Chapter 3 Methodology
I. Research Object
Football Leagues in England
Nowadays, the economics of sport are dominated by a power matrix that features top sports governing bodies, transnational corporations and global media networks (Giulianotti, 2005). The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid (See Table 3.1), is probably the most intensified power matrix among others.
The football pyramid is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with six teams from Wales and one from Guernsey also competing.
The system has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels, suggesting that even the smallest club has the hypothetical possibility of ultimately rising to the very top of the system. However, we all know that the status quo is not as ideal as expected. Although those football teams are from different parts of
the country and may cause rival localities, the national league system provides a unifying framework in the scope of football (Giulianotti, 1999). Be that as it may, the founding of Premier League somehow ushered in a new era of football’s hegemony and swamped smaller clubs in lower leagues in modern football.
English Premier League (EPL), which Liverpool FC competes in, can be seen as a sphere of a transnational space of flows and has received the most appeal all around the world. The EPL was born as the FA Premiership in August, 1992, and its new broadcasters, BSkyB, seized the opportunity to rebrand the sport by using billboard adverts (Baimbridge et al., 1996. Cited in Millward, 2012). According to Ebner’s article, it is reported that The Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world (its TV audience is 4.7 billion) and the broadcast rights have been sold in 212 territories and there are none left to conquer (Ebner, 2013).
Table 3.1 The English football league systems
Level League(s) Division(s)
1 Premier League
20 clubs-3 relegation
2 Football League Championship
24 club- 3 promotion- 3 relegation
3 Football League One
24 club- 3 promotion- 4 relegation
4 Football League Two
24 club- 4 promotion- 2 relegation
5 Conference National
24 club- 2 promotion- 4 relegation nurtures the strong sense of Liverpool-ness through sport and popular culture. In 1892, Liverpool Football Club was born within and detached from its origin, Everton Football Club. Contrary to the more ‘local’ Everton, Liverpool has been revolving around symbolic and commercial notions as a comparatively ‘global’ club ever since. By the early 1900s, Liverpool has marked itself as an authentic footballing ‘hot bed’ at the turn
of the century, comparable to any site in the football-mad north (Williams, 2001a).
Shortly, Liverpool FC had become a relatively well-supported and ‘commercialised’
club for the period.
Apart from the popular consciousness with football, featured a strident working-class culture, Liverpool also has strong connections with Ireland and was being subject to a massive wave of Irish immigrants in the 19th century (Boyle, 2001) that undoubtedly diversified their lived football supporting experience and the profiles of supporters on Merseyside. In the early 1960s, Liverpool FC was becoming the
international focus, because of the synergy between music and football in the city, the cultural inventiveness and the independent creativity generated from its fans (Ward and Williams, 2001) until the relative fall among the league football dominance in the 1980s.
Liverpool FC has directly involved in two significant tragedies, Heysel (1985) and the most striking one, Hillsborough (1989). The public mourning had engulfed the city in the aftermath of the tragedy. In the post-Hillsborough period from 1989, Liverpool’s major footballing power started to ebb. At the same time, football in England in the early 1990s had commenced to hum to the new rhythms of global capitalism to an increasingly internationalised market for both players and coaches (Williams, 2001a). Until the collaboration with the Granada Media and Leisure group to better manoeuvre the club’s lucrative internet rights, Liverpool FC finally had its own
official website in Premier League by the end of millennium (Williams, 2001b). The core form of mediation and production continued to be material.
Inside Anfield Stadium
In the 1960s, new traditions for travelling and watching football began to emerge in Liverpool in the wake of the arrival of the more media-conscious manager, Bill Shankly7. The main Liverpool home terrace, Spion Kop (See Figure 3.1) has become as a spotlight for national and even international spectators. The grandiose theme song
“You’ll never walk alone” aggregates the home fans to be involved as a part of the
7 Bill Shankly, a former Scottish football player, is best known for his time as manager of Liverpool
active text of a game. Williams concludes that the Kop also has near-unique relationship with the Liverpool players, marking off the great terrace as an emphatic public site and a collective cultural place for public expression and exchange among working-class people with their symbolic representatives (Williams, 2012). Following the public inquiry in the aftermath of Hillsborough in Sheffield, the Liverpool Kop finally succumbed to seats on 30th April 1994, denoting that sport has finally moved on from a generally troubled period in the 1980s (Williams, 2001c).
Figure 3.1 Kop Stand at Anfield8
Memorial sites around Anfield
The terrace culture has lost some of its passion and edge ever since. However, the 1990s is also the era that has witnessed a salient increase of the practices of commemoration and memorialisation within British football, particularly in Liverpool. Liverpool
8 Photo taken by the author 14th August, 2014.
Football Club is deemed a potent symbol when speaking of local Liverpool culture. The imbrications of football as religion intensified after Hillsborough. In the aftermath of Hillsborough, the pilgrimage to Liverpool Football Club’s Anfield stadium signifies not
only a material practice to commemorate but also a performance of meaning-making and the construction of the football heritage.
Generally speaking, football showed little enthusiasm for permanent memorisation, but the death of retired Liverpool manager Bill Shankly in September 1981 unveiled an interesting starting-point of new ways of popular commemoration that includes a fairly rich repertoire of commemorative practices (Russell, 2006). Apart from the temporary memorials such as accessories-wearing, anthem-singing, banners-holding, Liverpool FC had Shankly’s widow, Nessie, unlocked the gate as the first of the new generation of permanent memorials in August, 1982 (See Figure 3.2). The very idea of Liverpool Football Club, “You’ll never walk alone” has taken permanent form since
then and has been transmitted all around the world. The stress on Anfield as a place of worship in Liverpool intensified and consolidated even more after Hillsborough. In fact, several memorials have been erected in memory of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster and it touched not only Liverpool, but clubs in England and Europe. The permanent memorial that is closest to Anfield, Hillsborough memorial, is placed alongside the Shankly Gate. (See Figure 3.3).
The wave of setting permanent commemorations continued. On December 4th,
artist Tom Murphy, was unveiled at the new Visitor's Centre in front of the Kop at Anfield. The pose, chosen specifically by Murphy, is a representation of the time, in 1973, when Shankly and his team were parading the League Championship trophy in front of the Kop. A young supporter tossed his scarf onto the pitch in front of Shankly and an over-eager policeman kicked it away before being admonished by the great man.
"It's only a scarf to you, but it's the boy's life."Shankly said. Then he picked up the scarf and tied it round his neck. Shankly’s philosophy was always about the people. Later, the club intended to reify Shankly’s spirit with the statue.
The Paisley Gateway (See Figure 3.5) was a belated set of commemorative gates unveiled on 8th April, 1999, which is in front of the new Kop stand on Walton Breck Road. The establishment of the gate is in honour of a great former manager, Bob Paisley9. The Paisley Gateway was designed by with architects Atherden Fuller Leng, who also designed the Shankly Gates and the Hillsborough Memorial, which somehow brings out football’s tradition: continuity based on memory construction.
9 Bob Paisley was an English footballer and manager who had spent almost fifty years with Liverpool as a wing half, physiotherapist, coach and manager. He was appointed as Shankly's successor.
Figure 3.2 The Shankly Gate10 Figure 3.3 Hillsborough Memorial11
Figure 3.4 Statue of Bill Shankly12 Figure 3.5 The Paisley Gateway 13
10 Photo taken by Steve Parry in 2011.
11 Photo taken by the author on 17th August, 2013.
12 Photo taken by the author on 18th August, 2013.
LFC Museum
On the Kop stand’s end houses the Liverpool FC museum. The latest Liverpool FC Story Museum is renovated from the old club museum and re-opened on 23rd October, 2013. The museum contains Halls of Fame dedicated to stars of the past and present into four sections: Midfield Maestros; Attack, Attack, Attack14; Goalkeepers and Flatback Four15, trophy exhibition and photo-shooting area. Each area is curated for a specific period of club history representation, prolonging and reinforcing the popular bits of memory.
Next to the museum is the Boot Room Sports Café (expense excluded from the admission fee to the museum) where the club has decorated the space with Bill Shankly Exhibition featuring his memorabilia in order to accomplish and sell a well-themed football heritage experience (See Figure 3.6 and 3.7).
Figure 3.6 The interior design of Boot Room Sports Café16
Figure 3.7 Boot Room Sports Café online advertisement17
14 The section dedicated to Liverpool FC defenders.
15 The section dedicated to Liverpool FC managers.
16 Retrieved from: http://www.liverpoolfc.com/ [Accessed on 10th July, 2015].