The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History. - A Soccer Culture Playlist - Preliminary Punk, Ballads, Ska and Indie About Fans, Footballers and Clubs

A Soccer Culture Playlist - Preliminary Punk, Ballads, Ska and Indie About Fans, Footballers and Clubs

Explicit content warning

04/11/23 • 48 min

The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History.

Back from Spring, or Easter, break, an unusual episode: a - very preliminary, but very varied - playlist of 12 soccer culture songs that you wont find in this constellation on any English-speaking website. From punk perspectives on the game and the fate of Hooligan culture, to ballads about football, God and sexual orientation, from the Antifa ska-punk of Southern Europe to German indie-rock with an FC Bayern strikers’ voice mixed in, from the 1990s to the present - I hope you have as much fun listening to this as I had curating it. As the leagues heat up and the teams we root for seem bound for either glory or desperation (or perpetual mediocrity), here is the musical long view to distract us a little:

Los Fastidios, Antifa Hooligans

Branden Steineckert, Believe RSL

Billy Bragg, God’s Footballer

The Business, Terrace Lost Its Souls

Vanilla Muffins, Saturday

Bolchoi, Hooligan

Pizzera und Jaus, Hooligans

Ska P, Como un Rayo (Live in Madrid)

De Höhner, Mir Stonn zu Dir (1.FC Köln, in the stadium)

Stage Bottles, Kick Out the Parasites

Matt Fishel, Football Song

Sportfreunde Stiller, Ich Roque

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Artwork for The Assistant Professor of Football is by Saige Lind
Instrumental music for this podcast, including the introduction track, is by the artist Ketsa and used under a Creative Commons license through Free Music Archive: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/

Los Fastidios, Antifa Hooligans

Branden Steineckert, Believe RSL

Billy Bragg, God’s Footballer

The Business, Terrace Lost Its Souls

Vanilla Muffins, Saturday

Bolchoi, Hooligan

Pizzera und Jaus, Hooligans

Ska P, Como un Rayo (Live in Madrid)

De Höhner, Mir Stonn zu Dir (1.FC Köln, in the stadium)

Stage Bottles, Kick Out the Parasites

Matt Fishel, Football Song

Sportfreunde Stiller, Ich Roque

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Previous Episode

Fan-Tastic Females: A Digital Exhibit on Women in Soccer Supporter Cultures

Women have claimed their space in stadiums since the game’s beginnings. But the fact is, it’s hardly women whose stories of “how did you come to soccer” get told, hardly them who get asked about their experiences when travelling away, in confrontations with the police, about participating in their own club and clashes with other clubs.

An extremely well done exhibit wants to set the record straight. The exhibit’s title is Fan Tastic Females and it “wants to tell the stories of fan.tastic women ... to illustrate the diversity and realities of female fan culture in European football (and beyond) – from the perspective of the protagonists themselves.” And that is, of course, right up the alley of The Assistant Professor of Football.

Our visiting professor today is Antje Grabenhorst of Football Supporters Europe, and also of Werder Bremen’s Ultra fan Group Infamous Youth. She is one of the masterminds behind the exhibit. With her, we will go to those parts of the stands where supporters create their own choreography, their own drama, and meet the women behind the banners, flags and flares - from Istanbul and Tel Aviv to Rome and Marseille, to London and Portland.

Research assistance for this episode came from Eleonora Gollner, who provided an overview and a best-of of many interviews of the exhibit.

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE

Fan-Tastic Females, online exhibit - code/ticket to visit for a voluntary donation

FSE - Football Supporters Europe

FSE YouTube Channel

F-In, Frauen im Fussball (in German)

The Athletic, “Sexism, Abuse and Harassment: The Experience of Female Fans at Matches”

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.

Next Episode

An Englishman Among Italian Ultras: Stadium Culture, Passion, and the Vibe of Calcio, with Richard Hall

A first, but certainly not the last, journey to Italy, the homeland of Ultras: with Richard Hall, founder of the Guardian Sports Network blog The Gentleman Ultra - a treasure trove of Italian soccer stories - and host of Inter Milan’s English-speaking club podcast, we travel first to the 1990s, when Ultra fanculture first became visible across Europe as an alternative to Hooligan and other supporters cultures, and then try to explain the fascination of Calcio from Italy for all soccer fans, the stadium experience in Italy today, and the life of an English-speaking fan at the heart of one of Italy’s great clubs.

There is a lot more ground to cover on Ultras and Italy, of course - politics, power dynamics, and violence that now takes place almost exclusively outside of stadiums. Richard’s experience is that of a fan himself. Some books and articles linked below deepen or reframe his impression - but they do not take away from the fascination he felt, and is feeling, when coming in touch with the culture in Italy’s curvas, the terraces behind the goals in Italian stadiums.

HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:

The Gentleman Ultra

Richard on twitter

Inter choreo against Benfica Lisbon, April 2023

Pazza Inter Amala - Inter’s club song

Inter Ultras - best moments (video)

Tobias Jones on changes within Inter’s ultra scene

Perhaps the 3 best English books on Italian soccer:

John Foot, Calcio: A History of Italian Football

Tim Parks, A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character . . . and Goals!

Joe McGinniss, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro: A Tale of Passion and Folly in the Heart of Italy

NEW: send me a text message! (I'd love to hear your thoughts - texts get to me anonymously, without charge or signup)

Recommend The Assistant Professor of Football. Spreading the word, through word of mouth, truly does help.
Leave some rating stars at the podcast platform of your choice. There are so many sports podcasts out there, and only ratings make this project visible; only then can people who look for a different kind of take on European soccer actually find me.