Background to the Research

• Whilst it is recognised that sport plays an important role in the construction and reproduction of identities in modern society, little is known about the role that sport spaces play in this process of identification for soccer fans.
• This article explores the ways in which soccer stadia in NI function as key elements in identities of soccer fans.
  

Research Approach

• The authors use the case study of Windsor Park in Belfast, the home of Linfield Football Club, in order to examine the role that soccer and the stadium play in the political identity of a certain group of men.
  

Main Findings

• The organisation of sport in NI reflects, and can exacerbate, sectarian attitudes. Emblems, flags, shirts and scarves reflecting a particular version of history and tradition are used to display allegiance and separateness from the 'other' community.
• Soccer venues are sites for the reproduction of a sense of allegiance and alienation from the 'other' community, situated as they are in the heart of the fan's community; a community in which 'the others' are not welcome and are afraid to enter.
• Most soccer grounds in NI are Protestant, and supporting Linfield and the NI national team, offer a context for the celebration of a wider culture. The identity of most of these soccer fans takes the form of a secular non-Christian Protestantism that is loyal to 'Ulster'.
• Attachment to soccer spaces is bound up with shifts in the wider socio-economic environment in which fans live. As young Protestant males seek to come to terms with unemployment, social marginalisation and deep-seated fears about the future of NI, soccer stadia become key sites for reactive cultural resistance.
• Soccer stadia are defended in such a way that the 'collective self' is transformed from a group of soccer fans into 'the people' and supporting a soccer team becomes part of the broader movement of cultural resistance against threats to 'the people' and their cherished places.
• Whilst major political change is taking place in NI, this had not brought about an eradication of ethno-sectarian conflict. Most members of Linfield's support base express vocally their opposition to the Good Friday Agreement and the new assembly.
• Whilst Linfield will, for the first time play at Cliftonville's home ground (a team supported by Catholics/nationalists) in the 1998/9 soccer season, tensions surround the game and the security operation needed to facilitate it reflect the continuing sectarian antagonism.