4. September: Defining, Interpreting and Comparing Small Worlds of Football: Identities, Events, Styles

date: 04.09.2025 08:30 am / pm

Event location: 28 Black Arena, Sportpark Klagenfurt, Südring 207, A-9020 Klagenfurt


‘Small Worlds’ was established by a group of German, British and Irish scholars in 2015 to facilitate research into football as experienced at the grassroots across Europe. The principal aim of this group is to establish new views on football using a comparative perspective. It will focus on different codes of football, played by the many rather than the few and, especially, explore their role in defining, building and sustaining local communities. At the same time, the importance of wider national, transnational and global contexts will also be acknowledged. Indeed, the current preoccupation with glocalization as a response to globalization helps to provide an underpinning rationale and the largely unexplored relationship between grassroots and elite professional football will be also be examined. Research perspectives derived from history, sociology and other social science disciplines will be embraced. The intention is to establish a discursive framework that will facilitate and encourage transnational and interdisciplinary research and foster innovative approaches more generally.

Organizers:

  • Dr. Kristian Naglo (Sorbian Institute Bautzen, Germany)
  • in cooperation with the Slovenian Sports Federation/Slovenska Športna Zveza

Program:

08:30 Arrival

09:00 Welcome & Introduction Kristian Naglo (Sorbian Institute, Bautzen)

09:15 – 10:40 Session 1: Sorbian Football in/and Lusatia

  • Feliks Ričel (Örebro University): Multilingualism and identity in the context of Sorbian football
  • Robert Lorenc (Sorbian Institute, Bautzen): The Regional League in the border area Upper Lusatia – finding „Verflechtungslandschaft“
  • Stefan Ohm, Lars Haupt (German Center for Astrophysics, Görlitz): With football to the stars: new pathways for collaboration between research, education, and sport

11:00 – 12:30 Session 2: The Glocal Context

  • Dil Porter (De Montfort University, Leicester): Seeking a sustainable future in a medium-sized English provincial city: Worcester City FC and Worcester City Women FC, 2013-25
  • Kiran Odhav (University of the Free State, Bloemfontein): From small club and mega-sport to meso-sport complexes
  • Christian Brandt (University of Bayreuth): Changing fields: local identity in the transition from professional to amateur football

14:00 – 16:00 Session 3: Fan Cultures

  •  Pavel Brunssen (Heidelberg University): The making of “Jew Clubs”: Performing Jewishness and Antisemitism in European football and fan cultures (Online)
  • Florian Koch (Université de Bourgogne, Dijon): Chanting for belonging: A contrastive content analysis of German and French football chants
  • Sebastian Rauter-Nestler, Jörg-Uwe Nieland, Thomas Neumann (University of Klagenfurt): Paradoxes of identity in transnational fan cultures. Theoretical concepts and empirical studies
  • Alexander Mennicke (Leipzig University): „Ost- Ost- Ostdeutschland“ – East German football fans and the roots of their identity

16:20 – 16:45 Session 4: Organized Football and Social Work

  • Niklas Hack (German Sport University Cologne): Exploring the meaning of football at the intersection of traditional club sport and social work

16:45 Closing comments

This workshop is co-financed as part of a project by the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism with tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.

 

16:45 Closing comments

This workshop is co-financed as part of a project by the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism with tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.



Call for Papers