Roy Thompson on Football and Emotion

Sport in History Podcast

‘I've been with them longer than my wife.’ Searching for emotional clues in published fan culture. The highs and lows of following Lincoln City 1945-2000 Histories of emotions in sports have been mainly noticeable by their absence. This paper aims to begin to fill the gap Ross McKibbin identified when he questioned the failure of historians to seriously investigate the emotional experiences of those who watched or played sports despite often citing the fundamental importance of emotion in sport’s enduring appeal. Likewise, Barbara Keys has recently argued that the academic focus in sports history continues to neglect the history of emotions, adding that historians could learn lessons from popular literature. Richard Holt has argued that the lack of research into the history of emotion in sports was due to a lack of sources. In response to these arguments, this paper will argue that historians must be innovative in using sources to research the history of emotion in sports. The paper will demonstrate how a critical search for ‘emotional clues’ in popular literature and published fan memoirs can contribute to a greater understanding of the continuities and differences in the expression and performance of emotion over time in the sporting context. It will do this through a case study of Lincoln City, a small lower-league provincial club. This case study will also significantly contribute to current research, which primarily concentrates on successful football clubs in large urban centres. Finally, the paper will shed light on how the history of emotion in sports can contribute to a greater understanding of the broader themes of class, gender and identity in post-war Britain. Roy Thomson is a third year PhD student at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University.