Chris Bolsmann – författare

Africa’s World Cup: Critical Reflections on Play, Patriotism, Spectatorship, and Spacefocuses on a remarkable month in the modern history of Africa and in the global history of football. Peter Alegi and Chris Bolsmann are well-known experts on South African football, and they have assembled an impressive team of local and international journalists, academics, and football experts to reflect on the 2010 World Cup and its broader significance, its meanings, complexities, and contradictions.

The World Cup’s sounds, sights, and aesthetics are explored, along with questions of patriotism, nationalism, and spectatorship in Africa and around the world. Experts on urban design and communities write on how the presence of the World Cup worked to refashion urban spaces and negotiate the local struggles in the hosting cities. The volume is richly illustrated by authors’ photographs, and the essays in this volume feature chronicles of match day experiences; travelogues; ethnographies of fan cultures; analyses of print, broadcast, and electronic media coverage of the tournament; reflections on the World Cup’s private and public spaces; football exhibits in South African museums; and critiques of the World Cup’s processes of inclusion and exclusion, as well as its political and economic legacies.

The volume concludes with a forum on the World Cup, including Thabo Dladla, Director of Soccer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Mohlomi Kekeletso Maubane, a well-known Soweto-based writer and a soccer researcher, and Rodney Reiners, former professional footballer and current chief soccer writer for the Cape Argus newspaper in Cape Town. This collection will appeal to students, scholars, journalists, and fans.

Cover illustration: South African fan blowing his vuvuzela at South Africa vs. France, Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein, June 22, 2010. Photo by Chris Bolsmann.

The significance of the Corinthians Football Club, founded in 1882, has been widely acknowledged by historians of football and by sports historians generally. As a ’super club’ comprising the best amateur talent available they were an important formative influence on football in Britain from the 1880s to the 1930s. As a touring club - they first travelled to South Africa in 1897 and made regular forays into Europe and also to Canada, the United States and Brazil - they were the self-proclaimed standard bearers for gentlemanly values in sport.

Indeed for many years they were most famous football club in the world, drawing huge crowds and helping to ensure that the version of football emanating from the English public schools and universities in the mid-nineteenth century became a global game. Though their playing strength and influence waned after the First World War, they remained a significant force through to 1939, upholding ’true blue’ amateurism at a time when football was increasingly associated with professionalism and seen as a branch of commercial entertainment.

Whilst much has been written about the Corinthians, mainly by club insiders, this is the first complete scholarly history to cover their activities both in England and in other parts of the world. It critically reassesses the club’s role in the development of football and fills a gap in existing literature on the relationship between the progress of the game in England and globally. Most crucially, the book re-examines the sporting ideology of gentlemanly amateurism within the context of late-nineteenth century and early-twentieth century society.

Firmly situating South African teams, players, and associations in the international framework in which they have to compete, South Africa and the Global Game: Football, Apartheid, and Beyond presents an interdisciplinary analysis of how and why South Africa underwent a remarkable transformation from a pariah in world sport to the first African host of a World Cup in 2010. Written by an eminent team of scholars, this special issue and book aims to examine the importance of football in South African society, revealing how the black oppression transformed a colonial game into a force for political, cultural and social liberation. It explores how the hosting of the 2010 World Cup aims to enhance the prestige of the post-apartheid nation, to generate economic growth and stimulate Pan-African pride. Among the themes dealt with are race and racism, class and gender dynamics, social identities, mass media and culture, and globalization. This collection of original and insightful essays will appeal to specialists in African Studies, Cultural Studies, and Sport Studies, as well as to non-specialist readers seeking to inform themselves ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.

Firmly situating South African teams, players, and associations in the international framework in which they have to compete, South Africa and the Global Game: Football, Apartheid, and Beyond presents an interdisciplinary analysis of how and why South Africa underwent a remarkable transformation from a pariah in world sport to the first African host of a World Cup in 2010. Written by an eminent team of scholars, this special issue and book aims to examine the importance of football in South African society, revealing how the black oppression transformed a colonial game into a force for political, cultural and social liberation. It explores how the hosting of the 2010 World Cup aims to enhance the prestige of the post-apartheid nation, to generate economic growth and stimulate Pan-African pride. Among the themes dealt with are race and racism, class and gender dynamics, social identities, mass media and culture, and globalization. This collection of original and insightful essays will appeal to specialists in African Studies, Cultural Studies, and Sport Studies, as well as to non-specialist readers seeking to inform themselves ahead of the 2010 World Cup.

This book was published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.