coping
Mechanisms: Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”,
and “Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credi-
bility as Social Institution”) a model of methodological triangulation to
collect data on the case studies was employed. This included: (1) an anal-
ysis of the club’s structure in terms of staff, membership numbers, etc.;
(2) a content analysis of club statutes—or comparable polity—and publi-
cations; and (3) semi-structured guided expert interviews with actors in
the clubs studied.
Via means of analytic induction (Johnson 1998), the case studies will
serve to formulate explanations for the situation found in the qualitative
research. The comparative nature of the study requires a mixed approach.
Having conducted interviews at each club in April 2014 in Germany
and in October 2014 in England the comparison could be synchronic.
However, having followed the course of events at the clubs closely over
a three and a half year period from mid-2013 to the end of 2016 makes
it possible to include developments over time into the research. Events
since then up to the beginning of 2020 have been included as well insofar
as they are relevant to the argument. Data collection on a larger scale
included at least the past twenty-five years, a period that is particularly
interesting because of the ‘hard’ commercialisation and commodification
processes which have dominated the transformation of football culture in
both countries.
In total, eight clubs were selected for in-depth case studies in a four-
and-four method. These clubs fall into two categories: established clubs
and newly formed clubs. Specifics on the clubs and their selection will be
explicated in chapter four. In England, the established traditional football
clubs included in this study are Mansfield Town FC (MTFC) and Chester-
field FC (CFFC); while in Germany, Lokomotive Leipzig (LOK) and
10 D. ZIESCHE
Rot-Weiss Essen (RWE) were chosen. The initial case selection was based
on pragmatic and research logical considerations: (1) the clubs should not
play above level four in the respective league pyramid; (2) they should be
based in a region with a high density of football clubs or in a metropolitan
or urban region; (3) membership numbers (Germany)/average atten-
dance (England) should range between 1000 and 6000. Obviously, the
number of cases that meet these criteria are quite numerous. Considering
my intention to employ a phenomenological approach, the explanatory
potential of the case was prioritised over strict comparability. The cases
finally selected had all encountered financial troubles in the past, which
either forced them to close or go into administration and, in one case,
liquidation and refoundation.
Four further clubs from league levels seven to nine with a comparable
history of founding were then selected for purposes of comparison. In
the initial outset, only one club (AFC Liverpool [AFCL]) was included
in the research design. However, the founding of Hamburger FC Falke
(HFC) in 2013 marked the birth of Germany’s first protest club that
defined itself as such. It was founded in response to events around the
Hamburger SV and thus proved to be of great interest for this study. The
development is in some respects comparable to FC United of Manchester
(FCUM), which led to the decision to include both clubs in the study.
Then, to complete the quartet in this group of clubs as well as allow
for even more comparison, Roter Stern Leipzig (RSL) as a young, lower
league club in German football that is committed to a decidedly left-wing
political agenda is included. These last four clubs are direct reactions to
various aspects of the crises of football that will be described in Part I
of this study. In Part II they will serve to illustrate alternative approaches
that have expanded the scope of present football club culture. These clubs
are what I call political and protest football clubs (PPFCs). All clubs will
be described in more detail in chapter “Qualitative Case Studies from
England and Germany”.
Key Theoretical Concepts

The research question and the outlined points of departure demand
a wider, multilevel and multidimensional conceptual approach to do
justice to the complexity of specific processes and differentiate between
them. Accordingly, the meta-theories and conceptual frames central to
the considerations that follow will be briefly discussed, specifically the

concepts of legitimisation and glocalisation.
Legitimisation and Isomorphism

Issues of organisational legitimisation play a central role in neo-
institutionalist thought, legitimacy being a significant factor for any
organisation in any environment (Hellmann 2006: 75). As legitimisa-
tion as such is primarily concerned with power relations, it is a highly
political concept. Max Weber, who dealt with the concept mainly in
terms of authority, defined three ‘pure’ types of the legitimisation of such
authority: legal, traditional and charismatic (Smith 1970: 17). Without
elaborating on Weber’s concept at greater length here, suffice it to say that
his notion of a double mechanism, that is, that rule can only be legitimate
if is legitimised, is of relevance here. As Berger and Luckmann aptly put
it ‘legitimation is the process of “explaining” and justifying. […] Legit-
imation “explains” the institutional order by ascribing cognitive validity
to its objectivated meanings. Legitimation justifies the institutional order
by giving a normative dignity to its practical imperatives’ (1966: 93).
Hellmann (2006) emphasises that Berger and Luckmann’s distinction
between normative and cognitive dimensions of legitimacy was central to
its role in neo-institutionalist thought (76–77). The neo-institutionalist
approach moved issues of legitimisation away from power relations in the
sense of enacted authority to situate it instead in a discussion about the
stability or resilience of organisations.
The approaches relevant here draw largely on Meyer and Rowan
(1977) and DiMaggio and Powell (1983), who examined issues of
legitimisation and the ability of organisations to meet expectations
and, respectively, the tendency to institutional isomorphism. While both
processes can, in fact, be linked, each of these approaches will be briefly
explained. In short, the argument made by Meyer and Rowan is that insti-
tutions do not just survive because they are particularly efficient—which
football clubs, by all means, are not, as this study will show—but that
their survival is also related to their ability to meet certain expectations
made towards the institution as such. These expectations arise in part
from within the institution, but primarily derive from other institutions
in their environment. As long as the expectations are met, an institution
can count on being legitimised (Meyer and Rowan 1977: 352). Organ-
isations that ‘omit environmentally legitimated elements of structure’ on
12 D. ZIESCHE
the other hand, ‘lack acceptable legitimated accounts of their activities.

Such organisations are more vulnerable to claims that they are negligent,
irrational or unnecessary’ (ibid.: 349–350).
Hellmann (2006) points out that Meyer and Rowan also employ the
term ‘legitimated vocabularies’ first coined by Berger and Luckmann
to describe the institutional usage of words which are per se legiti-
mate (p. 78). This vocabulary and behaviour do not have to be aligned
but can be decoupled (Meyer and Rowan 1977: 357). An example with
regard to football clubs: as long as a club’s community-building poten-
tial is verbalised by the right institutions—and in this case, by literally
any institution considering the legitimisation of the word ‘community’—
the club’s actual activity can even be contradictory to that claim without
it being noticed. Also, due to the fulfilment of environmental expecta-
tions—even if expressed only in the legitimised language which surrounds
the club—its institutional legitimacy will not be questioned, even if the
club is neither efficient nor effective—or, even because it is not. There-
fore, organisations need legitimised structures to gain environmental
legitimisation, which will inevitably lead to similar structures for gaining
legitimisation in other organisations in the same field. This ‘institutional
isomorphism’ is seen as the result of three alignment incentives: coer-
cive, mimetic, or normative incentives (DiMaggio and Powell 1983: 150).
The first refers to giving into pressure from outside, for example, from
superordinate organisations such as lawmakers; the second incentive is
the mimicking of successful attempts by other institutions due to uncer-
tainty; and the third refers to processes of professionalisation that are
used to meet competitive demands. While for the present study all three
processes play a role, the term ‘institutional mimicry’ will be used to refer
to isomorphic effects in general. This term also encompasses DiMaggio
and Powell’s statement that ‘organizations tend to model themselves after
similar organizations in their field that they perceive to be more legitimate
or successful’ (ibid.: 152).
The institutionalist approach also requires some explanation as one of
the main lines of critique against institutionalist approaches in general
is that they are far better at explaining continuity than change, which
these approaches mostly accredit to exogenous shocks (Schmidt 2010).
I follow Schmidt in her attempt to break this paradigm and shift atten-
tion to the ‘inner’ processes of institutions, that is, the norms and values
and the debates and discourses which shape them. However, contrary to
Schmidt, I consider this focus on dynamics an integral part of the socio-

logical institutionalist concept, which has always been perfectly suited for
a process-oriented, dynamic analysis and understanding of change within
institutions (ibid.: 13). As I perceive football clubs as learning organisa-
tions which—depending on their structural setup—are subject to constant
change and adaptation, sociological institutionalism serves as a further
theoretical anchor point for this study.
Glocalisation: Local Responses to Global Effects

While numerous works have dealt extensively with the effects of economic
globalisation in football, this work will discuss the effects of an ongoing
cultural globalisation on lower league football clubs. Football is without
doubt a sphere of contact and agglomeration of globalisation processes
(Giulianotti 1999), a space where these processes can be found and
studied in a compressed form—which is why it is particularly suited for
this kind of research. This fact equally leads to processes of dissolution
of boundaries and spatial reconfiguration, or what Giddens called ‘disem-
bedding’ (1990: 21). Thus, in the wake of this transformation, reference
points for collective identity formation have shifted massively since they
no longer have a local or regional character but rather seem to be defined
globally. How local and regional identities constitute and maintain, ques-
tion and reinvent themselves within this process are questions which relate
directly to the spatial dimension of football clubs.
Globalisation has been used as a universal tool for explaining change
processes, often at the expense of the effects that it causes on multiple
levels. Yet globalisation is not a process shaped by binary antagonisms—in
which the global either subsumes the local or the local is in a perma-
nent struggle against the global, that is, that one is either superior
or inferior to the other— nor should it be approached on the basis
of normative absolutes in which globalisation is either entirely ‘good’
or ‘bad’ (Gaonkar 2007: 11). Rather, it has to be considered as an
interdependent and intertwined process that can be better understood
with the concept of ‘glocalisation’. Glocalisation was first introduced
by Roland Robertson into the globalisation debate and is meant to
‘make explicit the ‘heterogenising’ aspects of globalisation’ (1994: 1).
Robertson argued ‘that glocalisation has some definite conceptual advan-
tages in the general theorisation of globalisation’ (ibid.). The term
initially referred to reactions and interactions of the local towards and
14 D. ZIESCHE
with the process of globalisation, but underwent further development

and differentiation over the years, most prominently in the works of
Zygmunt Bauman (2001) and George Ritzer (2004a). Glocalisation has
been discussed extensively with regard to sport in general and football
in particular—by Robertson himself in his collaborations with Giulian-
otti (Giulianotti and Robertson 2004, 2007 and 2009). Certain notions
within the globalisation debate—‘Western cultural imperialism’, ‘Amer-
icanization’6 , ‘McDonaldisation’ (Ritzer 2004b), and ‘grobalisation’7
(Ritzer 2003; Ritzer and Ryan 2002; also Appadurai 1996)—must not be
perceived as singular or dogmatic matters of fact but, following Giulian-
otti and Robertson (2009), should instead be seen as embedded into
a system of simultaneous and nonexclusive interrelations—global–local,
partial–universal, homogenisation–heterogenisation.
The interrelations between localisation and globalisation processes are
central to the theoretical conception of this study. At the top level of
football, which is the most globalised, the processes are crucial for under-
standing those in the leagues below. Lower league football clubs, while
rarely represented in international competitions and on the surface far
away from the topflight, are also affected directly and indirectly by these
processes which first appear at the top. This is especially true in the face of
the enormous financial dominance of the leagues at the top as in the case
of TV revenues for example, but also with regard to the popularity and
attention the big clubs and competitions accumulate. Top level football
is culturally hegemonic. This makes competition harder for smaller, lower
league clubs and the processes of homogenisation ultimately result in the
absorption of the local by the global. However, Ritzer (2003) suggests
that especially under the threat of globalising processes, the local gains in
particularity and specialty as a contrast to a global ‘other’; the local can be
expressed more easily. Thus, the relationship to the upper clubs also deter-
mines the strategic agenda for lower league clubs, which might decide to
focus on the training of new player potential, human resources or ‘human
capital’, establish a sustainable and efficient youth training centre and gain
the status of a talent pool which is then able to sell their players to bigger
clubs. In doing so the small club might play out its strategic advantage of
being closer to the local community, as will be illustrated further in the
course of this study. Lower league clubs might also profit from advances
made at the top level in terms of new training methods and thus can use
existing knowledge without having to invest in it.
As will be shown in Part I, the role top level football in its various
manifestations plays in the emergence of football culture at lower levels
cannot be overestimated. Various authors have pointed out the influence
that the topflight game has on playing practices even at the lowest level
of the football pyramid (Naglo 2014; Giulianotti and Robertson 2004).
From diving to the intimidation of the referee—even in youth teams—to
playing on artificial turf for the alleged benefit of more attractive foot-
ball, the list of mimicking processes in the leagues below is long—as is
the process of interrelations between the global and the local football
sphere. But also in a cultural understanding, lower league football—in its
semi-professional and professional form, as well as in the non-professional
leagues—is always connected to the global sphere of top class football
and exists in close connection to its discourses and practices. These ‘dis-
course interconnections’ (Naglo 2014: 239) between upper and lower
league football become apparent on a structural as well as on a cultural
level—e.g. when the nicknames within an amateur team refer to foot-
ball heroes—but they do not end there. In fact, on a structural level
these interconnections will eventually lead to institutional mimicry, that
is, the structural adaptation of top league ‘role-model’ concepts by lower
league clubs. By copying training methods used by professional teams,
lower league clubs train to play like their role models in the Champions
League (CL) and consequently play the global interpretation of the game.
For example, artificial turf is becoming ever more popular, not only for
financial reasons and a lack of skilled groundkeepers but also in order
to practise a fast-paced, modern style of play (ibid.: 258). Beside the
sport-relevant sphere, institutional mimicry also comes into play in other
processes, for example, when corporate identities are conceptualised and
professional branding agencies become involved; when full-time positions
are created to provide for a more consistent running of a club; when
public relations strategies used by bigger clubs are adopted; or when ties
to bigger clubs are established factually—e.g. via transfers—or ideally—
e.g. via naming role models when talking about the atmosphere in the
club or the stadium. In short, the sum of professionalisation processes
can lead to a gradual institutional homogenisation between top level and
lower league level clubs.
16 D. ZIESCHE
Structure
The next chapter identifies differences and similarities in the club and
league structures of both systems and explains the theoretical founda-
tion of the study in more detail. Then follow two analytical parts: the
first, entailing chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, “Cultural
Crisis: The Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”, exam-
ines the empirical material collected during the research period, while
the second, comprising chapters “Qualitative Case Studies from England
and Germany”, “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation,
Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”, “Cultural Coping Mechanisms:
Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”, and “Social
Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social
Institutions”, discusses the qualitative case studies conducted in lower
league clubs in England and Germany. Chapter “One Size Does Not
Fit All: Comparison and Results” then relates the insights from both
parts to one another and compares the findings from both national
contexts. Chapter “Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organizations and
Supermodern Football” concludes the study and presents an outlook for
further research. The focus thus shifts gradually from the macro level in
terms of theoretical considerations as well as the broader institutional
frame, functions and pressures (chapter “Setting the Scene: Structural
Differences and Theoretical Considerations”), to the meso level and
the context in which lower league football and the tri-part crisis will
be discussed (chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, “Cultural
Crisis: The Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”), to the
‘meso-micro’ level in chapters “Qualitative Case Studies from England
and Germany”, “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation,
Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”, “Cultural Coping Mechanisms:
Communitisation, Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”, and “Social
Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving Credibility as Social
Institutions” where the individual clubs and their adaptive strategies to
meet the crisis will become the focus. The following lays out the structure
in more detail.
Following the general overview on the topic and key concepts as
well as my presuppositions provided in this introduction, chapter two
will lay out the basic institutional and historical framework and intro-
duce my approach to clubs as cultural, social and political actors. First,
the different types of institutional prefigurations found in Germany and
England, both at a league and club level will be discussed, followed by the
factors that propel club transformation and development, as well as the
clubs’ potential functions in society. Following analysis of these processes,
I postulate a dual function of football clubs, as I lay out the concepts of
communitisation and societisation.
In chapters “Economic Crisis: Number Games”, “Cultural Crisis: The
Great Divide”, and “Social Crisis: Building Bridges”, the specifics of lower
league football in relation to the game at the top level will be investigated.
In pointing out the three states of crisis in which clubs find themselves
I present the results of the data collection on lower league clubs. First,
I will deal with the economic crisis (chapter “Economic Crisis: Number
Games”), which is marked by the tense financial situation in lower league
football and is the result of meagre league revenues and competitive
pressure, leading to a constant threat of liquidation. The cultural crisis
(chapter “Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide”) is characterised by the
rupture between clubs and their communities. I show that this crisis is
not a recent phenomenon and point out how the crisis materialised in the
lower leagues, mainly by drawing on stadium-related notions of ‘loss of
place’. The third specific crisis is the social crisis (chapter “Social Crisis:
Building Bridges”), which is marked by the wider public pressure encoun-
tered by football clubs and the spread of community programmes in lower
league football as a means to meet this pressure. Each of these crises is
understood as symptomatic and contributes to issues in the legitimisation
of the football club as a societal institution.
The second analytical part discusses the findings from the case
studies in lower league football and describes the strategies by which
clubs seek to confront the crises explicated in the previous part.
After introducing the studied clubs (chapter “Qualitative Case Studies
from England and Germany”), the strategies taken by clubs in both
countries in three crisis areas will be described. The first of these
chapters (chapter “Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation,
Or—Creating Sustainable Structures”) is concerned with the creation
of sustainable structures in terms of professionalisation processes, the
creation of academies and the ways in which clubs react to the pres-
ence of larger clubs in their vicinity. I then shift to strategies which
can be regarded as part of the community-building function of foot-
ball clubs (chapter “Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation,
Or—(Re-)Engaging with Communities”), that is, strategies to engage the
cultural crisis, for example, by creating new anchor points for collective
18 D. ZIESCHE
identities. The closing chapter of this part of the analysis discusses strate-
gies which can be seen as part of an agenda to improve a club’s status
as a societal actor, namely the community programmes launched by the
clubs (chapter “Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving
Credibility as Social Institutions”).
Bringing together both empirical parts of the analysis, chapter “One
Size Does Not Fit All: Comparison and Results” compares the findings
on domestic, cross-national, cross-structural and cross-cultural levels and
contrasts the findings on the PPFCs to outline the impact these clubs
might have on the institutional discourse on lower league football clubs.
Finally, chapter “Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organizations and Super-
modern Football” concludes the study, wrapping up the results of the
individual chapters into an overall argument and assessing the conse-
quences for the academic debate and open questions that will require
further research.
The general argument is the following: Three crises are derived heuris-
tically from the data to illustrate the situation of lower league football
clubs in both national contexts. The project draws on Berger and
Luckman’s (1966) and Meyer and Rowan’s (1977) neo-institutionalist
conceptualisation of organisational legitimacy, arguing that those organi-
sations which are unable to fulfil expectations made by their environment
are left vulnerable to claims of redundancy. The study argues that
lower league football clubs find themselves in a legitimacy dilemma—
i.e. inability to fulfil expectations of their environment, either culturally,
economically or politically/socially. The data to support this argument is
fielded in three ideal–typical areas, reflected by the three crises. Conse-
quently, clubs seek to resolve the issues of legitimacy—or at least limit
their negative effects—by following paths for organisational develop-
ment and employing modes of institutional isomorphism in combination
with glocalisation processes (Ritzer 2003; Robertson 1994). These ideal–
typical paths follow a strategy of either a professionalised market orien-
tation—e.g. full-time professional CEO—or a networking community
orientation—e.g. community programmes—with a third way in between
being the obvious middle ground. This results in a tendency towards an
incremental institutional alignment between club models in England and
Germany with examples of counter pressure in both national cases.
Notes
1. In German, the semantic touch is equally manifest as here, one can only
be in schlechter Gesellschaft (bad company).
2. Exemplarily see https://fcbayern.com/de/club/werte/familie; http://
www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20170113/-i-m-happy-part-of-the-
arsenal-family-.
3. The terms Fan-owned Football Club (FOFC) or Community-owned Foot-
ball Club (COFC) are used as equivalents throughout the literature and
bear no difference in meaning. I will use SOFC since the term is better
established within academic literature and is also used by SD.
4. In line with other authors—e.g. Mainwaring and Clarke 2012—in using
‘lower league’ I refer to everything below the top two levels of the football
pyramid of each country. While later in the study I will further differentiate
between mid-league—levels three to five—and low-league—level six and
downwards—levels, lower league serves as the encompassing umbrella term.
5. Ultra culture has not gained a significant foothold in British clubs or any
significant influence. This might change in the foreseeable future as some
notable exceptions, such as has been indicated by Charlton Athletic or
Celtic Glasgow and at some lower league clubs like Whitehawk FC.
6. In terms of ‘Americanisation’, developments in this direction can be seen,
especially when it comes to the presentation of live matches in the media.
American media culture tropes—particularly as manifested in American
Football—are enormous and have been adopted not only by football.
Animated portraits who turn their heads to the camera during the presen-
tations of the squads was first introduced in American Football, as was
continuing to show the game in a smaller window during advertising breaks
as first practised during the World Cup of 1994. Further developments
which represent a TV-Americanisation go as far back as names on jerseys
or jersey and stadium sponsors. Mascots are added to this arsenal, as are
cheerleaders. Goal-line technology and video assistants can be seen in this
tradition. In English football, the influence of American capital on the game
itself could also be regarded as a form of Americanisation.
7. “Grobalisation” is a neologism introduced by George Ritzer (consisting of
the words ‘grow’ and ‘globalisation’), who proposed it to be the coun-
terfeit to glocalisation, meaning the all-consuming growth of transnational
enterprises or companies that then subsume the local (Ritzer 2003).
20 D. ZIESCHE
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Setting the Scene: Structural Differences
and Theoretical Considerations
Football clubs are ostensibly uncomplicated organisations: they exist to

facilitate participation in, and the spectating of, organised football. But
beyond this plain statement there is a complex and contested debate about
the objectives and purpose of these clubs. (Hamil and Morrow 2008: 1)
While Hamil and Morrow’s ‘plain’ statement about the ostensible func-
tions of football clubs seems well crafted and condensed, it can be reduced
even further: football clubs exist to facilitate participation in organised
football. It has been questioned whether the spectating part belongs to
the core of a club’s functions or whether this is not already part of the
‘debate’ mentioned by the authors. Surely, with regard to the semi and
full professional leagues, it is fair to say that the clubs primarily seek
to provide attractive spectator sport. But even in the lower leagues and
the clubs encompassed in this study, the presence of spectators and the
presentation of football to an audience are an integral part of the club
though, presumably, of differing importance. Today, football clubs come
in all colours, shapes and sizes. Moreover, their role in and for society has
changed dramatically since their—first—founding period in the second
half of the nineteenth century. Thus, as so often happens with issues being
taken into academic foci, the matter is of course not as simple as it might
seem at first glance.
© The Author(s) 2020 25

D. Ziesche, Lower League Football in Crisis,
Football Research in an Enlarged Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53747-0_2
26 D. ZIESCHE
As this thesis will show, although their role within and for society has
changed, football clubs—of the German and English kind—are aston-
ishingly stable institutions with regard to their structural alignments; in
the wake of the proclaimed multidimensional crisis of this kind of ‘inter-
mediary organisation’ (Zimmer 1996: 186), one might even be tempted
to call football clubs astonishingly resilient organisations. The following
chapter will serve to shed light on my mixed conceptual and theoret-
ical approach to football clubs. It will also outline the different structural
alignments which exist both within the league system and in club struc-
tures. Consequently, the chapter is split into two larger parts. The first
delivers the structural differences at club and league levels between the
two national football systems, while the second is devoted to the concep-
tual and theoretical framework of the study. The chapter is thus focused
on institutional structures as well as on the functions and processes of and
within football clubs and the features which make them cultural and social
institutions. I chose this perhaps unusual order because the theoretical
and conceptual part builds upon and addresses many of the institutional
prefigurations, so these need to be introduced first.
Structures: ‘The Great Divide’, or: Institutional

Prefigurations and Their Long-Term Impact
One of the first issues in the conceptualisation of this study was the
different points of departure when looking at the institutional prefigu-
ration of football clubs in England and Germany. In this chapter, the
implications of these differences for a comparative, contemporary analysis
will be discussed. As sport organisations and sport systems in both coun-
tries developed quite differently and during different periods, flagging
out these structural differences is of central importance to the further
comparative analysis in this thesis. The structural differences also affect
the underlying question of this thesis, which is: do institutions matter?
How does the structural difference of an institution affect the societal
roles and functions of that institution? What effect do structural differ-
ences have with regard to strategies of adaptation of said institution? Do
these strategies again result in new structures?
I have split this first part of the chapter into three main sections. First,
the systemic and institutional differences between the German Verein and
the English club are investigated in terms of their natural setup and its
immanent impact on the role both organisations play in the framework
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Miss Forbes might pleasantly have answered Karl, that the
ceremony to which he objected is a conventionalized expression of
the regard men have for women. “You love your mother, don’t you?
She does more for you that you can repay, doesn’t she? Now, all
other right-minded boys and men feel the same way about their
mothers. And so they all agreed, a long time ago, that they would pay
this mark of respect to women.”
This explanation would serve very well for the school, but it would
be wise to have a private talk with Karl and explain to him more fully
the considerations that underlie all chivalrous customs. Put upon a
basis of rationalized justice, the custom of hat-raising will win hearty
support from Karl, but as a mere matter of unexplained tradition it
makes no appeal whatever to him.
COMMENTS
We have here a case where the love of approbation, strong enough

in the average child to be used in fixing a good habit, does not
function. Karl does not care enough for the approbation of parents,
teacher or friends to make him do a thing not approved by his
reason. The incident is inserted here because it is exceptional and
illustrates the occasional case in which the love of approbation can
not be used as an incentive. As a rule, the love of approval, of being
considered “a gentleman” or “a little lady,” is strong enough to give
all the motivation necessary for teaching good manners.
ILLUSTRATION (EIGHTH GRADE)
Miss Hendrickson taught in the town of Ridgeway, where the

leading industries were carried on in factories of various kinds.
Nearly all the parents worked in some one of these. Naturally, with
their long hours of work, these parents had little time for such
secondary matters as polishing their children’s manners. Most of
them were thankful if they could feed the hungry youngsters and
provide a place where they could sleep.
Miss Hendrickson soon became aware that the matter of teaching
good manners devolved upon her exclusively. She also felt that a
direct attack upon the rude customs of her pupils would be less
effective than indirect procedure, since refined manners in this
particular community usually resulted in having the scornful epithet,
“Stuck-up!” attached to the possessor of said manners.
After careful deliberation, Miss Interest in
Hendrickson decided to take advantage of Manners
the story period in laying the foundation for more explicit teaching of
manners later. Accordingly, she began the story of the feudal system
and the institution of chivalry that sprang from it, a story always
appealing to seventh and eighth grade pupils. She told how the
feudal lord had to build strong castles for the safety of his family in
those days of warfare. She vividly portrayed life in the castle, and
showed how women also often had to do brave, daring acts in
defending the castle when the husband was away. She explained how
little boy pages were trained to wait on the ladies of the castle and to
be polite to them, and how, when these same boys were older and
became knights their highest duty was to protect these women who
had few neighbors and who were shut up much of the time in the
castles because it was unsafe to go abroad, and how the women
returned this care by making the homecoming a very happy time for
the lords and husbands whenever they came back from war. As the
story progressed from day to day, Miss Hendrickson developed the
thought that this sort of life in the castle gradually changed in many
ways the ideals and habits of the people. Poetry and music, for other
than religious purposes, began to be written and sung, and the rude
people who had formerly laughed at refinement in manners as
something effeminate and unsuited to a warrior, began to realize
after a while that a man could be brave and strong, yet at the same
time be gentle and polite toward women and toward all who were
weaker or more dependent than himself. So, in time, the lords began
to vie with each other to see who could be most polite or who could
render the greatest service to his lady.
Chivalry sprang up, and, indeed, died out, many hundreds of years
ago, yet it still has an influence over us, for we still use the term lady,
not meaning now, exclusively, the wife of a lord, but any woman who
is worthy of our respect. And a chivalrous man is still a man who is
polite to women, and who always springs to their defense whenever
they need protection. Gentlemen in those days meant a lord or
someone of high birth. But such men had more refined manners than
had the other people, or serfs, as they were called, having been
trained in chivalry; and today we use the term in this country to
mean any man who has fine manners.
Of course Miss Hendrickson told the story very much more in
detail than has been done here. She dwelt upon phases which she
knew would strongly appeal to the children and illustrated them with
many pictures borrowed from the library. She had the children bring
in baskets of stones from the river bank and asked two of the boys
who had the most offensive manners to build a miniature castle on
the sand table. She read a few of the poems sung by the minnesingers
and troubadours, and the oath which the squires must take before
they could be dubbed knights.
All this time Miss Hendrickson had said very little about the
personal manners of her pupils, but she had substituted a new ideal
regarding the desirability of good manners for the crude one
generally held by her pupils. She had made such manners seem
attractive, and thereafter when a child was about to do some act
which she could not approve, she would often say, “What would a
knight do, James, in such a case?” and many times the suggestion
was sufficient to induce the desired conduct.
7. Submitting to State Control
CASE 145 (EIGHTH GRADE)
The Longfellow School was situated in one of the most congested

foreign settlements of one of our largest and most cosmopolitan
cities. Very few of the parents of the pupils could speak any but the
most broken English. Many made no attempt to converse in the
difficult language of the strange new world to which they had come.
The board of education was particularly Saluting Flag
anxious that the children of these foreign
parents should be trained in appreciation of American institutions
and in reverence for the American Flag, with all it stands for. They
requested that all the national holidays should be made the occasion
of special programs to which parents should be invited and that each
afternoon when the schools were dismissed each pupil should salute
the flag both verbally and with the hand.
Most of the children entered into the custom without demur, but
one boy of fifteen, Hans Neuhaus, refused to give the salute.
“Hans, everyone is expected to give the salute,” said his teacher,
William Hoover. “Once more, now.” Still Hans remained silent.
“Hans, I wish you to give the salute with the others.”
“I don’t believe in saluting the flag,” said Hans. “It isn’t my flag,
anyhow. I’m not going to salute that flag.”
“Hans, you must salute it,” said the now exasperated teacher. “The
board requires it, and if you do not obey we can not have you in this
school.”
“All right, then. I’ll go,” and Hans cooly took his books from his
desk and walked out.
Three days later, as Hans did not reappear at the school, he was
arrested for truancy and taken before the juvenile court. Under the
coercion of the court he was made to return to the school and to give
the daily salutes.
CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT
Try a roundabout way of getting at Hans’ difficulty. For a little

while, at least, appear not to notice that he is not joining with others.
Meanwhile, in the story period, or in the history class study, in a
simple and interesting way, tell the history of the flag and the
principles for which it stands. Imagine yourself in Hans’ place—that
is, that you are a foreigner in a strange land, and that it is the flag of
another country that you are asked to salute. What considerations
would make you willing to do it? When this question is answered in
your own mind, then set out to win the allegiance of Hans.
Keep watch on the playground to see if some of Hans’ hostility has
not been caused by unkind teasing on the part of other children.
COMMENTS
Only the outward form of loyalty can be brought about by force.
Mr. Hoover forgot that only an intelligent understanding and
appreciation can be the basis of true loyalty, and these require time
in which to develop. He should be more concerned, then, in the
conditions favorable to a steady growth of these attitudes than about
mere compliance to outward, conventional form. Saluting the flag
and honoring the flag may be two quite different acts.
ILLUSTRATION (THIRD GRADE)
Miss Beardsley, of the Lincoln School in Honoring the

Newport, taught her class, by many little Flag
talks and allusions to venerate the ideals of the national flag rather
than the flag itself. “Only noble-hearted persons have a right to stand
under that flag,” she often said. Then, when some especially
praiseworthy act had been performed by any child during the day,
she would call that one forward to stand under the flag that was
gracefully draped in the corner of her school-room, while the others
gave the salute just before going home at the close of the day’s
session. The children soon began to vie with each other, in helping a
younger child, in being polite, keeping desks tidy—anything that
would especially entitle them to stand under the flag—the greatest
honor the teacher could confer. Thus the pupils learned to associate
true patriotism, so far as a young child could understand it, with the
symbol of state control.
8. Self-Regulation
(1) Wise choices in human relationships. Sooner or later in the life
of every normal child, the more or less arbitrary control of parent
and teacher must give way to self-regulation of conduct. Happy is
that boy or girl who has been unconsciously practiced in self-control
and wise choosing before that day comes when he no longer has a
wise counselor at hand in life’s startling emergencies.
CASE 146 (HIGH SCHOOLS)

“Well, you’re going to the gayest place on the coast, and when you
come back in the fall I shall expect you to bring us some startling
ideas for our winter fun, Constance. Do see if you can’t pick up
something really new. We’ve done the same old thing so long, you
know! Well, goodbye. Have a good time!”
Miss Osgood stood on the platform and Choosing
waved her handkerchief to the Yule children Companions
and their delicate little mother, who were off for Greenwood Beach
for the month of August. The Yule young people were much flattered
by Miss Osgood’s attention, for she was a young matron in a very
fashionable private “finishing school” for young ladies. She was also
quite a favorite in the society outside of the school, as well as the
organizer of all the social functions within it. Constance, especially
(who at eighteen had just finished high school and would be “coming
out” next winter), thought she was a lucky girl to have Miss Osgood
notice her in such a way as to indicate that it would be possible for
her to suggest valuable ideas to Miss Osgood’s fertile mind. Inwardly
she resolved that if any startling ideas were floating around at
Greenwood Beach, she would bring them back and lay them at Miss
Osgood’s feet. Her brother Clarence, a sophomore at college; Helen,
who was a high school sophomore, and Kenyon, just finishing
grammar school, were as eager as Constance for good times; but
Constance was the leader, and as her mother was not strong enough
thoroughly to oversee her children’s lives, Constance led the others
in whatever they did.
“Oh, you dear—it’s so lucky you came tonight!” one of her friends
gushed, as they entered the hotel which was to be their temporary
home, late Saturday afternoon. “We’re planning a coaching party for
all day tomorrow, and need two more to make up the party. Won’t
you and your brother go?”
Constance reflected. She knew her mother, who was at the desk
arranging for rooms, would want them to go to church the next day,
and to rest after the long trip. Still, going to church and resting gave
one no startling ideas, and it was certainly not having “a good time.”
So she consented, and later cajoled her reluctant mother into a
grudging consent.
Having started out with the idea of social gayety rather than of rest
and recreation, Constance soon became a leader in the gayest life at
the hotel. She even planned the champagne supper at the old sailors’
tavern, which was written up in the New York papers. Her old
friends, the wholesome girls with whom she had tramped and gone
swimming in previous summers, soon found that she had no time for
them, and began to avoid her. The month resolved itself, for her and
Clarence and Helen, into a feverish rush of engagements. Constance
came home in September tired and sophisticated, but full of those
sensational ideas that Miss Osgood had said she wanted. She met
Miss Osgood at a tea before long, and hoping to gain her notice and
become her companion, she regaled the ladies present with a lively
account of her summer’s gayety.
After she had gone, there was a little silence. Then Miss Osgood
said to the other women:
“Isn’t it a pity the Greenwood Beach should have spoiled
Constance so? She was such a sweet girl last summer, and now she
seems like a jaded old society belle, and a belle not too particular as
to her companions at that. I suppose she’ll be the rage this winter,
but I shall rather steer clear of her.”
Constance’s case calls for the application of the principles of

suggestion and of initiative in coöperation. See to it that no young
person who has been under your influence for a period of months or
years goes to a new and different world without trying to indicate to
that person how he or she may get the best rather than the worst out
of the novel experience. A little conversation as to the purpose of the
trip, a few suggestions as to the interesting places that may be
visited, a little reading together of the historical or other literature
connected with the new field, a helpful word as to how the trip may
be made beneficial to the friends who are not fortunate enought to
enjoy such pleasures, may give direction to ambitions which
otherwise will expend themselves upon unworthy ends.
COMMENTS
Girls and boys in the adolescent period are possessed of so many
conflicting ideals that they may be turned in any one of half a dozen
directions at a psychological moment. Just at the time when
Constance was feeling very grown up, and was looking forward to a
very vivid experience of some kind, Miss Osgood thoughtlessly
dropped the suggestion which colored all of Constance’s thoughts
and acts during her vacation. Instead of trying to gain Miss Osgood’s
approbation she should have spent her month in growing strong and
brown in the open air, in helping to make the life at the hotel simple
and wholesome and health-building; but Miss Osgood’s influence all
went the other way.
It is important that even chance acquaintances watch their casual
injunctions to young people, not only because they may have so
much more influence than they dream, but also because they may
speak at a time when the mind of the hearer is peculiarly sensitive to
suggestion.
ILLUSTRATION (HIGH SCHOOL)
Dodge Monroe was changing from the A Wise Choice

East High School to the Sidney Lanier,
because his parents were moving farther out in the suburbs. A few
nights before they left for their new home, the Claytons gave the
Monroes a farewell dinner, and Dodge, much to his delight, was
included in the invitation. It was his first dinner party, and in his
new Tuxedo he felt very grown up and manly.
Over the salad Mr. Clayton turned to Dodge, who was beginning to
feel a bit left out of the grown people’s conversation.
“And you change now to the Sidney Lanier High School?” he
inquired.
“Yes, sir. I start there next Monday.”
“I know they’re sorry to lose you in the East, but you’ll make an
equally good record in Sidney Lanier. And it must be an inspiration
to any boy to attend a school named after such a man. He could
hardly be unworthy, having such an example of manhood always
before him.”
Dodge knew nothing about Sidney Lanier, but this aroused his
curiosity, and on Sunday afternoon he went to the branch library and
read up on Sidney Lanier. As the details of that brave and beautiful
life became real to him, he found himself measuring his own
character by the standard of Lanier’s. He took out Lanier’s “Boy’s
Froissart” to read.
That week he met dozens of new boys. Being frank and strong, he
was liked at once, and many acquaintances offered. Some of the boys
seemed all that boys should be; others, he knew, his mother would
not approve as his friends. This thought came to him:
“Back at East I’d just grown up with the fellows, and knew
everybody. Here there’s a bigger school, and I can’t know them all.
I’ll have to choose. If I’m trying to make myself like Sidney Lanier,
why not try some such test in regard to the fellows?”
This is what Dodge did, more or less consciously. Mr. Clayton’s
admiration for a fine man, expressed in the most casual way, had a
determining effect upon Dodge’s character.
(2) Religious attitudes. If regulation of conduct between man and
man must become eventually a matter of individual choosing, in a
still higher degree must religious attitudes become an issue for self-
regulation. The teacher’s problem, then, is to throw about the pupil a
social environment which shall stimulate the pupil’s highest ideals,
but yet without encroaching upon his individual liberty and
responsibility.
CASE 147 (HIGH SCHOOL)
Mr. Grey was distressed at the lack of church-going in the little

town to which he had come as principal. A very religious man
himself, he never missed a service and never failed to find
satisfaction and help in one, no matter how unprofitable it might
seem to others. When, therefore, he observed that few of his high
school pupils attended the village church, he resolved to talk to them
about it.
“I want to talk to you about a matter Going to Church
which is far more important to you than
your education,” he began “Education will fit you to do your part well
in this world, but religion teaches you about the world to come, and
is, therefore, more valuable to you, since eternity so far transcends
time. I am here to train your minds, but unless you go to church your
souls, which are far more important than your minds, have no
training at all. ‘What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world
and lose his own soul?’ Right now, while you’re young, you ought to
be forming church-going habits, even if you don’t care for church.
You’ll get used to it, and even come to like it in time, if you don’t at
first.”
There was more of the same sort of appeal, to all of which Mr.
Grey’s pupils listened politely, for they respected him highly, but
none of which seemed to swell the church attendance on Sunday.
Although he succeeded in other respects, in this one matter Mr. Grey
had to acknowledge that his efforts led nowhere.
Let the appeal for church attendance, like many others, be based
on interest. All young people like company, action, color and music;
therefore, most little children like Sunday School, but when they
reach an age at which the church does not offer them these
inducements, they are likely to stop unless kept in by family
influence. Make your appeal according to the age of your pupils and
their tastes.
COMMENTS
Mr. Grey talked to his pupils of things they knew little or nothing
about. This world is very real to the young; the next world is very
shadowy and hypothetical. The only persons whom Mr. Grey’s appeal
would reach would be those pupils who had been brought up with
religious training—i. e., the children who would not need it. In
separating education and religion, time and eternity, mind and soul,
he used outworn and abandoned conceptions of things, foreign alike
to modern thoughts and to pupils’ knowledge. In assuming that they
would not like it at first, he frightened them away from the duty
urged upon them.
ILLUSTRATION (HIGH SCHOOL)
Mr. Tate, teaching also in one of the small towns in which church-
going was out of fashion, said to his boys and girls:
“Mr. Corithers told me that he was going Correlate Church
to preach about Phœnician ships next and School
Sunday. I wondered how he could make a sermon out of that subject,
but he wouldn’t tell me. As we’ve just been studying about this
matter, I suggest that we all hear this sermon Sunday, and then we’ll
discuss it Monday.”
He and Mr. Corithers had talked over ways and means, and had
together planned a series of sermons that should correlate with some
of the school work being done. They planned to have simple and
dignified music, and talk little about eternity until the young people
had been led far enough in the spiritual life to know they had souls.
The services, concrete and beautiful, and the sermons, which were
planned to reach their hearers, were attended and enjoyed by Mr.
Tate’s pupils.
Mr. Tate did not urge his pupils to go to church without a
conviction that they should do so, and a knowledge that they would
hear something they could understand. He and the minister planned
earnestly and well to get results, and won.
CASE 148 (PRIVATE SCHOOL)
“Well, what do you think of the girls by this time?” The kindly old
president looked hard at Miss Swallow, who had just finished her
second month as a teacher in a girls’ private school.
“I think they are lovely girls, and I like to work with them,” she
replied. “With one exception, they could hardly be better.”
“With one exception? And what is that?”
Time for Bible
“The matter of piety. This is a church school, and yet I feel a real
lack of a spirit of devotion among the girls. When I visit their rooms,
I see all sorts of books in evidence except the Bible. When I attend
the Y. W. C. A. meetings, it seems to me that most of the girls give
evidence of a very superficial sort of religious experience.”
“What you say is true. I have often thought of it myself. But what
can we do? I urge the girls not to neglect their spiritual interests, in
chapel. And every Lent we have special meetings.”
“I’ll study the situation a little and tell you what I think about it,
Dr. Dayton.”
“Do, please. I am anxious to better things if I can.”
In a few days Miss Swallow was back in the president’s office.
“I think I’ve found the reason for the trouble,” she said, “and the
remedy is simple. We expect our girls to grow strong here, and so
provide them a gymnasium and a tennis court, and give them time
for exercise. We expect them to eat, and provide a meal time; we
expect them to sleep, and make them put out their lights and go to
bed. But we expect them to cultivate the spiritual life without
providing any special time for it. There is not even a five-minute
period for devotions and quiet during the day.”
“But girls say their prayers and read their Bibles at night, don’t
they?”
“Yes, if they do it at all. They do it when they are tired with the
long day’s work and play, and their attention is not particularly
drawn to it by any stipulated time set aside for devotions. I think we
should emphasize our idea of the importance of devotions by giving
it time during the day.” She outlined a plan, and they agreed to try it
in the winter term.
They provided a fifteen-minute “quiet time” just before breakfast,
which every girl was expected to use in meditation and prayer. After
a time they changed it to fifteen minutes after breakfast, before
classes began; this worked much better. Girls who had never given
any time to devotions now found a time provided, and a lack of
distractions which suggested a compliance with the expectation.
Girls who had always wanted to, but could never find time, now
began systematically to study the New Testament or the “Imitation.”
There was no compulsion about it, but the suggestion of the definite
provision for the cultivation of the inner life bore abundant fruit in
lives made gracious by its growth.
Mr. Horne had won the respect and Religious

devotion of the high school boys by his Perplexities
efficient and conscientious coaching of the athletic teams. Therefore,
it was not strange that one of the boys, Donald Hope, came to him
one day after school, and, after much hesitation, plunged into a
discussion of religious faith.
“Now, our minister says we ought to believe,” he said, “and I don’t
see how we’re to believe a thing that we never saw or felt or heard,
but that people just tell us is so. It isn’t scientific. I don’t want to be
wicked, you know—he says you’re condemned if you don’t believe;
but how’s a person to believe when he doesn’t?”
Mr. Home was greatly puzzled by this question, and much
troubled as well. He hardly knew whether to attempt to answer it or
not; finally, he decided he would better not.
“You ask Mr. Curtis about it, Donald,” he said. (Mr. Curtis was the
minister whose teaching Donald had reported.) “You see, I’m a
public school teacher, and we are not allowed by law to teach
religion. Besides, I’ve never thought much about such matters, and I
might tell you wrong.”
Donald went away with a heavy heart. Mr. Home was the one
person in whom he had faith enough to take to him this big and
serious question, and he had failed him. He did not think for a
moment of going to Mr. Curtis, who was elderly and inclined to be
dogmatic. He resolved to wait until chance might bring him an
explanation of his difficulties.
“Never fail to help where help is needed.” Even if giving help

involves research into new fields, this is a good ideal for teachers to
live up to.
Mr. Horne, finding himself unable to help Donald, should have
promised him at least to think about the matter, and the two might
have discussed it freely and in sympathetic sharing of a difficulty
which most people have faced at some time or other.
COMMENTS
There is nothing unlawful or wrong in helping students with their

personal difficulties, religious or otherwise, if this is done outside the
classroom and outside of school hours. On the other hand, it is a very
serious thing indeed to fail to help a human being who needs help.
The rationalizing of faith is not so insuperable a difficulty as it
appears to be when one first faces it. There are a number of books
dealing with the question, and these Mr. Horne might have found
and read, both for his own sake and for Donald’s. The whole
structure of civilization is built on faith, and religious faith is but a
higher form of that which children have in their parents or pupils in
teachers.
She was an anemic-looking girl of fifteen, Saintly Recluse

her pretty brown hair pulled tightly back
and braided with Puritanic neatness, her thin little body clad in the
most severe of gingham frocks. Miss Corliss noticed her the first day,
noted her letter-perfect recitation in English and her aloofness from
the other students, and wondered what her story was.
In a few days the Juniors came to Miss Corliss for advice and help
in planning their fall frolic. When they came to the business of
assigning committees, she made a special plea that Susan should be
given some work to do, as she wanted to see her on friendlier terms
with her classmates.
“Susan White? Oh, she’ll never have anything to do with the
parties. She thinks they’re wicked. She stays at home and reads the
Bible all the time, Miss Corliss.”
“But if you ask her, won’t she help with the work and come to the
party?”
“No, Miss Corliss, we’ve tried it. We used to invite her but she
always turned us down, and now we don’t bother. Her mother is kind
of crazy about religion, I guess, and Susan is growing to be just like
her.”
Miss Corliss talked to Susan and found her sweetly frank about her
views. She was in no sense “crazy,” but she had been led to a piety
unusual in one so young, through the influence of her widowed
mother, who had found consolation for bereavement in extreme
devotion. Susan, feeling it her duty to devote herself to her mother,
had gladly denied herself the usual pleasures of youth and found real
joy in her asceticism.
“What can you do for her?” the principal, Mr. Waiting, asked.
“Do for her? I shall not do anything for her—she doesn’t need
anything done for her. She is not abnormal; she is only unusual. She
is one of the happiest girls in school, but she is one of the occasional
people, very occasional nowadays, who find their whole happiness in
a very personal, mystic type of religious service. To try to make her
over to be like the other girls would be a great mistake.”
“But this isn’t the age of the religious recluse, you know.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why one mustn’t interfere with them. If she
were living in the time of Saint Francis or of Jonathan Edwards, I
should suspect that her saintliness was copied from a model too
often urged upon her. As it is, she keeps to her mysticism and
asceticism in spite of every suggestion to the contrary here at school.
I shall watch her for signs of unhealthfulness, but as yet I don’t see
any. She has as much right, you know, to develop her talent for
religious devotion as Stanley Brand has to develop his for
mechanics.”
“I never thought of it in that light. Well, probably you’re right,
only, as you say, be on the lookout for signs of a pathological
development.”
COMMENTS
Miss Corliss is to be commended for her attempt to interest
Susan’s classmates in her behalf. It is unfortunate, however, that she
dropped the matter upon learning that Susan herself preferred to be
left out of their sport. There is no incompatibility between innocent
fun and a devoted religious life. To sacrifice entirely the one is to
make the other onesided in its development. Sunshine as well as
shadow is necessary for healthy growth in any of the higher types of
life.
Susan’s habit of isolating herself from her associates might easily
become so fixed as greatly to injure her future prospects in life.
Coöperation, rather than isolation, is to be the watchword of the
future and ability to coöperate with one’s fellows can be learned only
through actual experience—an experience that Susan was failing to
get.
Finally, Susan’s own physical health required a more vigorous and
varied type of life. It is highly significant that the account, as it comes
to us, describes Susan as anemic. This pathological condition of the
body was undoubtedly, in part at least, both cause and effect of
Susan’s mental attitude—one by no means to be encouraged to the
exclusion of all recreative activities. If not strong enough to indulge
in the more vigorous sports of her classmates, Susan should at least
be led to feel it incumbent upon herself to share in such activities as
did not tax her strength too severely.
DIVISION IX
He’s armed without that’s innocent within.

—Pope.
CASES ARISING OUT OF SEX INSTINCTS
The issues that gather around sex interests of children and young
people are numerous, vexatious and unceasingly important.
A sane teacher does not disclose a morbid concern in sex affairs,
neither does he avoid dealing with insistent problems. In fact, he
proceeds much as does a sympathetic father with his son or
daughter.
Naturally any effective disciplinary measures must be supported
by accurate information as to the nature of sex life and sex actions of
children. The administrator must know a great deal more than he
tells; he is never to be surprised by disclosures of sexual misconduct.
1. Objectionable Games—Unconscious Sex Attraction
CASE 151 (EIGHTH GRADE)
Prof. Walsh, principal of Burrell High “Three Deep”

School, observed his pupils playing a game
called “Three Deep.” This game, played by the boys and girls together
and calling for choices of confederates to be made, seemed to him to
lead to romance and he therefore talked against it. He finally
demanded that the pupils quit playing this game altogether.
Attaching more importance to the game than it really merited, the
pupils played it all the more after school hours.
Mr. Walsh should have led the pupils to enjoy another game and
should have said nothing about the one he disliked. Having decided
upon what to substitute for this one he should say: “I know of a game
I believe you will all enjoy. I will show you how it is played.” To
insure enthusiasm in the new play he should speak to two or three of
the leaders among the pupils, a day or two before the game is
introduced, saying, “I know of a fine game that I think we ought to
play here; as soon as I find time I will teach it to you. You are quick
to see into a new proposition, so I want you to help me get it started
as soon as you understand how it is played.”
COMMENTS
By the enlistment of the interest of several pupils you are more

likely to make a success of your new game. If pupils have plenty of
chance to play together in wholesome activities they will be much
more likely to take a matter-of-fact view of association with opposite
sexes than if their attention is called to the harmful qualities of a
game and they are then asked to stop playing it. The forbidden is
alluring to high school pupils and to young children alike. Therefore,
without reference to the often-played game, the teacher should
substitute a better one in its place.
ILLUSTRATION 1 (HIGH SCHOOL)
In the gymnasium of the Bradley High Prize Athletics

School the students introduced social
dancing during intermissions. Mr. Burgess, the principal, understood
well the favorable attitude of some of his patrons toward dancing.
He, therefore, as a counter attraction, organized two athletic clubs in
the school, one for girls and one for boys.
He offered small prizes to the best shot-putter, runner, walker,
vaulter, etc., the prizes to be given in the following May on a field
day, the gate receipts of which would pay for the prizes. The girls
were offered prizes in archery, tennis and croquet and were asked to
train two opposing baseball teams selected from their numbers.
Field day was a grand success. The health of the pupils had been
conserved and nobody but Mr. Burgess himself knew the real reason
why the clubs had been organized.
ILLUSTRATION 2 (HIGH SCHOOL)
Kissing Games
The small high school at Lexington had fallen into the deplorable
habit of playing kissing games during intermissions. Mr. Poe, the
principal, decided to turn the attention of the students into a less
dangerous and disgusting channel. He decided upon asking the
pupils to help beautify the school grounds and buildings.
He appointed two seniors to choose sides, so that every pupil in
the high school would be on one side or the other. He then assigned
the north half of the buildings and grounds to one side. On fine days
they raked, mowed, planted flowers and vines, placed shrubs, etc., on
stormy days they planned interior decorations. At the close of the
school year a committee from the town not only decided which side
had done best work, but declared that the pupils had gained much
practical knowledge and that the schoolhouse and grounds had never
looked so well before.
2. Sex Consciousness
It is toward the end of the second year that boys often begin to
show tendencies toward evil habits. This tendency does not appear
because the boys of themselves grow bad at this time; it is a matter of
imitation. In the country school the younger pupils come in contact
with older boys who lead them into evil, and the same is true in
villages and cities. It might be that could the growing boy never come
into association with evil it would not become the teacher’s necessity
to use the fundamental principles in such a way as to hold the boy’s
confidence. It cannot be denied that if he has the confidence of the
boys he can control them. No problem, however, requires greater
wisdom in the handling.
CASE 152 (SECOND GRADE)
Miss Marlowe, the second grade teacher Sex Hygiene

at High Falls, had noticed by Charlie
Moncrief’s nervousness, his sometimes vacant stare, and his frequent
misuse of his hands, that he needed to be taught on the subject of sex
hygiene, but she did not know how best to bring about such
instruction. So she kept up a continual corrective set of admonitions
like the following:
“Charlie, be quiet and listen to this story.”

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Lower League Football in Crisis: Issues

of Organisation and Legitimacy in

Prisons, Politics and Practices in England and Wales

The Euro Crisis in the Press: Political Debate in

Business Analysis and Design: Understanding Innovation

Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family: The

State, Violence, and Legitimacy in India 1st Edition

Religion and the Rise of Sport in England David Hugh

Stories of True Crime in Tudor and Stuart England Ken

Public Representations of Immigrants in Museums :

Lower League Football

More information about this series at

Football Research in an Enlarged Europe

Cover image: © Daniel Ziesche

This book is a substantially revised, shortened and amended version of my

Leipzig, Germany Daniel Ziesche

Introduction: Football Clubs, Community and Legitimacy 1

Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical

Politicisation and Third-Party Interests 57

A Threefold Dilemma of Legitimacy

Economic Crisis: Number Games 81

Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide 117

Social Crisis: Building Bridges 153

Ways Out of the Crises

Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany 179

Economic Coping Mechanisms: Professionalisation,

Cultural Coping Mechanisms: Communitisation,

Social Coping Mechanisms: Societisation, Or—Improving

Stadiums and Club’s Assets 267

Conclusion: Towards Hybrid Organisations

Postscript: The End of Football, or: Football in the Time

AFA Amateur Football Alliance

DOSB Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund (German Olympic Sports Feder-

SGSA Sports Grounds Safety Authority (formerly Football Licensing

Economic Crisis: Number Games

Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide

Setting the Scene: Structural Differences and Theoretical

Cultural Crisis: The Great Divide

Social Crisis: Building Bridges

Qualitative Case Studies from England and Germany

‘At the Heart of Their Communities’

© The Author(s) 2020 1

Research Objective and Relevance

‘oppositional agenda’ inherent in community orientation. In the lower

The global-local interplay and its cultural dimension have also

Scope and Method

Key Theoretical Concepts

the considerations that follow will be briefly discussed, specifically the

Legitimisation and Isomorphism

the other hand, ‘lack acceptable legitimated accounts of their activities.

Schmidt, I consider this focus on dynamics an integral part of the socio-

Glocalisation: Local Responses to Global Effects

with the process of globalisation, but underwent further development

Etzioni, A. (1993). The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities, and the

Klein, G. (2008). Globalisierung, Lokalisierung, (Re-)Nationalisierung. Fußball

Ritzer, G. (2003). Rethinking Globalization: Glocalization/Grobalization and

Football clubs are ostensibly uncomplicated organisations: they exist to

© The Author(s) 2020 25